Opinions on the Pride of Hawaii

[tomluvsaida]

Negative reviews seem to get lots of attention on these boards while positive reviews sink without a trace . It must be human nature !

 

Also ALL the reviews both negaitive and positive are a very small fraction of the number of people that go on a cruse.

[kabookie]

... The service was much better and the food was good. Only exception was Teppinyaki. The surcharge was $20 per head (nearly the cost of a superior dinner of that type at our local restaurant) and the chef exhibited none of the personality and antics that you generally see in Japanese "hibachi" steakhouses (flying shrimp tails, fancy knife work etc.). I would not waste the money for that....

 

This is the third review I've read for the Teppanyaki, each has said basically the same thing. I was looking forward to a "Beni-Hana" style dinner, but unless I read much differently in the next two weeks, am planning to skip this one and spend the time at Cagneys

 

...They also need to work on boarding at certain ports. We waited on line for a full 45 minutes returning one day. We never experienced that kind of wait on RCL....

 

My initial reaction to this comment: "another note about waiting in line to get back on the ship - yikes!"

But after thinking about it, the alternative to visiting 4 islands in one week is to fly from island to island - which would certainly mean packing bags in a hotel room, then driving to an airport, standing in line to check in, standing in line for security, flying to the next island, picking up bags, driving to a new hotel, checking in and finally unpacking again. I figure this would easily take 4 hours out of my precious vacation time. Multiply that by 4 islands and the 45 minute wait to get back on ship suddenly doesn't seem so bad. Just keeping it all in perspective. :rolleyes:

[sweetpea-2]

I hope if we do the NCL Hawaii thing in 2008, the other people on the ship have your attitude! I know what I expect: a clean cabin, edible food, adequate service and of course I will make sure I get that. Will there be problems - maybe. But I have had "problems" on vacations before and going to the correct people has never failed to resolve them. I never expect perfection but I do expect prompt problem resolution of any serious issues. However I can't imagine actually expecting a cruiseline or a resort to make my vacation "fun". That is my responsibility.

 

this is the atttitude everyone should have, if they did then there wouldn't be so many complaints....your cruise is what you make of it ;)

[tomluvsaida]

I say good for you! I wish more people would do this to teach NCLA to get their act together. Personally even though the ship service sucked; I had the best vacation of my life. It probably was the cheapest way to see all the islands. But if you really did find such great deals to go to all the islands; then we made a big mistake. I felt it was the only cheap way to do it. And I would have gladly spent just a little more to have better service; which a hotel would give. But my balcony room only cost $2650; so I don't know why yours would cost so much. But nonetheless. I had the time of my life and didn't harp on those issues while in Hawaii; after all we were off the ship by 9am everyday; but I have said and will continue to say that regardless, we will not cruise NCLA ever again. If only to teach them not to treat people with such disregard. They don't care about their passengers enough to straighten these issues out by the third ship. Not that just one little couple changes things; but us plus the thousands of others that are doing the same thing. It's just like voting, just one more can make a difference!

 

Those that complain often complain about the all American crew. Just what do you think you are going to get in the hotels in the American state of Hawaii? Also have you got the patience to pack, unpack and go through the hassels of airport check-in and out all the time? I'm with you, even if the ship itself isn't up to par it really doesn't matter to me that much since I will be running around the islands with my new bride everyday.

[tomluvsaida]

GEE, no wonder you cancelled the NCL trip.....DCL is more of "premium" cruise line than NCL would be. The Caribbean itineraries are just like all the others (Carnival, RCCL, NCL, etc...) but the BIG difference is the cost that DCL charges for their cabins. I cannot justify spending THAT much for a "floating hotel" in the Caribbean, because I could spend much less on another cruise line. As far as sailing to Hawaii is another story...I'll sail with whomever will give me the MOST time in the islands !!

 

Again, JMO.... :D

 

If you are just looking at the ships you may have a point, I don't know I've never been on either. However if you are comparing The Hawain Islands to the Carabean it's a joke! I've been to the Bahamas and Hawaii. To see anything in The Bahamas that comes even close to what you can find in Hawaii you will need a mask and snorkle!

[cruzfiend]

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, BUT - We are planning on doing the "Biking Down Haleakala" in Maui in the morning. Will they let you off the ship @ 3:00am?:confused:

[Audiocracy]

In the overnight ports (Maui and Kauai), you can come and go as you please. I'm sure you'll have no problem getting off the ship at 3AM.:)

[margaretmerrill]

Our room steward said they don`t get any money out of the gratuities. They just get a regular salary, according to him.

[tomluvsaida]

I couldn't agree more, and would add that the food was excellent (with the exception of the scalloped potatoes in Cagney's).

 

Since I did spend that time compiling the list of reviews, it isn't much trouble to re-post them. People seem to find the negative ones just fine;) , but it seems that these are often overlooked, so I'll post links to them here.

 

Silver Girl's review posted on the "Reviews" section of the Cruise Critic website:

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=19067

 

 

bobnsandi's Review: "Just Back from Pride of Hawai'i Inaugural"

Kapuna's Review: "Pride of Hawaii June 5-12, 2006 cruise"

The thread starts with:

"Just returned from her 1st island cruise . We expected service problems etc. but encountered absolutely none !

 

We tried 7 of the 10 restaurants and received excellent food and service in all ( well , the buffet needs a little fine tuning ) . The weather was perfect , so that views of the Na Pali coast and lava flow were spectacular .

 

Everything went so smoothly that we would have to rate it as one of the best cruises in years ."

 

Live From the Pride of Hawaii by kat28

LCI 598's review:POH's Wonderful Inaugural Voyage

zimmerjulie's Pride of Hawaii Review

Just Back from Pride of Hawaii June 5 by hollym and with reviews from others on this sailing

 

 

 

Eeyore, I hope you have a fantastic time in Hawaii! It sounds like you have a nice plan! I just wanted to reply to the quotes, as they do not reflect "all" or even "most" of the comments and reviews that I have seen on the board. So far I see 18 people who have given the ship great reviews here, using the words "Wonderful, outstanding, fabulous, fantastic, great" to describe the overall experience. Cityggal-Vacationbound, bobnsandi, zimmerjulie, Silver Girl, LCI 598, kat 28, RSM2354, D&J38, Shiraz, AndyP7, Kapuna, Mike Kaye, RuUp2It?, cruiser from MN, slk230red, slothandle, and JoeAndrew. I also got the impression that member Maeve 619 had a good trip. She gave a ton of info on the "Live from the Pride of Hawaii" thread.

 

There were 4 members whose opinions were mixed, "Good & Not so good"

loLa123, saydiver, jrozman, and stormy67

 

There were 5 that gave it bad to horrible ratings, "Save your Money, only good thing about this cruise was Hawaii itself", etc. Snowbrat, Ilovefuncruises, NCLcruiselover, Lynnie Sue, and hollym.

 

Did I miss anybody?

 

 

I hope you do have a great trip!!

 

WOW!!!! So the majority of the reviews really are good ones!!!! I'm glad you did that, I was about to go through and keep score so to speak as you did. It is interesting that 18 were good, 4 in the middle and only 5 were bad. It's interesting how those 5 seem to get blown out of proportion like they were the majority.

One more note to that, watch for repeat reviewers, a lot of the negative reviews come from the same people over and over again. To be fair though those that enjoyed the cruse also like to write more than once.

[sunshine 229]

My advice would be to read all the reviews good, bad and middling and look at what the posters are complaining about or raving about.

 

Everyone expects different things from a cruise and if the complaints are about things that seem petty to you then you needn't worry about them. Same for the good reviews. Are the reasons that those people liked the cruise things that are important to you.

 

Try to overlook generalizations like "the whole cruise stunk'" or " this was an awesome cruise" simply because they only tell you how that poster felt about what happened and you may not have the same take on it, at all.

 

Also, I'd tend to look for repeat comments. If 4 or 5 different people mention that service in such and such a restaurant was very poor or that the public areas were not well kept up for instance, I would take that as more of a trend or ongoing situation than a complaint mentioned by just one poster.

 

I am sure almost every ship sailing has at least one customer who was somehow unhappy about something that happened on the ship but if a given ship seems to be getting a higher number of negative reviews than most other ships, then I would suspect that there are definate problems on that ship. That doesn't mean that you couldn't go and still have a good time, it just might mean that the odds are less in favor of having a great experience on that particular ship.

 

Happy sailing!

[tomluvsaida]

My advice would be to read all the reviews good, bad and middling and look at what the posters are complaining about or raving about.

 

Everyone expects different things from a cruise and if the complaints are about things that seem petty to you then you needn't worry about them. Same for the good reviews. Are the reasons that those people liked the cruise things that are important to you.

 

Try to overlook generalizations like "the whole cruise stunk'" or " this was an awesome cruise" simply because they only tell you how that poster felt about what happened and you may not have the same take on it, at all.

 

Also, I'd tend to look for repeat comments. If 4 or 5 different people mention that service in such and such a restaurant was very poor or that the public areas were not well kept up for instance, I would take that as more of a trend or ongoing situation than a complaint mentioned by just one poster.

 

I am sure almost every ship sailing has at least one customer who was somehow unhappy about something that happened on the ship but if a given ship seems to be getting a higher number of negative reviews than most other ships, then I would suspect that there are definate problems on that ship. That doesn't mean that you couldn't go and still have a good time, it just might mean that the odds are less in favor of having a great experience on that particular ship.

 

Happy sailing!

 

Yes, I agree with you. Also where the food is concerned a comparison with well known restraurants would help. For example I've seen reviews that said Cagneys was fantastic as well as those that say it was awful. If they said it was comperable to Four Seasons, Marriott, Denny's or McDonalds I'd have a better picture of it.

[tomluvsaida]

I just looked at THe NCL Member Reviews on all three Pride Ships. I went by the number of the little blue ribbons they gave each ship. With a possable 5+ rating I figured anything less than 4 to be a negative review and above 4 to be positive. Here are the results:

POA - +86

-67

32 not rated

 

POAm - +111

-65

 

POH - +4

-6

From what I see here as well as the comments on the boards, these ships seem to get better with time. I just hope that POH is through their rookie phase by October 30th when we go on our honeymoon. The recent reviews that just got off POH seem to indicate they've already made it!:D

[thecruisers723]

One cycle that seems to repeat itself here is that people who are on these boards before they cruise on the POH tend to downgrade the opinions of and degrade the individuals that have something negative to say about the ship they're getting ready to sail on. But then, if after their cruise is over and they've experienced similiar problems on the ship with some regularity, then it becomes ok for them to express their negative experiences.

 

None of us went on the Pride of Hawaii hoping we'd come back with some negative stuff we could report on the boards. We too, hoped all the previous reviewers were all wrong and just miserable people in general to acknowledge these things and that our cruise experience would be different because we had positive attitudes and wouldn't acknowledge things to be problems. We'd just fix them and move on with a smile. But unfortunately, it wasn't only a couple of simple things. We experienced many things that never happened on other cruises we've been on. They weren't always as easy as making a simple request to have them addressed. And we simply came back and shared some of those experiences as well as the positive ones with others on this board.

 

Please understand that it isn't necessarily about a personality flaw someone has if they share a negative experience. It's just that it happened, we've been on these boards for months before and now after the cruise and are telling the truth about our opinion of this ship. We're not saying it was a bad vacation. It was far from it. We loved Hawaii. We even loved certain parts of the cruise. The beauty of the whole experience of seeing all the islands is etched in my mind and I talk about it to friends and family constantly because it was so much fun and there are so many good stories of our experiences there to share. There were just a several issues with the ship, and in an "fyi, it does needs improvement" sort of way, the problems with the ship were just shared with felow posters.

[sunshine 229]

Please understand that it isn't necessarily about a personality flaw someone has if they share a negative experience. It's just that it happened, we've been on these boards for months before and now after the cruise and are telling the truth about our opinion of this ship.

 

Thank you for saying that. Too often I've seen the phrase "A vacation is what you make it" used as a sort of put down of anyone who mentions any negative points about their cruise.

 

For me a dirty cabin , for instance, is a dirty cabin and no amount of good attitude is going to make it clean. Would I let it spoil my whole vacation? No, but I refuse to accept that I am somehow to blame for not being happy about an uncleaned cabin or bad service and I don't think refusing to mention those type of things in a review is doing anyone a favour.