Pride of Hawaii Review

I just returned from LAX after a 2 night inaugural sailing of the
Pride of Hawaii with one of our local agents. I am going to write
this based on the ship and pax point of view. First I have to say
what a disappointment it was.

First off. Do you remember how obnoxious Carnival ships used to be
with all of the neon colors? Carnival has since changed. Well I
think NCL hired the old Carnival designer. The colors were
obnoxiously bright and the themes of the public rooms ran amok. You
see one theme and than it crashes into something completely off the
wall with clashing colors. There was absolutely nothing about this
ship that impressed me. I have been on the America and loved it. I
thought it was very tastefully decorated. This ships color schemes
will definitely blind you. . In two days there was only one photo op
and that was right when you board the ship. No one ever looks good
boarding the ship. There were no photographers to be seen. I am one
of those pax that will utilize every photo op hoping to get 1 good on.

We had an ocean view balcony. Like the Aloha and America which I have
sailed on, it was like the incredible shrinking room. Two people
could not walk past the bed at the same time as there was so little
room. The beds were on wheels and as the ship rocked I was afraid of
rolling into the other bed. The bathrooms are the smallest that I
have ever seen. I am only 5 ft and as I was sitting on the toilet I
noticed that there was only about 3 inches of space between my knee
and the wall. My companion is about 6 inches taller and I had her
test it for me. No I did not send her with a tape measurer but she
had about 2 inches of space. My husband is over 6 ft and I figured
he would have to sit sideways to use the bathroom. The space between
the door to the bathroom and sink were very small. I would change in
the bathroom and either my tush was in the shower or in the toilet.
The walls lacked decor which made for a very bland room We had trouble
getting the air regulated. We had it on very low one night and I was
sweating. The next day we were cold so we had the heat all the way up
and was even colder okay freezing with two layers of clothes and under
the quilts and blankets. I never asked Jen but I did not find the
beds too comfortable.

Buffet. Carb city. They had a pasta bar, pizza bar, sandwich bar
,salad bar and Chinese bar. At the Chinese bar all the had was stir
fry and nothing else. Not even rice. I was in the first group on the
ship and the food looked like it had been sitting there for hours. We
had dinner at the Jasmine Garden. The food was great but the portions
were small. So small that my companion and I went up to the buffet
right after for some munchies. Again no rice was offered so we had to
ask for it and it came in a soup bowl.

We also ate at the Tapas restaurant. I do not know when any of you
last had Tapas but it is Spanish NORMALLY. This Tapas bar was all
Mexican. Did I miss something? We sat down and received our menus.
There were no Tapas. HMMMM. We asked about it and the waitress said
we had to go to the bar for that. OK. We went to the bar and they
said no we had to be at a table. HMMMM. They sat us and served us
Mexican Tapas. It was quite tasty but no Spanish Flair in sight.
Again we went up to the buffet and had dim sum. The Chinese bar at
night only has pot stickers and spring rolls. There are two rows for
food but nothing was ever on it. Again the food at the buffet looked
very unappetizing. The desserts were very good. (dont tell dad) We
never ate in the main dining rooms. The Italian restaurant was mostly
pasta and pizza with only 4 protein entrees. Cagneys steakhouse was
always booked but it did not have the western feel that the America
had.

One surprise was the main show lounge. There is no bar service. The
theater is set up stadium seating with no space to walk by. The
colors quite loud. The shows were fabulous. One of the lounges looks
like Barney threw up in there. For those of you who do not have young
ones he is a giant purple dinosaur. The first thing I see in this
lounge is something from my daughters room. It was a coffee table
with a glass top. The base was velvet neon green with bright purple
alligators sticking out the top. It reminded me of a velvet Medusa.
Sadly there was a chair to match that looked like the egg that Mork
from Mork and Mindy landed in. Again it was all neon green and purple
velvet with the same alligators on top. The chair looked like Barney
threw up in Austin Powers flat. But brace yourself. The theme of the
lounge was nautical. I have spent way to much time trying to figure
out the correlation of the two. If you want kill it put sponge bob in
there.

The kids club. It looks just like the Pride of America. There was a
climbing playground like they have in Mcdonalds and tables and chairs.
It actually looked a little bare since I did not see any toys around.
The pool had a water slide which was nice. The gym was awesome. Yes
I actually worked out. Every treadmill has a tv but you need to bring
headphones. My cabin mate signed up for a massage. I was there when
she booked it and they asked if an around the world massage for 25
minutes is ok. That was there standard. She said fine. She comes
back and asks me what it was that she signed up for because she
thought she was losing her mind. It turns out that they gave her a
deep muscle massage for only 15 minutes. She said that it was
supposed to be something else and they did not go and verify. She was
quite upset since she spent 88.00 for a 15 minute massage. The gift
shop was one little one with upscale Hawaiian items and than you had
the gift shop on steroids. It was probably the largest on float. It
had great variety but not much for kids between 8-12.

Turn down service. NCL has these cute little dials next to your
door. When you want turn down, make up, privacy etc you turn the
dial. On my other 2 NCL cruises I never had to use it. Well guess
what on this cruise you do. OK so now I know what to do. On the
second night we had turn down service and was a little disappointed to
find no chocolate mints on my pillow and no animals made out of
towels. I really like those things.

Bar service. The were plenty of bars to go around but not many
servers. In the Barney lounge. We got there about 10 minute before
the show started. No one came to our table. Halfway through the show
we ordered some drinks. We finally got them the 2nd to last joke of
the show. Many people were going up to the bar to get their own
drinks.

Staff. This crew is the nicest that I have ever met. It could be
because the average age was probably 22 and it could be that they have
never worked on a cruise ship before and it could be because this week
was the first time in 2 months that they had humans on board. You
would think it was Stark Trek. I cant say enough about how nice
everyone was. You just wanted to be friends with them. I would
really like to see them after 2 months of passengers to see if they
are still this friendly. I actually felt guilty leaving the
restaurants without giving them a goodbye hug.