Norwegian Gem is working the Mediterranean this summer, and she is not quite the ship she was.
NCL has released photographs of refit work now completed on Gem and her sister Norwegian Jade, both Jewel-class ships from the mid-2000s.
For British cruisers, Gem is the one that matters. She sails seven-day voyages from Rome and Venice through to the autumn, calling at Cannes, Livorno for Florence and Pisa, Split, Dubrovnik and the Greek islands.
An adults-only deck — carved out of the sundeck you already had
The headline addition is the Vibe Beach Club, NCL’s adults-only outdoor space, now on both ships.
Deck 14 gets a private bar, an extra hot tub, more than 50 premium loungers and seven cabanas.
The honest detail is in NCL’s own wording: the club “repurposes the existing sundeck”. This is not new space. It is deck space that was previously open to everyone, now reserved for those who pay a supplement.
Whether that reads as an upgrade or an enclosure rather depends on whether you buy a pass.
The spa, rebuilt
The Mandara thermal suites have been redesigned with three times as many heated tile loungers, a new reception, and reworked steam rooms and saunas.
New rooms include a charcoal sauna, an ice room, a salt room and “four-senses” loungers.
The two ships did not get identical work. Jade adds experiential showers and a plunge pool; Gem gets an updated hot tub and a thalassotherapy pool with massage jets and countercurrents.
One addition deserves a raised eyebrow. Both ships now have an IV Lounge offering intravenous vitamin drips, which NCL describes as delivering essential nutrients to the body.
Evidence for IV micronutrient therapy in healthy people is thin, and it is a paid treatment. Read it as a spa product rather than a health one.
Jade also gains a Starbucks. NCL was the first line to put the chain across an entire fleet.
Why Jewel class still matters
At around 93,000 tons and 2,400 guests, Gem and Jade are roughly a third of the size of NCL’s newest ships.
That is rather the point. For British passengers who want the Greek islands without several thousand shipmates, the Jewel class is NCL’s answer — smaller, older, and able to work ports the big ships handle less gracefully.
Marc Kazlauskas, NCL’s president, framed the work as creating “greater consistency across our fleet”.
The bottom line
This is the same logic we have watched all week. Holland America is rebuilding Zuiderdam, Carnival is spreading its refit playbook across brands, and now NCL is fitting its twenty-year-old ships with the features its new ones sell on.
Three corporations, one week, the same answer: refit the old tonnage rather than order new.
For anyone booked on Gem this summer, the practical upshot is simpler. There is a new adults-only deck you will have to pay for, a considerably better spa, and the same 93,000-ton ship underneath.
