Hawaii Cruise Reviews

If this is your first cruise, Pride of Aloha is for you. If you have cruised other lines including NCL, NCLA is Not for you. This ship was beautiful and the ports and routes great. However, the "American" crew does not go out of their way to make you feel pampered and special. You are pretty much on your own and must ask for things as the staff is often standing around talking among themselves. Tables left uncleaned and there is no plae to sit. Food was good, but nothing spectacular and service was very slow...2.5 hours for lunch!!. So if you are use to any other cruise line, you will definitely notice the difference. If this is your first cruise, you will have nothing to compare and will probably enjoy it. I will not sail with NCLA again, but past experiences with NCL were great in contrast with an international crew.

Good litinerary. Very poor airfare arrangements.

Dirty--no room cleaning--love this cruise line--however this trip was disappointing.

overall is great except for some minor complaints

WE WOULD NOT SAIL ON NCL LINE AGAIN OR ANY FREE STYLING CRUISES.

The Pride of Hawaii was launched last year so it was practically brand new. Extremely clean an in exceptional condition. Our mini suite was the best. Ample space and very appealing. Looked forward to returing to the room for relaxation after a long day of touring. We had read some reviews complaining about Americans who work the ship. Our experience was direcly opposite. Everyone we came into contact with were courteous, polite and professional. They made us feel at home. Plenty of beach chairs available. The alcohol 2 fers (2 for 1) specials on different evenings at different locations were appreciated. Dissapointed that the ship did not pass by the volcano on the big Island of Hawaii that is flowing into the ocean.

To maney extra charges

This is the worst cruise we ever been. The staff are not train enough to service the customer...No Thank You , No Smile,...It seemd like you are on the training Cruise line. The food is as good as other cruise line in term of quality . Don't even waste your money paying extra going to specialty restaurant because the same quality will be the same.

The ship updated, easy to get around and access to the restaurants was excellent.

The ship was beautiful. The service was great. In advertising the freestyle dining, it should be advertised that reservations are needed (although it is advertised that reservations are not required) because the space availability fills up fast. However, overall, the cruise experience was great. My husband and I will forever have a memorable 10th year wedding anniversary experience.

The ship itself was satisfactory. The itinerary of the Hawaiian Islands worked very well. The problems lie not in the cruise itself, but in the management and staff of the ship. The freestyle design does not work well, the excursions are priced far above market price and are nearly impossible to book on the ship without standing in line for hours immediately upon arrival. The freestyle restaurant reservation experience is the same. Ridiculous booking times (must start taking reservations for that night at 7 a.m. and many are totally booked by 7:30 - unless you want to eat dinner at 9:30). Hosts are generally condescending and argumentative when asking for assistance - as are most of the concierge staff. It is obvious that this ship's management does not promote or reward good service by their staff. The staff is numbered well below where it needs to be, they seem to be overworked and unhappy for the most part. There were stars that shined occasionally, but they seemed to be few and far between. We had a great time as a family because of the time we shared together - 12 of us came together from all over the nation to celebrate our parents wedding anniversary. The fun times were all because of us being together, however, the ship did very little to contribute to the success of our celebration vacation.

The ship was beautiflly decorated with the tropical island theme. All areas were spacious and well planned.

I thought the ship was great. It seemed very clean and had easy to follow signs to help you get around on board. I thought the shows and activities were great. It seemed like there was always something going on.

The ship is beautiful.

Large cabins, classic service, terrific menus and preparation.

One of the last cruises for the Regal Princess, selling to an Australlian Line. Missed "open dining" concept on bigger ships, especially on late tour days in Hawaii. We brought all warm weather wear, only to shiver each way on the Pacific, was in the 50's at night. Will look for longer island stays in future, as tours took the full time of all but one of our stops in Honolulu. Princess is geared more toward a senior crowd than other lines we have cruised, but a younger- more energetic entertainment staff helped here for the 15 days, as opposed to our Crown Princess 10 day Panama Canal cruise. Can't beat the overall value- wouldn't have more than a week in a moderate Hawaii hotel without meals for the same price for our family of four, which we split into two cabins.

The 4 island iterenary is the best and most affordable way to see 4 islands in just a week. The golf Shop Manager was outstanding and the shore excursion staff was very helpfull without being over agressive which is very important on this cruise. Housekeeping was below average and the food and foodstaff were poor at best. This is not your typical cruise as very little time is spent at sea and most and what is is done overnight so you wake up in a new port with the whole day ahead of you. We would not take this cruise again due to the poor service and even worse food.

From the beginning, we went on this cruise with a tiny bit of apprehension because of some of the negative reviews we read. However, the ship and staff far exceeded our expectations. Everyone we came in contact with on this ship went out of their way to please us. We particularly enjoyed the opportunity to visit several different restaurants over the course of the week. Our favorite was Jefferson's Bistro, followed by Lazy J's Steakhouse; they're more than worth the extra charge. We took advantage of a "wine tour" as soon as we got on board, so we were able to make reservations for several restaurants and order wine for our meals before we even set sail. We didn't care for the crowds at the Aloha Buffet, but found that if you arrive early it's not too bad. We also didn't appreciate the "tip" space on our dinner checks; it implies that we should be leaving extra gratuities when in fact we're already being charged $10 per day per person for that very purpose. We gave our waiters a tip just because they were so wonderful, but we didn't like feeling like we "had" to. The shore excursions were a bit pricey but we took advantage of the Molokini Snorkel which was awesome. We rented a car the other days and hit all the top spots on our own, plus had time to shop, all for the cost of one day's car rental; that worked best for us. The entertainment on the ship was pretty good, there were two comedy shows that were hilarious. We found the main pools to be crowded and the pool area in general was very noisy. We ventured over to the Oasis Pool and Hot Tub in the ship's aft and it was much quieter and more relaxing. We only had a couple of complaints about this trip: 1) Our room was tiny and the shower was worse; it was similar to what showering in an airline bathroom would be like; very, very, cramped. It's a good thing we got a balcony room, we could not have survived in a regular outside cabin or heaven forbid an inside cabin; we can't imagine feeling any more confined. 2) The Aloha Cafe (buffet) was billed as being open 24 hours, yet we went there three different times and found it to be closed, usually when we were in port, and 3) We were celebrating our 25th Wedding Anniversary and notified the staff upon embarkation; we received a card that instructed us to give that card to the Maitre D on our anniversary and we would receive a "special treat", unfortunately we were unaware that the special treat would be absolutely nothing, go figure? Anyway, that was not significant enough to ruin our beautiful vacation. We loved it and as we stated before, the staff on the Pride of America is outstanding. We hope to bring our children back with us soon so they too can enjoy Hawaii the way we did. If you've never been to Hawaii before, this is the way to see it all in one trip.

The overall feeeling on this ship is that NCL tried to fit as many people as possible on the ship with the fewest possible staff. Service was not up to the standard. Dining 'freestyle' did not work well on this cruise.

The staff was not courteous at all. It was praised as an all-American crew and I'm wishing it wasn't. The service was slow and the employees were less than helpful. We heard several crew members complaining about their jobs and two other complaining about cruise passengers. The ports seemed quite industrial with the exception of Kona. I was expecting that a Hawaiian cruise would be beautiful in every port. Not the case here. In Kahului (Maui) and Nawiliwili Bay (Kauai), we were looking directly off our balcony at stacks of shipping containers. I was expecting Hawaii to have incredible ports since tourism is their top industry. The ports were not at all what I or my wife expected. Hilo was plain ugly. We think a drug deal took place right in front of us near the bus stop in town.