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Norwegian Cruise Line

MV Pride of Aloha

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Reviewed by: Kathy (KansasK) Rutter
# previous cruises: 4
Date of Trip: July 24, 2005
Itinerary: Hawaii

We enjoyed our cruise on the Pride of Aloha and would recommend this ship if you enjoy a more casual cruise experience. When we boarded the ship, crew members were there to greet us and help us find our cabin. Each level of the ship had crew stationed in strategic locations to provide directions, answer questions, etc. We found the crew to be helpful and polite throughout our cruise. We had NCL make our air and hotel reservations. We stayed one night at the Marriott Waikiki Hotel, which we enjoyed, and we were able to pre-register at the NCL desk at the hotel. They took us to the ship the next day about 1:00 p.m., and brought us to the security check-in through an adjacent door and we did not wait in the long line waiting to register that snaked through the terminal and then outside. We then went to a specific line for Marriott guests after that and checked in easily and quickly were boarding the ship. We think it took about 15 minutes at the pier. This could not have been better. The formal night on this cruise was called "optional" and people were less formal than I have seen on other cruises. However, many people did get dressed up and looked very nice. There were just fewer long dresses and dressier dresses, and fewer tuxes. This was a more casual cruise. At Kauai and Maui the ship docked overnight so as to have more time on these islands, but there is less time at sea.

The ship is decorated in a Hawaiian theme. I thought the Atrium was attractive and very Hawaiian. We liked stopping at the Atrium Bar on the 7th deck on our way to our cabin on deck 8 after excursions or shopping. We sat in chairs looking out on the ship and the sea. We liked the Plantation Bar on deck-12. It is decorated in a more subdued style, the wood is beautiful, and pictures show Hawaiian plantations. Often there would be an entertainer singing - one night it was jazz and another night it was country. The view is lovely, too. The Blue Hawaii Bar is large and is the most over the top in color and style on the ship. This bar hosts entertainment most nights.

There was no casino, but there was a Cultural Center on deck 6 in its place. This Center is worth visiting. I went several times and looked at different displays each time. There is a walk around promenade on deck 6. You can also walk around the entire deck on 11 and 12. There are two pools on deck 11, with 4 hot tubs slightly elevated between them. There is a stage on this deck and very often there is live music - much more so than other cruises I have been on. One interesting decorating idea is in the cabin hallways. The carpeting has a fish theme and the fish swim toward the bow. I think this was helpful to people when turning into the hallways to go to their rooms, especially on port days, when the ship is not moving. Go ahead and laugh all of you with a good sense of direction! : - )

The first night on the ship, there was a barbecue on deck 11. There was a good variety of barbecued food and a wide selection of side dishes and desserts. This was a casual meal and people shared tables. There was music and this was an enjoyable option on the first night when everyone did not have their luggage in their cabins yet. Some passengers even were still arriving. The ship sailed at 8:00 p.m. They also had a barbecue lunch on Tuesday, when we sailed from Kauai at 1:00 p.m., and a barbecue dinner on the last night. The barbecues were very popular. There was an area on the pool deck where the barbecue grills were . it must have been very hot work while barbecuing for so many people. The area was sectioned off so no one could be accidentally close to a hot grill.

The second night was the formal night. We got in line for pictures and then went to dinner. The photographers were near the Palace Restaurant at midship and this restaurant was already backed up with people waiting. The Pride of Aloha has Freesytle dining, so if everyone arrives at one time, you wait for a table. We walked to the Crossings Restaurant at the back on the ship and were seated easily. This restaurant was my favorite with windows on three sides. When we told the hostess that we were a table for two, she asked if we would share a table. We said Yes and she said .Really?!!. in a very shocked and happy tone. When we were seated, our waiter told us that they would wait for 20 minutes for someone else to be assigned to our table and then close the table. He brought bread for us and we looked at the menu and the time passed quickly. We ended up dining alone that night, and every night, and while we enjoy meeting people, this was fine with us, too. There are 3 main course choices each evening that change daily, and there are 4 additional choices that stay the same and are available each night. I don't think the food would be judged as gourmet but it was good and was presented well. They had interesting vegetables . one was volcano blue potatoes. This turned out to be purple sweet potatoes!

We ate in the dining rooms on four of the evenings. The first night, when we left, we found about 50 people outside the restaurant waiting for a table. The other nights, though, no one was waiting. I think people adjusted the time they would eat to be earlier or later, or went to the specialty restaurants, or ate in the Hukilau Cafi on the 11th deck. The service was fine the first night, very slow the second night, and good on the third and fourth nights we ate in the dining rooms. The second night, our waiter did not have an assistant waiter, and he was gone from sight while getting wine to present at a table, and when getting orders from the bar, or just gone. This waiter was clearly overworked without an assistant. He lost part of our order and this was our worst dining experience. The other nights were pleasant dining experiences with good waiters and assistant waiters. We feel that these waiters seemed well trained and provided good service. Occasionally, there might be a longer wait between courses, but mostly we just relaxed and enjoyed our meal as it came. I saw a recent review online in which one passenger said the food was so bad he spent $600.00 eating on shore. This was not our experience at all. We would have liked to have shared a table with someone. We both agreed at the end of the cruise, that though it is nice to go to dinner when most convenient, probably assigned seating would be better for us

The Hukulau Cafi is a buffet and is very popular for breakfast and lunch. The entrance on the port side can be a real bottleneck at crowded times. The crew works hard to clear tables, carry trays as needed, provide coffee refills and keep food available on the buffet. There is not enough seating for all who come when everyone is on the ship, but the ship has a covered outdoor extension of this cafi, the Lanai Cafi on the stern, which helps, and they opened the Longbranch Bar to let the diners overflow into the bar and use the tables there. People also ate at tables around the pool.

We had an inside cabin near the bow of the ship. The cabins on the ship have been described as small, and we think so, too. With the twin beds pushed together, there was just barely enough room for the two night stands. There was no queen size duvet for the bed when it was pushed together. They were out of them. The cabin steward explained this and just made the bed with the two separate ones. This was not a big deal for us - we managed. The closet had enough hangers for two people, but this would not be enough for four people. There is a refrigerator under the desk, and there would have been drawers here if there were no refrigerator. There are four drawers in the closet under the safe, and the two night stands have an open shelf and a cubby to put things in. A few more drawers would have been nice, but we did like the refrigerator. The refrigerator was empty and clean. NCL lets passengers bring water and soft drinks onto the ship and the refrigerator was good to have. Once we got used to the size, the cabin seemed a normal size. This cabin was decorated in a Hawaiian theme, but was rather plain. Our free time we spent elsewhere, so it did not much matter.

The bathroom was small with open storage along the mirror. The shower was round in shape and would fit most people. There would be a limit, though, on who can fit comfortably in the shower. The shower curtain is probably my biggest complaint. It was way too long and hung on the floor of the shower. As a result, the white shower curtain has light tan mold on it about 3 or so inches up from the bottom. The room steward would pick up the shower curtain and hook it over the shower bar to get it off the shower floor, but they must have started this too late. I think NCL should replace these - it makes a bad impression. I've read other reviews with comments on the shower curtain, so might be ship wide. Otherwise, the cabin steward kept the room clean. He had just been on the ship for 3 weeks. The room was quiet. We were way to the front of the ship, so less people passed our room, and our neighbors were quiet.

One odd occurrence on the cruise was that we completely lost water pressure the first night out sometime after 11:30 p.m. It was not restored until about 7:00 or so in the morning. The stern of the ship had water during that time . the bow did not. The second night this happened again, but this time was restored by 5:00 a.m. or so. After that, no more incidents of this type that we knew about, anyway.

We attended the show on the first night. It was a performance by Hawaiian dancers showing the history of dance in the South Pacific, highlighting different islands. The girls wore varying hula costumes and the dances had beautiful hand movements and graceful, nonstop hip movement. The dancing was interesting and impressive. I did not attend any other of the shows in the theatre. We found other things to do. Often, there would be entertainment in the bars that we stopped in, and music from the stage on the 11th deck. I enjoyed all the entertainment. As I mentioned before, I feel the cruise staff worked hard and were courteous and helpful. Both my husband and I felt our cabin attendant had more rooms to clean than on our previous cruises, but he did a good enough job for us, though. The cruise director was typically upbeat and enthusiastic.

We arrived in Honolulu and spent one day there. We passed the Pride of America docked while on the way to the hotel. It looked bigger than our ship and impressive docked at the pier. We spent time walking on the beach and walking around the area we were in. At the ship's first stop, Nawiliwili, Kauai, my husband went to dive and said the sea was rough, but he enjoyed the dives and saw a lot of turtles. I took an excursion called Hollywood in Hawaii and the tour bus had a TV screen and showed segments of movies made in Hawaii and we would match up the movie location to what we saw. This tour took us all over the island and I saw lots of scenery along the coast including several waterfalls.. Our second day in Kauai, we took a helicopter tour of the island. This was definitely worth the money. It was an awesome trip and seemed like a huge IMAX experience over the Waimea Canyon. We enjoyed it very much. The ship sailed along the Na Pali coast of this island and came in close when we passed the Waimea Canyon. It was beautiful.

At Hilo, Hawaii, we did a volcano hike. We hiked along the rim and then down 400 feet and across the Kilauea Iki crater that had erupted in 1959 for two weeks. It had been 800 feet deep before the eruption. This was an interesting hike. We ate lunch in the middle of the crater. Our guide was very good and I learned lots about volcanoes. It was a hard hike in that the ground is uneven and the climb down and back out of the crater is challenging. We visited the National Volcano Museum that overlooks the Kilauea Caldera, that our crater is in. The Kilauea crater erupted for two days two years ago and covered the road we were driving on. This lava was very black alongside the road. That night the ship stopped at the point where the new lava from the Pu'u O'o volcano reaches the ocean. We could see the lava burning at the water's edge and see the steam rising. On the hillside, we could see the lava flowing down the hillside under the surface lava in places where the surface lava had collapsed. The ship turned around in place so everyone could see this. This was a memorable night.

The next day at Kona, Hawaii, my husband took surfing lessons, I shopped, and then we rode the Atlantis Submarine. The submarine is interesting in itself. We saw fish and coral, but the coral is more colorful in the Caribbean. At Kona, we tendered to and from the ship.

At Maui, we took another helicopter ride and again found the trip to be a wonderful way to see the island. We shopped for part of the day, and then went on a Luau that evening. There were 12 tour busses that took us to the Maui Prince hotel where tables were set up on a grassy area leading to the coast. It was a pretty setting. They roasted a pig underground and digging it up was part of the show. There were many food lines set up with wonderful food to try. There were dessert tables and free drinks all night. When it got dark, torches were lit and the performance began. It was enjoyable and a beautiful evening outside. It was fairly organized getting us all back on buses and the ship's security check for so many people moved quickly because no one had any bags other than purses to be searched.

On our last day, we went on a snorkeling excursion to the Molokini Crater. There were about 100 people on the snorkeling boat. The ocean had white caps and the wind was quite strong and they said that the water in the crater would be too rough for snorkeling. If you do this excursion, go in the morning. They finally moored in a protected bay and we did get to snorkel. People were disappointed because the Molokini Crater is a much better location and would have had turtles and more fish. At least we got in the water.

We did not need the babysitting option. My husband used the health club and found it to be more than adequate. He had a wonderful view for working out.

There were a number of large adult groups and lots of families with children, so there were people of all ages. This cruise had more elderly people than the other cruises I have been on and the happier ones among them added to the cruise.