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After travelling for 22 hours to get to Hawaii, we stayed overnight at the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel before venturing to the ship. There we waited in line in the heat with our luggage for over an hour. Once inside the terminal, there were lines again to deposit luggage and then again to get to the registration desk. This seemed excessive, however sleep deprivation and jet lag made it seem worse.
Once on the ship, we had a 2:30 lunch in the Aloha Cafe and immediately felt better. The food was very good with a lot of variety.
Our cabin was ready and we were even a little early for the muster drill. It was surprising that we did not have to take our life jackets and it was very surprising to see the casual attitude of many of the passengers (late, chatting, carrying drinks) None of this was corrected by the crew. Our cabin was smaller than I have experienced on any other ship, but large enough for our clothing and luggage storage. It was clean and well maintained. We only ever saw our cabin steward once in the 7 days.
The ship itself is organized like almost any other ship. It was casual and comfortable with numerous activities going on throughout the day.
All of our excursions were booked online with NCL and were excellent.
Entertainment in Pinks was very good, but the theatre shows were typically fair. The crew's talent show was very good.
Dining freestyle in either of the 2 main dining rooms was very good with very little waiting time, especially when we asked to share a table. The food was never great, mostly satisfactory. On one occasion it was over an hour and a half before our food came. Not a very happy table that night! This was the biggest difference from other cruise lines where the food was always excellent.
One concern was with a Shore Excursion attendant. He made some innapropriate comments about our post cruise excursion with another company. This was done through our travel agent and we mistakenly assumed it was through the ship.We asked advice about disembarkation times and he was very flippant, almost rude.
Disembarkation was very easy. Then we were off to Pearl Harbor and a city tour before we were dropped off at the Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel for 4 more days of touring. It was a wonderful trip to Hawaii overall, just a few disappointments while on board the ship.
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