Pride of Hawaii - Experience

[New KAJO]

Hi there,

 

We are considering of booking a cruise on the Pride of Hawaii.

 

However, when reading the reviews, we are confused. Lots of people seem to complain about the service, the crew,...

 

Would your recommend this ship or is it a bad idea.

 

Some info on us : we are from Europe and we cruised on Disney, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity before.

 

Thanks for your advice,

 

Kajo

[lynnemac]

It's a floating hotel. All of the NCLA Hawaii ships are. It is not a ship for the cruising experience but strictly for getting from point A to point B around the islands. It is not fair to compare it to regular cruises or to NCL for that matter.

 

The average person probably spends all day on shore, might come back for dinner and a show and go to bed as the next morning it's up early to go ashore.

 

If you look at some of the dailies, use the search feature, you will see that onboard activities, especially during the day, are quite limited.

 

Do not get me wrong, she is a beautiful ship, perhaps too beautiful to be trapped on this itenerary.

 

Hope that helped,

 

Mac:) :) :)

[kamigirl]

I don't have personal experience with the ship, but my parents just took the 3/12 sailing and can confirm the overall lack of service. They said that the crew was very lackadaisical and that there were plenty of people onboard complaining of the substandard service.

 

They did say that the specialty restaurants were amazing and that the servers in those restaurants were great. I've had similar experiences on the NCL Star - the regular dining was not great (in my opinion), but the specialty restaurants were fabulous.

 

It's all really based on your personal expectations, but from what I understand the NCL Hawaii ships level of customer service, etc. is not up to the standards of other cruise lines and shouldn't reflect on the rest of the NCL brand.

[cococruise]

I was on the POH in July. I loved the ship. Although, the service was not at the same level as the international staff. I would still recommend to see Hawaii by ship. I have been there three times (once by ship) and that was the best experience. I would recommend getting on board asap and booking your dinner reservations popular time slots go fast.

[beachchick]

I wrote an extensive review about our PoH cruise last December. Here's the link if you're interested:

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=476505&highlight=parts

 

beachchick

[cruisepal48]

:)

Hi there,

 

We are considering of booking a cruise on the Pride of Hawaii.

 

However, when reading the reviews, we are confused. Lots of people seem to complain about the service, the crew,...

 

Would your recommend this ship or is it a bad idea.

 

Some info on us : we are from Europe and we cruised on Disney, Royal Caribbean and Celebrity before.

 

Thanks for your advice,

 

Kajo

Hi KAjO,

 

I don't know how to post a link to my POH review but you can click on my name and search my posts about my POH trip. I loved it. and have wonderful things to say about the crew.:)

[Twice-a-year]

:)

Hi KAjO,

 

I don't know how to post a link to my POH review but you can click on my name and search my posts about my POH trip. I loved it. and have wonderful things to say about the crew.:)

 

Hello,

When you were on the Pride of Hawaii, did you cruise the Napali coast and view the volcano by the sea at night?

I am just not quite sure if I should book the Pride of Aloha or the Pride of Hawaii, I really want to view the volcano from the balcony room.

Thanks

[cruisepal48]

Hello,

 

When you were on the Pride of Hawaii, did you cruise the Napali coast and view the volcano by the sea at night?

 

I am just not quite sure if I should book the Pride of Aloha or the Pride of Hawaii, I really want to view the volcano from the balcony room.

 

Thanks

 

Yes to both. If you want to see the Na Pali coast from your balcony book a port side balcony. I had starboard and had to go up on deck. The volcano was spectacular from our balcony. we saw it 1st then the ship turned around for the other side. The volcano started fairly late about 9PM the Na Pali coast was about 4 or 5 PM both were fantastic.

[thunderfox]

DO as much reading here on Cruise Critic to get your expectations in check - and even then, know that the Pride ships are essentially floating hotels - not the Ritz... more like a Holiday Inn. :rolleyes:

 

Do not *expect* full ice buckets, towel animals, chocolates on your pillow or quick responses to general requests. If you get them (and many do) consider it a happy bonus. But don't expect them.

 

Get a good handle on "Freestyle"... it means you don't *have* to eat at a set sitting, set table, set menu every night. It *does* require that you plan ahead a day in advance as to what time and where you want to eat.

 

Don't expect much in the way of entertainment on the ship - it's there, but it's mediocre, really. It's best to come back exhausted so you're too tired to bother with it anyway. :)

 

I posted our Freestyle Dailies - check them out for a better idea of how a typical day/night on POH goes: http://www.pitchforkprincess/poh

 

Good luck with your decision!

[beachchick]

Hello,

 

When you were on the Pride of Hawaii, did you cruise the Napali coast and view the volcano by the sea at night?

 

I am just not quite sure if I should book the Pride of Aloha or the Pride of Hawaii, I really want to view the volcano from the balcony room.

 

Thanks

 

Both ships do the volcano/lava evening cruise and the Na Pali coast afternoon cruise, so that doesn't need to be a consideration. (At least, they were both doing it. I think they both still are. And I know PoH is.) Portside is the place to be for the Na Pali cruise. For the lava on PoH, the captain turns the ship, so both sides see it. Starboard side is first (we went up on deck for that part) and then port (we dashed up to our suite for that part). So very, very nice to view the Na Pali coast from the privacy of our own balcony.

 

We loved the PoH. She's brand new and the crew was, on the whole, excellent. The food was mostly "fare ordinaire" (DH's words) with a few horrid and several excellent items. The layout of the ship is good. The pool deck is very nice. The clubs and theater are fine. Could not agree more with thunderfox that the evening entertainment was marginal at best. I guess they figure that pax are going to be so tired from being in port all day that nightlife isn't a huge issue. There was dancing every night in various venues. Honestly, late evening was pretty quiet. The colors can be a bit jarring in some of the venues--and a little too "cute" in part of the Spinnaker, where one side area has these curved and curled gold velvet "fainting" lounges, chairs shaped like anemones (sp?), and overkill of the whole under the sea Little Mermaid thing--but hey, lots of pax loved it. We had fantastic service for our suite, but I certainly understand that may not be typical. However, when pax use the "wheel of questions" outside the door, they seem to get better service. (You turn the wheel to what you want: Welcome, Do Not Disturb, Make up Cabin, and Turndown Cabin. I heard several people complain that their steward didn't "assume" they'd want turndown--even though their wheel was turned to "Do Not Disturb." Um, that doesn't make much sense to me.)

 

We've not been on PoAl, so I have no first-hand knowledge. Many have come back with good reviews; others haven't been so happy.

 

Read, read, read reviews both here and on the review forum. And please do read my mind-numbingly long review. I'm not "tooting my own horn" here, but I really did try to include all the good and not so good that we experienced.

 

Would we do it again? Yes, if the price was good. We had gotten a great fare and then upsold for an absolute steal to the Courtyard Villa. (We paid less for the villa then the original price we booked for a balcony guarantee. We were incredibly lucky with timing--it was 2 weeks before Christmas and I guess everyone wanted to be out shopping.) Would we want to do the courtyard? Oh yeah, baby, would we ever! Is it realistic to expect that? Probably not. Would we be okay in a mini-suite or balcony? You betcha.

 

beachchick