Waldo's October 31st, 2017 GEM cruise from NY
Introduction: Monday 10/30/17
This was our 7th cruise, last 4 with NCL. This was my wife (Nancy) and my first cruise without the children. We got a great deal ($499) and booked this cruise less than 2 weeks out. Our plan was to go down early on October 30th. We had the Hampton Inn Park and shuttle booked. I think this is a very good deal. For $240 (including tax) you get a night at the hotel, breakfast the next morning, a shuttle both ways to the cruise port and back and parking for the length of your cruise. We were traveling from Southern NH. The tail end of Phillip hit us hard. When we went to bed Sunday (10/29) we had water in our basement and no power. We got up at daybreak and the power was still out. Without power we couldn't use the pump or shop vac to get the water out of the house. We didn't want to leave our son with this mess so we waited until 1pm for the power to come back on. It didn't come on (came on at 5:30pm) so we left at 1pm. Because of the late start and a couple of stops we didn't get to the hotel until 7pm (drive 1pm-7pm), drive should have been less than 5 hours. There was no problem with checkin. The hotel seemed to be in a safe area right near the highway. It was nice and very clean. There was an indoor pool, 24 hour coffee/tea and free internet. The breakfast had your typical items plus hot oatmeal, scrambled eggs, waffles and sausage.
Constant;y approached by drug dealers and cab drivers
Walked around town and explored on our own
took water taxi to beach