Pride? of America - Not a good time

Pride of America Cruise Review to Hawaii

MaryA28

Contributor Level: Deck Hand

Cruises: 7+ cruises

Review: 1

Helpful Votes: 50

Overall rating:

2 out of 5

Verified Review

7 Night Hawaii (Honolulu Roundtrip)

Sail date: October 14, 2006

Ship: Pride of America

Cabin type: Balcony

Traveled as: Couple

Reviewed: 14 years ago

Review summary

The Pride of America is a beautiful ship but our experience was a disaster! Our Hawaiin cruise had some difficult times - The first morning of the cruise in Maui was the earthquake (Oct 22, 2006) We were told we had to stay on ship since the island had no power. All shore excursions were cancelled that day. The next day the shore excursions were cancelled because of the heavy rain. But we were assured by the captain the earthquake results had been cleared and we were going on to Kona the next day as scheduled with all shore excursions a "go". Later the captain back-peddled on this, telling us that we weren't going to Kona because "something" was under the ship and divers were going down to investigate. He said "I don't know when or where we are going". To add to the earthquake confusion it turned out the ship had run over a buoy in the port of Honolulu during departure. It snagged not only the buoy but also the heavy chain, and the huge concrete block buoy anchor, then dragged the whole thing all the way from Honolulu to Maui damaging one of the ship's propellers. The captain then announced, "I apologize for the inconvenience we have caused all of you." The captain sent out a letter that since we were not going to the Big Island, each cabin would receive $100 shipboard credit. Too little! I guess he thought everyone would use that on drinks and get drunk enough to enjoy the Scrabble, Bingo and Monopoly they were offering to replace the shore excursions. Then there were a series of half-truths to all-out lies by the staff about the situation. We had to get home and on the internet to find out just why we didn't go to Kona. We had asked at least 10 ship employees to explain just why we were not going on to the big island. They gave us a "no comment" answer or "I'm not qualified to answer that" like we were too unintelligent to understand the truth. There was a revolt by the passengers who had a group meeting where the captain tried to make us believe that the buoy system, which we all saw the divers take out of the water in Maui, was one from the Kahului port and it was caused by the earthquake. Many passengers witnessed this and one even had a video. We had already read in the local paper that NCL agreed to pay $6000 to the port of Honolulu for the buoy system that had been hit and dragged. We certrainly do understand the problems connected with the earthquake. Luckily the earthquake was not a problem for this ship. But the deplorable way the administration and employees handled the communication concerning the buoy incident to the passengers was unexcusable. The "whys" were never answered. The announcements were not clear. This led to great passenger confusion and left us with the feeling that NCL cared more about their schedule and their profits than they cared about customer service. No more NCL for us.