Having cruised numerous time, we were looking forward to our Hawaiian cruise (in spite of the fact that it was much more expensive than our prior cruises. This was our first Norwegian cruise and will definitely be our last. We booked a cabin on the port side with a balcony so we could see the much advertised lava flow (more on that later). Well it seems that our cabin was located directly below the pool deck and every morning between 6:00 and 6:30 we would be rudely awakened by the banging caused by the deck lounges being banged down for the day.

Service? What service? Dinner service was totally lacking. I almost seemed like the staff had never been taught to serve. The bars told us that they could not make drinks that were listed on the bar menu. We went to 3 different bars to get a frozen Bahama Mama (which was on the bar menu's frozen drink list). At each one we were told that they could not make it. Finally gave up and had a beer. The food was okay, but nothing to write home about.

One afternoon when we planned to go to a special event in the evening we decided to go back to our room to grab a nap. We were awakened by a strong paint smell in the cabin. My wife went to the guest relations desk to report this. The person at the desk made a call and found out that yes they had been painting. The desk person simply said " Just open your balcony door.". Not even I"m sorry. Read more