Pride of America — Local services in Honolulu

We flew to Honolulu to board the ship. The ship is big and very comfortable. The pre cruise online check-in on the NCL App very easy. Picked our time slot and boarding the ship well organised. We loved our Balcony Stateroom. It was worth the extra dollars to upgrade. The cabin functionality excellent. The Cabin in room safe very useful for valuable items. Shower and toilet small but functionality surprisingly very good. We had ample room to store 2 Large empty suitcases under the bed. The bed super comfy and cabin big enough for two but not 3 Adults. Their Hairdryer worked well. I took my travel iron, and GHD heated hair brush it all worked perfectly with travel adaptors Australia/USA from Korjo. We took magnetic hooks for extra help hanging lanyards by the door and my handbag. Towel bands and large towel clips we took with us, helped for sunbathing on balcony. Able to peg washing line on balcony. Easy to hand wash clothes in sink and rinse in shower. We put on balcony all day, it worked perfectly. Breakfast was delivered to our room at extra cost $5 per day. It was luxury for us, as we hated queuing and the noise early morning at the breakfast station. Lifts are very slow. The main pool very noisy. Cagneys Steakhouse worth every dollar for upgrading to speciality dining as was Liberty Restaurant. Food and service excellent and Cadillac Bar was free. The food excellent with nice portion sizes. Their milkshakes were extra $5 each but very tasty. We never went hungry. The food, staff and service excellent. Lounge bar and entertainment ok but not brilliant. Comedy act in theatre not funny! The Adult pool on Deck 11 was a welcome retreat and so was the Bar above it. We sat in a very quiet environment happily enjoying the view. All ports of call had numerous people outside the ship who offered transport to tourist attractions at a considerably lower rate. Shore excursions booked on the ship are too expensive. We went off ship at Hilo, took the shuttle and driver informed us of his tour at 12.15pm. We paid $70 each and saw all of HILO with 5 stops and he took us back to ship at 4.30pm. We couldn't have wished for a better tour. We enjoyed the cruise but sadly a water problem for two days between 11.30pm and 4.30 am was very annoying. Toilets were not functioning properly in those hours which is disgusting. This should not happen on a luxurious cruise ship and we were not compensated whatsoever or even contacted. It was not discussed. In conclusion, the cruise was good value for money. The staff onboard the ship made our holiday and they were all absolutely superb. Thank you to all of them who do an...

Ship itself was just about ok if you don’t mind the old and broken outside sports equipment. Shame the rest is sub standard. Generally the complementary dining staff were rude and acted like they just did not care which matched the poor food on offer. Cadillac diner served quite possibly the worst microwave reheated apple pie I have ever seen or tasted. The other 2 were not much better. Only the buffet and the paid for dining had decent food. Excursions are a total rip off often costing 50% more than booking your own. Information on local shuttles and tours is non existent until you get to the ports and then realise you could have gone with a local operator for a fraction of the price. And why would NCL tell you this when they are trying to max their profits by cutting back on everything that makes a cruise a cruise. Pretty soon I predict they will be charging a fuel surcharge as everything else has a hidden charge. If there are a few of you hire a car and save $$$. Just make sure to do it when the ship is staying at the same port overnight so you are not stressed about getting back on time. Entertainment is, what can I say, just imagine you are in a very low budget holiday resort where the same lame entertainment is put on repeatedly. Compared to other cruise lines you will come away thinking you have been ripped off and wished you had just booked your own flights and hotels. There are some good points. Cagneys steakhouse had excellent food. Staff attitudes though in that restaurant ranged from one extreme of rude and confrontational to the other where excellent service was given. All depends on the nationality and this was present throughout the ship. Japanese restaurant cooked the food in front of you with some really good entertainment and energy. Shower had decent hot water. Stateroom was well kept. Got to see whales but only because they cancelled the Kona shore day and then gave us $10 credit each. $10 credit each for a missed port seems like NCL is really cost cutting. Overall it’s like you’ve paid 5 star prices and ended up in a budget holiday caravan park (where the caravan itself is...

Advice: DO NOT BOOK SHORE EXCURSIONS THROUGH THE CRUISE!!! I cannot stress this enough. First of all you spend hundreds of dollars to get to places that you can go to for free and for like 30 bucks. You can snorkle at any beach!! We swam with sea turtles on multiple occasions FOR FREE. They swam right up to us it was amazing.

Unfortunately i got really sick one morning and couldnt make it on an excursion that i made a mistake to book. It was a 9 hour bus ride that i obviously couldnt make. When i was able to maintain a standing position i went to guest services to see if there was anything they could do for me becuz i felt so bad about missing it. I was told i needed to get a dr note in order to get one of the two tickets refunded. Ok- sounds fair. There is a dr on board with very limited hours- had to wait until 5.. again ok. I finally get to the office and am told its 150 dollars just to see the dr.. dont accept insurance. What a scam. Im a grown adult i know when im too sick to sit on a bus with other people.. dont need a dr to tell me that. I am also an ED nurse and im not going to clog up the local health care facilities for a non emergent complaint. It should be a curtesy to the guests who have to miss something FUN to offer refunds when they are sick. Its not a chore i really wanted to go and im not going to subject other people to that. They could have offered another excursion at least. So that upset me a lot. Ill probably never get over it tbh i feel so bad.

Anyway, instead of booking the excursions.. book a car through TURO. We did this three times during our trip. Having the car for two days was less then one ticket for most of the excursions and was so much better. We got to do what we wanted when we wanted and had the best time. Turo was by far easier and more cost effective.

The room was ok. The food was ok Service was nice. But the cruise is just a convenient vessel to see a few different places if youve never been before.

Hawaii gets a 10/10. NCL poa...