We flew out of LAX July 29th for a 7 night cruise on the Pride of Aloha. Our flight was at 8:15 am and of course LAX was crowded. We did have some employees direct us on checking baggage etc. so after the initial confusion we were issued boarding passes and waiting for our flight. The flight was fine, flight attendants very good and we were served a decent breakfast.

On arriving in Honolulu we found the reps from Pride of Aloha who directed us on gathering luggage and what to do. They were quite helpful and loaded our baggage onto a separate truck. We boarded the bus which was to take us to the ship.We had a tour guide who was great although I don't remember his name. We were dropped off at the ship which was very festive looking.This was our first cruise so we had never seen a cruise ship before and were amazed at the size.

Embarkation was easy. It took about a half hour or so and was very organized. We got on the ship a bit after 1 so our room was not ready. We just hung out and I got a soda card for my daughter. It was like 55 or 58 dollars! I really did not want to get it because I thought it was too much money and I did not want my daughter to drink a lot of soda but I gave in anyways. It was not worth it at all so I don't recommend it. Plus, when you go into the ports you can buy soda and they let you bring it on the ship which is a lot cheaper. She really did not use the soda card much so we did not get our money's worth on that at all. After a while we were able to go up to our room. We had a balcony room on the 10th deck. This was one of the better rooms available. The rooms are quite small but were clean and I HIGHLY recommend the balcony if you can afford it. It enables you to have a great view of the ocean and more room since the rooms are so small. We had a small couch but ended up using that to put stuff on. There were hangers in the closet and a few drawers but we mostly stored our clothes in our suitcases which we left under the beds.We brought plastic trash bags from home which I put in the closet behind the dresser to store dirty clothes. Like I said, the cabins are small.Bathrooms are small with just a shower stall but it sufficed.I highly, highly recommend bringing a power strip since there is only 1 electrical outlet. This came in quite handy for cell phone chargers, hair curlers( a necessity for me!!) etc. Read more