This was our first cruise around the Hawaiian Islands for my daughter and girl friend, now fiance. After reading some of the reviews, we were a bit nervous, though the July reviews were very positive. We booked directly with NCL a week before embarkation and except for the NCL's Premium Air airline experience, (long, long on-holds), the rest of it was straight forward. The least expensive cabins were ones with ocean views on Deck 4 with room for 4. So we booked that. Then a couple of days later, we received a pleasant surprise - we were upgraded to Deck 10 with a room for 3 with balcony. We would highly recommend Deck 10 with balcony with an overhang, which when you're in the tropics, provides welcomed shade!
The embarkation went smoothly and we were on board by lunch time. Since our cabin wasn't ready, we went to the Aloha restaurant, where they have several food stations, (I think that was their Free Style food service). It worked great for us since there weren't any lines of folks waiting to get a particular dish. In fact, we ate the majority of our breakfast and lunches on that top deck restaurant. There is an outdoor portion to the Aloha though it may go under a different name.
This is a child intensive ship! By that we mean that kids of all ages from infants to preteens to teens could be seen everywhere. If you look at the pricing on NCL's Hawaii cruises you will see why. These kids were obviously having the time of their lives and it definitely added to the liveliness of the ship, especially on the pool deck, but also on the stairs. (Young people like to run the stairs as they seek to beat out their parents who wisely take the elevators.) There didn't seem to be any yelling and screaming by the children. There was a lot of happiness in their faces.