requesting POA input from NCL cruisers

[misha1]

Hello everyone, DH and I will be sailing POA (our first NCL cruise) next March and I have been reading a number of reviews. I am a little concerned. They are not positive reviews. Most complain about service or food or both. I hear very little about how beautiful the ship is or the events on board. I hear alot about dirty rooms, poor food and wait staff. My TA says that this cruise is a means to see a number of islands without packing and unpacking but, if the food and service are bad, then what besides fuel am I paying for? Is there any positive things people can tell me about this sailing? Thanks in advance, Julie

[mylesf]

Been on the ship twice and love the decor of it! Service was great and food was no different then any other ship I have been on, some average meals and some great meals....You do spend over 100 hours in port so I was off the ship most of the time. However, I do know that the freestyle daily seemed to be packed with things to do if you plan on staying on board.

[karen327]

We absolutely loved our POA cruise. Remember, this cruise is more about the ports than the ship it's self. I enjoyed the hula classes, lea making classes, etc. But wasn't on the ship that much. So much to see and do on the islands and so easy to rent a car and explore them ourselves. The food was good, service was good, and the best was watching the whales follow the ship while dining at the great outdoors.

[Budget Queen]

I am intolerant of the negative reviews. :) I have found the ship excellent, and for what it offers- Hawaii- a big value. So I look at these sailings, nothing more than lodging, food and transportation. I go for Hawaii, and spend all my time in ports. The food is good, service very good, ship clean.

 

I've gone twice on this itinerary, with a third trip coming up in Feb. I've greatly enjoyed the previous two, and I will again the third. :)

[kwbound]

We were just on POA 2 weeks ago. In spite of Budget Queen's possible intolerance of my viewpoint, I have to say that some of the negative viewpoints are in fact valid. But I wouldn't say everything about the ship is bad. It is a wonderful way to get a taste of several islands. The buffets I found to be better than Carnival or RCCL, especially breakfast. The on-board Hawaiian ambassadors are a nice touch. There were issues with housekeeping, food and service in the Skyline dining room (we did have wonderful service 1 night in Skyline). They are seriously lacking in bar staff and waiters, but I have a feeling that the demand for alcohol on this ship is not as great as on a lot of others, because I think this ship probably has an older average age passenger, and because most people are doing so much during the day, no one wants to drink too much in the evening.

 

I am in the middle of posting an extensive review of the trip on the Hawaii board at this link http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1298051

 

Bottom line - If you have cruised much before, and it appears you have, you will probably no have the same level of service you have experienced in the past. However, it is still a wonderful trip and if you can book far enough out and get a good rate, definitely worth it.

[bcakes]

My personal experience on the POA was very good. My room was clean, my steward was attentive and I didn't run into bad service anywhere. (A lot of the reviews mentioning bad service blame it on the American crew, with the implication that Americans are not capable of hard work. I personally don't subscribe to that view and can only assume that we have different views of what constitutes good service. I never had anyone treat me rudely or inattentively.)

 

As an example of the great service we received, one night at the martini bar I ordered a raspberry martini. While the server was pouring it, the lid fell of his martini shaker and a small splash of martini got on my dress. Even though I assured him it was no problem, our bar bill for the evening was comped.

 

I enjoyed the events I attended on the ship, although I didn't got to many because of how busy our days were and jet lag from the time difference. Events I enjoyed were the hula class, the second city show and the not so newlywed game. The opening night show was enjoyable too, although I didn't care for the comedian. The volcano and Napali coast sailbys are wonderful and definitely best enjoyed from a ship.

 

The only complaint I had was that I had a few misses in the dining room -- as a vegetarian, I could usually only order one of the menu items each night and these were sometimes duds. The servers gladly brought me a plate of pasta or an extra appetizer on those occassions.

 

In summary, while I'm sure that there are folks who ran into service issues on the POA, I think a majority of the negative reviews were written by people who were looking for things to criticize.

[downsized]

We thoroughly enjoyed our cruise last August on the POA.

 

Although the service may be slightly lacking than on other NCL ships, we didn't notice it much.

 

The ship is clean, in excellent condition and we found, without exception, the waitstaff to be cordial and downright friendly.

 

The fact that it is such a "port intensive" cruise, we used the ship as a Hotel, and spent most of our daylight time ashore, so we didn't find the time for the ship's attractions.

 

It was great, however, to know that we could return to ship at any time and have a our cabin cleaned and ready for us.

 

As far as food quality....that's hard for us to say. We were in a suite and ate breakfast and lunch at the Lazy J (POA's equivalent of Cagney's.) Cagney's is always great. For dinners, we either went to a specialty restaurant, or had our meals delivered to the suite.

 

One thing....if you cannot be in a suite, then (and this is my opinion), at least a balcony. The weather in Hawaii is so grande, that we spent much of time out on our balcony. A balcony is (again, in my opinion) an absolute must!

 

Others may argue that since you are only at sea at night, and in port every day, an inside is suitable. Me, I love my morning coffee, and my evening "beverage", on my balcony.

[llachance]

it and would go again in heart beat...and as you can see from my signature I have sailed on a variety of cruiselines.

[salty dingo]

We took POA in August and could not have been happier! We wanted to tour Hawaii and this is the best way. Here are some recommendations based on what we did:

 

• Book the cruise because you want to see Hawaii. If you are mostly interested in "cruising" then this may not be ideal. Don't book for casino (there is none) entertainment (who cares) and sea days (again, none.)
  
• The food was fine, and there is a great selection of restaurants. Our favorite "free" venue was the diner. Inside or on deck seating, good food, and little if any wait.
  
• Get an inside cabin. You are going to be off the ship most of the time, so an oceanview or balcony is wasted money.
  
• Rent a car in port. Go see what you want... cars are plentiful and cheap.
  
• If you want to do a luau, choose one besides the one NCL offers.
  
• Please do stuff... Hawaii is beautiful and if you just walk around the ports you are missing most of it!!
  

Enjoy!

[1trueluv]

We sailed Oct. 16th and are just returning to the real world. This was my second cruise and my husband's first. We loved the cruise and would do it again in a heartbeat!!! We went on the cruise looking at it as floating hotel and were pleasantly surprised with all the aspects of the cruise. Our room was always clean and we had towel animals everyday. Our room steward was always pleasant and helpful if we had questions or needed anything. We only saw one crew member who seemed to be very unhappy in his line of work, so we stayed away from him! All the other crew we encountered was very friendly and helpful if needed. The food was better than average. The granola in the morning was to die for!!!! We did some of the on board activities but we were not looking for that, we went to see Hawaii and did we see Hawaii!!! I highly recommend Jack Harter Helicopters, do the doors off, it was the highlight of our trip, along with Captain Zodiac in Kona best snorkeling experience!!!!!!! We had a wonderful experience and are looking forward to many more cruises with NCL!!!!!!

[Tightwallet]

We just got off 2 week b2b 10/24 this is our 2nd cruise on NCLA and again we had NO issues with staff or food. We ate in the specialty restaurants every night not because the food service is any better but its a treat for us as we don't eat out at home.

The ship is showing some minor wear but definitely far from a deal breaker, I also understand it's slated for drydock but I can't find the date.

We had no issues with our cabin.

As for entertainment it can be a mixed bag were some will like particular shows and others won't.

Doug the cruise directer is quite good and has an excellaent voice and does a late show in the Mardi Gras bar where he sings some broadway stuff.

The tribute to Frankie Valli, four guys singing is quite good, in fact they got a standing ovation one night.

Second City we don't like but others do.

They also have brought back Fountains with a couple additions that are quite good. If your not familiar with it go to You tube and put NCL Fountains into their search engine, it's quite comical.

They also had a magician one night and a comedian another night.

There are other shows but we didn't get to see them.

 

The bottom line is lower your staff expectations by 10% and y'll be just fine. Our room steward Noil (spell check) was by far one of the best we have ever had.

Remember your using the ship as a hotel in order to take in all that the islands have to offer.

Our cruise was so great that I have just booked for January 2010 2week b2b.

I will post a review in the next week and will post it here when done.addition

[Tightwallet]

We too did see the odd disgruntled employee talking to others , but again it's not a deal breaker.

[spacepotatoes]

DH and had our honeymoon on the POA and we had the time of our lives! I think bcakes and salty dingo summed up our experience and what I would suggest perfectly.

 

Every cruise gets its share of bad reviews that complain about the same type of things. I tend to take them with a grain of salt unless there is something that is consistently being mentioned. For the POA, that seems to be the issue of service quality. It was my first cruise so I didn't have anything to compare it to or know what to expect, but we really didn't have any complaints. I will say that the one night we were in the Skyline dining room, service was very slow and I found the staff in the Cadillac Diner to be less than friendly (though not rude), but we weren't bothered by it. Everywhere else, the crew was great. We loved walking down the corridors and hearing "Aloha!" from the crew that we passed.

 

The real focus of this cruise is Hawaii. As others have said, most of your time will be spent in port and the ship really takes a backseat to the islands. There's so much to do and it's a great way to see a lot of Hawaii in a short time. Enjoy it :)

[kwbound]

We took POA in August and could not have been happier! We wanted to tour Hawaii and this is the best way. Here are some recommendations based on what we did:

 

• Book the cruise because you want to see Hawaii. If you are mostly interested in "cruising" then this may not be ideal. Don't book for casino (there is none) entertainment (who cares) and sea days (again, none.)
  
• The food was fine, and there is a great selection of restaurants. Our favorite "free" venue was the diner. Inside or on deck seating, good food, and little if any wait.
  
• Get an inside cabin. You are going to be off the ship most of the time, so an oceanview or balcony is wasted money.
  
• Rent a car in port. Go see what you want... cars are plentiful and cheap.
  
• If you want to do a luau, choose one besides the one NCL offers.
  
• Please do stuff... Hawaii is beautiful and if you just walk around the ports you are missing most of it!!
  

Enjoy!

 

Salty - I agree wholeheartedly with all of your recommendations with a small caveat regarding the food. I wouldn't say ALL the food was fine. We found the buffet to be better than the Skyline dining room. We were really disappointed with the Skyline food. I agree there is a wide selection of restaurants. I also agree that the Cadillac Diner is good. We had great service there and enjoyed sitting on the deck.

 

We used Roberts in Kauai for the Smith Family Luau and had a wonderful time. Highly recommend it.

[sjyu2]

My dh and I sailed on the POA in Dec 2009 and absolutely loved it. Even with the high waves and change in the itinerary It was wonderful. Food was nothing to complain about. To my complete surprise our room steward always greeted us in the hallways with our names from day one.

 

The ship was beautiful, activities were fun-made necklaces, a lei and a beaded scarf- never made it to the hula lessons. We also were out and about on shore so were completely exhausted by the end of the day so didn't ever do any of the night time shows.

 

Check out Roberts for shore excursions. When the ship changed the

itinerary because of the big waves, I called Roberts let them know what was going on. They called me back about 1/2 hour later and had rescheduled the entire shore excursions for our cruise. Lots of people using Roberts on our trip.

Have fun and enjoy. I think that the people who complain about something are the ones who are few and far between, the ones like me who completely enjoyed ourselves aren't motivated enough to write a review.

Sarah

[coloxray]

Thank you all for all of the positive views of the POA. We are going on the Nov 20th cruise. I had decided after reading all of the negative comments on this board that I would enjoy Hawaii (because that's why we are going, after all) and not worry about the rest. Now that I have read all of your comments I am going with a much better outlook and hope to enjoy my POA cruise as well.