I (30+) traveled with my mother (60+) to Hawaii a few years ago and we only saw Oahu and decided to return in order to see more of the islands. We decided to cruise with the Pride of Aloha in March 08 which would also give us the opportunity to do some whale watching. We booked with our travel agent locally in New Zealand and it was a very quick and simple process. We have cruised twice with Disney before and decided that an inside stateroom would be ok as on previous cruises have spent little time in our cabins. We booked our hotels, transfers and shore excursions independently. We knew that the ship has had very mixed reviews so we went into it thinking of it as a simply an easy way to see the island with meals included and determined to make the most of it. For the night before boarding, we stayed at the Aqua Palms & Spa and for the two nights after we stayed at the Aqua Equus which were both nice mid-range hotels and both booked directly via the Aqua website. All our shore excursions we booked via Roberts on the internet a couple of months prior to departure. We highly recommend them, their prices are excellent and we thought they provided excellent value for money. Once we arrived at the port around 12pm (we just used a shuttle the hotel arranged) we checked in and made our way to the buffet. We didn't visit any other food location on the ship as we found the buffet in most cases provided enough of a selection to keep us happy. The food wasn't fabulous but it was ok. The only fault I could see was that at times the labeling was non-existent, wrong, in the wrong place or simply not there. It meant you had to guess at what was in the dishes. The other problem was that queues often backed up at areas of the buffet so if you weren't interested in that section, you would have to jump the queue to get what you wanted. Breakfast was very repetitive and by the last two days, I really didn't fancy any of the selections. As for entertainment, most of it wasn't to our taste but we did see the comedian Bill Hildebrandt and the magician Matt Marcy who were very good and we enjoyed both their shows. We found the staff on the PoAL to be very personable and friendly. They would often make a point of saying "Aloha" or "Hi" and if you looked like you needed something, they'd get it for you. We didn't hit one single rude or surly staff member as reported in some other reviews. Our stateroom was always cleaned and turned down promptly, we did have a problem with the light in the bathroom not working and it seemed to be more than just a bulb needing to be replaced so it took a couple of days to get that fixed properly. In terms of the public areas, a couple of times, I wanted to find a nice spot to sit and read my book, the deckchairs by the pool were extremely uncomfortable for sitting and reading and also out by the pool was usually crowded and noisy. Often indoor areas were too cool to sit comfortably for any period of time, I often ended up putting on jeans and a sweatshirt just so I could find somewhere to sit and read other than the stateroom. Other people also commented on the chilliness of a number of the areas on the ship. I think if we sailed with NCL again, we'd probably get a stateroom with a balcony as we found we had a lot more down time than we have had on our previous Disney cruises. In summary... 1) book with Roberts or other independent tour operators as the cruise ship prices are a rip off for virtually the same thing 2) don't expect to be "wowed", it is nothing near a luxury cruise in any area 3) see as much of the islands as you can, they are wonderful!