We have been on three NCL cruises, including the maiden cruise on the Gem, I really love NCL as their whole deign is full of life and colour, not like the drab pubs we have everywhere today.
I can't comment on the value of the cruise, only that we have been extremely happy!

Best of luck

We have also done the Gem twice now and its lovely, very bright and cheerful. But there are a few restraunts that you have to pay extra for and this does tend to cause abit of moaning
You dont have any set dinning and there is no dress code as such
I have not done RCCL so cannot comapre for you but at £450pp for o/s if thats inc flights to Barcelona then its a good deal . You would be hard pushed to get Thomsons for that and that is far below NCL
If your a smoker then smoking is very restricted whhcih can be bad new
If your a non smoker then this is another + point
I loved it and would go back anytime but I do wish they would stop the art auctions

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to reply. I have gone ahead and booked it on a special offer at £450 obs view (cabin between boats so not completely in the dark... lol) with $250 on board spends for speciality restaurants etc, doesn't include flights i'm afraid ,but Easyjet will do the job at a decent price.
I was waiting for a STUPENDOUS credit crunch cruise offer, but my impatience got the better of me
and I think this is an ok offer. The attraction of experiencing another ship and brand also appealed after reading your replies. Thanks.

If you havnt already done so sign up on crusie critic there are loads of good tips both for on the ship and shore excursions
Becareful with Rome doing DIY we left a few people behind on our cruise because they missed the sailing time

Thanks for the tips Mandy, now its done I'm so looking forward to it. Ciao

Hello. Weve not been on the Gem, but have cruised with NCL on Norwegian Sky, in 2002. Personally, I didnt rate it; it seemed very disorganised compared to others - we actually made a very strong complaint at the time about the chaos at their lifeboat drill.

We also found they didnt seem to get very good mooring places at the ports we visited - all the other ships would be right by the coach stop or the road into town or whatever, we'd be miles away in the 'cheap seats'!

And we found we didnt like the 'relaxed clothing' rule, as people were coming into evening dinner wearing shorts and vests, baseball caps... Says a lot when the staff are better dressed!

So overall, I wouldnt recommend them. Royal Caribbean and Holland-America far better in our opinion.

Hope you enjoy whatever you choose

Could I ask who you booked it through? That is a good offer. Been on the Gem a few Times so if you have any other questions I would be more than willing to answer.

Hi Andrew, I booked through BESTPRICECRUISES, this is a USA site. They have been mentioned on the forum positively a couple of times. This is the first time I've booked with them. They have a 'special' NCL sale on with good OBC (which was the clincher for me) for various dates. The sale supposedly ends this Friday. The price very comfortably beat any UK quote by a lot of dosh, I booked 31 May 09 at $1350 for 2 people and with £250 OBC as well, so I thought it a very good deal. If you book watch out for the sneaky inclusion of INS and delete it. I hope that helps.

Gem has a different layout to the Jade,

Main differences are the Atrium and the moving of the Medusa lounge to the aft and making it a night club/bowling venue Bliss, the other differences are mainly cosmetic till you get into delux owners suites.

Price is pretty good but you do have the $12pppd service/tips to add and we are finding the onboard(drinks) costs getting noticeable now the ex rate is not so good.

We just did a BCN trip and it is expensive for hotels and eating out so you could look at the early BA flight and travel same day, both our Heathrow flights were empty so there should be some good prices
An overnight with parking(15n) at the holiday in was £60 which makes the early flight much easier.
The extra cost of the BA flights will be less than the cost of easyjet+hotels+food.

Keep an eye on prices and BPC should help get a better deal if they drop allthough they were a little slow to deal with on the bookings we have done through them.

Thanks again for your thoughts WJ. I heard about the BPC site from one of your posts, so I was more confident of booking on a US site. Its reassuring to know that there is a chance to benefit from further price drops, so I'll keep an eye on it.

Also take a look at http://www.Cruisecompete.com - it's a site that will provide you with offers from lots of US cruise agents so you can compare 'perks'. US agents are not allowed to undercut the cruiseline's prices, but they will offer considerable perks such as OBC, free Insurance etc.
You can put in your requirements and they will usually come back rapidly with lots of offers.