Pride of America Review
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Recently my partner and I had the good fortune to cruise on the Pride of America. We had always had a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands on our list but had no idea as to when this may happen. As things turned out Jetstar, an Australian low cost carrier announced it was opening a route from Brisbane to Honolulu with some very good opening specials. So we booked our flights and looked into the cruise. NCL’s Pride of America being American flagged is the only ship that does a cruise exclusively around the Hawaiian Islands on a 7 day voyage beginning and ending in Honolulu. The price seemed reasonable so we booked our cruise. This left us 9 days at the end of our cruise to do something else in the Hawaiian Islands.
Our original thought being that we would do the cruise and then book ourselves into a resort our something in Maui or the Big Island for a week or so and then just a few days in Oahu as we have previously stayed in Oahu. The more and more we looked into this option the more and more we realised how expensive the Hawaiian Islands really are. By the time you factored in internal air fares, accommodation, meals etc etc it is not cheap by any measure. In a moment of silliness I suggested to my partner we do back to back cruises. This suggestion was originally laughed off but the more and more we looked into the alternatives, the more and more realistic it became. After several months of tooing and throwing, we eventually went with the back to back option.
In effect it gave us 4 days in Maui, 4 days on Hawaii (the Big Island) and 4 days on Kauai, and a total of 4 days in Honolulu comprising of one day prior, 1 day transfer between cruises and 2 days post cruises. It quite literally ticked all the boxes. Unfortunately due to time difference between making both bookings we could not get the same cabin for both cruises. This was a bit of problem in that we had to pack up all our belongings at the end of the first cruise and move house so to speak. The crew however were very helpful in that they stored our bags in the guest services office and we collected them from there on our return to ship with our pre arranged express boarding process. This in effect gave us immediate access to our new cabin with no waiting for bags etc..