Pride of America, NCL Cruise

Reviewed by Sherry- Outside Sales Agent, 2006

Hi Girls,

I just wanted to brief you on my recent trip to Hawaii ...

I sailed on the beautiful Pride of America on June 17, 2006 for the 7 night Hawaiian Islands cruise. I have been to Hawaii before but it has been many years. I was on the Big Island about 25 years ago for a one-month stay in a rented house. And then I was on Maui and Oahu for a fam trip with Fiesta West about 10 years ago. So it was time to see Hawaii all over again! You guys know I am a “cruise-freak” and try to fit in a cruise every where I go. So it was no surprise that we would take a week from our two week Hawaiian vacation to sail the islands on a ship. This sailing has officially marked my 11^th cruise to date.

I have sailed on NCL before but that was for our honeymoon 14 years ago! Rob and I sailed the Eastern Caribbean on the Norway in August of 1992. I have not sailed with NCL since then. Not because I didn’t necessarily want to, but because the right opportunity just wasn’t there. I do have to admit though, thru industry experience, NCL did suffer “a bad rap” for many years. So it was a waiting game for me to make sure I sailed when they “re-invented” themselves. And let me tell you, I have a new appreciation for NCL after sailing with them last month. They have really evolved over the years and become a very good quality cruise line! No longer will I sell them as a 3* (like one agency I worked for taught me to do!). I honestly believe they are up there with the 4* and 5* cruise lines. It is hard to rate them all “apples to apples” when they are all so different and have their own “forte” or “niche”. But quality is quality and NCL does not lack in that department. Having sailed on many cruise lines, I am very impressed with NCL and can honestly say that this ranks as one of my favorite cruises thus far. And I am talking both cruise ship experience and destination experience. Rob even commented on how awesome this trip was and by far his favorite trip so far! Hawaii is appealing anyway … but to do it on a ship is even more fantastic!

It is easy to recommend that clients sail the Hawaiian Islands. The number one reason is that Hawaii is super-expensive! Sailing the islands by cruise ship is by far the cheapest way to go ... and … the best way to see most of the islands in one trip without having to pack and unpack and island hop by flight. This cruise gives clients a very good over view of the islands. Having not been to Kauai before, this is my FAVORITE island! Rob and I will definitely fly to Kauai and stay there for a longer duration. All of the islands are great, but this one is particularly beautiful and scenic. The itinerary allows for overnights in two destinations … Maui and Kauai. How cool is that! You get two full days in Maui and 1.5 days in Kauai.

Here are a few of my on-board observations …

The staff are American and extremely friendly and helpful! I have not experienced such a high level of customer-service driven people on a ship before!

We used Room Service for breakfast almost every morning. It is a limited selection (mostly continental) but adequate for those rushed or on the go. The Room Service delivery was dependable and on-time every time. Again … this consistency I hadn’t experienced before!

There is a large selection of Specialty Restaurants for dinner.

East Meets West (cover charge $10.00 p.p.)
Sushi in East Meets West (cover charge $10.00 p.p.)
Teppanyaki in East Meets West (cover charge $10.00 - $15.00 p.p.)
Shabu Shabu in East Meets West (cover charge $10.00 p.p.)
Jefferson’s Bistro – French Cuisine (cover charge $10.00 p.p.)
Lazy J Steakhouse (cover charge $15.00 p.p.)(add an extra $10.00 p.p. for ‘surf & turf’ lobster & filet mignon dinner)
Little Italy (cover charge $10.00 p.p.)

My “insider tip” is to book the specialty restaurants as soon as you get onboard. They do fill up quickly as there is limited seating in these ‘intimate’ atmosphere restaurants. However, you need to find out when the Lobster Dinner is showcased in the Main Restaurants (Freestyle). Because that will be the night you will want to dine Freestyle in the Skyline or Liberty Restaurant. As well, you will want to book the “Little Italy” restaurant for its first seating reservation at 5:30pm for the evening that you sail by Kauai’s beautiful “Na Pali Coast”. This will ensure that you get a window table for this most spectacular view! This will also ensure that you will get about half an hour out on the upper decks to view the coast line and take some awesome pictures.

Rob and I booked the specialty restaurants for almost every night! We tried most of them and they are all fantastic. The food is excellent and the presentation is amazing! These restaurants are definitely up-scale formal dining restaurants.

The coolest thing about this whole “Dining” thing is that there are Restaurant Boards posted on the Decks where the Restaurants are located that give you up-to-the-minute statistics on each dining establishment. So … if you don’t have a reservation and want to know how long the wait is for a particular restaurant … you will know the status. It’s a pretty cool way to know where you can get in!

Back to the Lobster Night in the Main Freestyle Restaurants (Skyline & Liberty) ... this can be a bit of a gong-show! We were told by staff that the best time to go to these restaurants on that particular night is at 5:15pm or 8:15pm. So we opted for the latter time. However, it was still really busy so they gave us a pager (the ones you get in restaurants here at home). We took off to the lounge for drinks and then when a table was ready we were able to go back to the restaurant for our seating. So to avoid ‘unhappy’ customers, tell them to go super early or super late to avoid any inconvenience of waiting around for a table. Because by the time we got in it was 9:45pm (and we picked up our pager at 8:00pm)! However, I think ours was an unusual situation because their pager system broke down and we were not notified our table was ready earlier.

Another note: I am a ‘Traditional’ diner. I like to have my late seating (8:00 or 8:30pm) in the dining room with a designated table with my designated waiter. I did happen to try “Personal Choice Dining” with Princess Cruises and thought it was okay. But did feel the service lacked because it was a different waiter every night because you were at a different table every night with different dining guests every night. Not really my favorite! However, the Freestyle with NCL is much better and has switched my personal preference from a Traditional diner to a Freestyle diner. This is the ultimate best dining experience. You can eat in so many specialty restaurants which is ultimately what I prefer anyway! The specialty restaurants are very intimate and not so cafeteria or banquet style like the main restaurants are.

The blow-dryer in the cabin is the best I have seen anywhere (hotel, all-inclusive, ship, etc.)! It is a full-size, full-power, hair salon type quality blow dryer. Usually you get the cheesy little cheap blow dryers. This one is a German “Aliseo” Wigo Model 5101 (1000 watt). I wrote this down because I really did have “good hair days” and might consider hunting this blow dryer down to purchase for home use.

The cabins offer “Interactive TV” in the room. A keyboard is provided alongside the TV. It is called “Freestyle iTV”. Here you can book shore excursions and have email access. A personal email address is provided to each guest in their cruise documents. I never used this at all but something definitely useful for those that want or need it. For those that want internet access, there is also an internet café that you could go to.

The cabin number listed on the plaque outside your cabin door has a moveable wheel for you to select …

Welcome
Make Up Room
Turn Down Room
Do Not Disturb

Very cool!

There is an in-room coffee maker.

There are liquid hand sanitizer dispensers outside of every restaurant entrance.

There are shampoo and shower gel dispensers in the shower stall and a soap dispenser at the sink in your bathroom in your cabin (you no longer have to fuss with little bottles of stuff).

The Aloha Café Buffet Restaurant has large coffee machines that make “one-cup” latte’s, cappucino’s, café americano’s, etc. Very cool! I am also a coffee-freak!

You can bring your own liquor and drinks on-board for personal consumption. Unlike many other cruise lines that have banned this!

The Aloha Café Buffet Restaurant has a children’s eating area that has small tables, small chairs and a small buffet for them to serve themselves buffet style. Very cool!

The car rental shuttles wait at the pier for all pre-booked renters. You do not have to call for pick up service. The shuttle to the airport locations to pick up your vehicle is only about a 5 – 10 minute drive from the pier in Maui, Hilo, Kona and Kauai. However, cruise guests wanting to rent a car and haven’t pre-booked will not get a vehicle or get on the shuttle in most cases. The cars book up quickly! Best to book these in advance. I chose Hertz for all of our rentals in all of the ports. They provided us with excellent service and vehicles (Ford Mustand Convertibles). For the overnight ports, we were able to park our vehicle right at the pier for our overnight stay on-board the ship.

Kona is a tender port! The tender process is not a free-for-all like most other lines. There is a process with NCL. When you are ready to go ashore, you must go to the Mardi Gras Nightclub to get your tender pass. When your pass is called, then you are taken on the tenders ashore in a designated fashion.

We booked a balcony cabin for this cruise. Unfortunately, we were not on the right side of the ship for the best views throughout the cruise. If you want your balcony cabin to be on the Na Pali Coast view side you need to book the left side of the ship (portside). Another “insider tip”.

Disembarkation is awesome with NCL. You are given your colored baggage tags the day before disembarkation. That colored tag represents when you will be called off the ship. The times are posted ahead of time so that you can plan your disembarkation day. Ours happened to be at 9:10am. So … we slept in … went for breakfast … and then came back to our cabin for 9am. We were allowed to wait in our cabins for our baggage tag to be called. How cool is that!? No longer are you booted out of your cabin at 7am or 7:30am to fend for a seat somewhere in a public area to be bored out of your brains!