This is a review of Norwegian Cruiseline's (NCL) Pride of America (PoA) for the cruise departing from Honolulu on January 27th, 2007. To summarize, the cruise was mostly a frustrating and underwhelming experience with a few things done adequately, a very few things done well, and a great many things done poorly or indifferently by NCL. Although I would not recommend this cruise to anyone, much of this bias stems from losing two full days in port due to alleged bad weather issues that delayed docking in Maui by over twelve hours and dropped Kona from the itinerary altogether. Had this not occurred, I am sure my review would be a touch more charitable than it is. Nonetheless, I cannot imagine recommending PoA to others or returning on PoA even if the planned itinerary would have gone as scheduled.

As a bit of background this was cruise number four, others having been with Carnival and Celebrity in the Caribbean and first with NCL. We were well aware of the mediocre reviews others have given PoA before booking and took the attitude that we would keep our expectations low and spend most of our time in port anyway, as this was to be a very port-intensive cruise with no scheduled days at sea. Unfortunately, this was not to be as missing two days ashore for two impromptu days made the ship, and its shortcomings, that much harder to ignore.

Pre-stay: We stayed one night at the Palms Aqua in Western Waikiki; it was fine for the money and had an OK location that was a manageable walk to the beach, shopping and restaurants. There are definitely better located hotels in Waikiki but the Aqua is a relatively good value and the staff was friendly and accommodating. It was a surprisingly expensive 22 dollar cab ride to the pier even though it wasn't very far. Cabs are extremely expensive in Hawaii, well beyond any sort of jump over the mainland that could be justified by their high gas prices. Read more