PRECRUISE: We stayed at the Beachcomber on Waikiki. It was great. We visited the Dole Pineapple Planation - yum yum. Went to the beautiful Mormon Temple Visitor Center and saw the Christus statue. Then spent the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We bought the Ambassador Package online, which includes a guide, a luau and the night show. It was fantastic. We learned all about Fiji, Samoa, Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga and Marqeusas by visiting their little villages and participating in their shows. The Canoe Pageant was really fun to watch, as was the nightly polynesian dancing show. The luau food was good also, but the atmosphere was more like a huge cafeteria meal, then a luau. Now on to the cruiseship!
Embarkation was a breeze.
This was our 11th cruise. We love cruising. There were five adults, three inside cabins. We were bumped over to NCL's Pride of America from NCL's Aloha, when they repositioned that ship to the Caribbean. We were booked on the main deck on Aloha, but ended up on the bottom deck on the Pride of America. They did compensate us with a $200 per cabin shipboard credit. Although a little smaller than other ship cabins, ours was clean and decorated tropical. We had plenty of room for storage. We usually avoid the bottom deck, but didn't really have a choice in this situation. It vibrated loudly from about midnight to 3 am, like maybe the laundry room was under us. There was also a metal on metal scraping noise during the night, but we just put in earplugs and slept good. The beds felt great.
Although a little smaller than other ship cabins, ours was clean and decorated tropical. We had plenty of room for storage. However, Deck 4 is noisy.