My husband and I discovered Cruise Critic after we had already booked our 8/16 PofA cruise, so maybe that's why we were skeptical of some of the more negative reviews. Honestly, though, we thought it was a little silly that people were in Hawaii and all they could do was complain about niggling details. Then we cruised the PofA.

We were not expecting much of the ship on this vacation. We knew that the islands would be the stars of the show - and they were - but we were also expecting the ship to meet the minimums of service we would expect from a mid-class hotel and restaurant. And to be fair, there were bright spots in our experience. The service and food at The Bistro were extraordinary. The staff on the 13th deck at the Waikiki Bar and the Oasis Pool were top-notch, and genuinely went out of their way to try to give us the best experience possible (even going so far as to address some of our concerns more directly than customer service did.) And the ports... well, there's not a bad thing I could say. The itinerary is beautiful and varied, exciting and relaxing.

But the list of disappointments seemed never-ending. The NCL staff at the Marriott Waikiki were misinformed and impolite, our room was never sufficiently clean (think moldy plates that were not removed until we actually placed them IN the trash can), we had to ask for fresh towels EVERY SINGLE day and they were not always produced promptly (one night we had to place 3 phonecalls and got towels 3 1/2 hours later - after midnight). Food was rarely better - after one waitress left dirty appetizer plates on our table through our entire entrEe (and walked past the table chatting with friends a number of times), my husband politely asked her to remove the dirty dishes. Her response was a sarcastic, "Of course I'll remove the plates, SIR" while banging the plates loudly together and staring at him. When we went to Lazy J's, supposedly one of the premier restaurants on the ship, we were left waiting (with reservations) for 30 minutes, only to enter an empty dining room. There must have been 10 empty two-tops. On the same night, friends of ours were left waiting an entire hour before the maitre de admitted to forgetting about them. Then, my husband was served tuna carpaccio on a dirty plate. The response of the manager: "I can't help what comes out of the dishwasher." Read more