It has been 30 years since we'd been to Hawaii for our honeymoon. In that span of time we have taken many cruises in different parts of the world and felt that a cruise would be a great way to see the islands this time around. NCL's Pride of America, it turns out, was the ONLY choice of cruise ship that starts and ends in Hawaii. The ship itself has an interesting origin. I'm not going to go through it's whole history but it is a good Wikipedia read. As a result, the Pride of America is a one-off design with an American registry and a mostly American crew that is allowed to sail among the islands without having to go out of it's way to touch another country sometime during its itinerary like all other cruise ships are required to do. While unique it also presents some things we hadn't experienced in cruising before.

One of the things that was always a good waste of time on other cruises was a casino. Since there is no gambling in Hawaii, there is no gambling on the ship. Even bingo games couldn't be played for cash prizes. Also, while the ship is required to have a mostly American crew, that probably isn't something to be proud of. Watching a bunch of 20 somethings drag around obviously board with picking up after people or rolling their eyes when an old codger isn't getting out of their way fast enough or complain out loud to one another how they cant wait for their shift to end, I could have gotten any of that at home. One of the nice things that probably goes unnoticed on ships with mostly foreign service staff is that if any of that stuff is going on, it's usually very quiet and in another language so you don't have to be burdened with hearing staff complaints while on vacation.

We ponied up for a balcony room starboard side, aft since we figured there would always be something to see and weren't disappointed. Walking around I noticed a lot of engine room noise mid-ship so I think we made a good choice. I don't think our room was any smaller/larger than other ships we've been on so it's safe to say it was tight though not unexpectedly so. I have always found the size of the shower on these ships an interesting choice. I'm six foot, 240 pounds and what I would consider a typical, somewhat overstuffed american tourist and I found myself just barely able to move around in the shower. There were MANY people much, shall we say, larger than myself on this trip. I couldn't help but wonder how they cope. Read more