I am surprised to see so many negative reviews of this ship and cruise. My niece and I did this cruise in July of this year and had a wonderful time. I will begin by saying that I have not been a frequent cruiser. In fact, this was my first time on a large cruise ship since the 90's! This was also my first trip to Hawaii. This cruise seemed like a great way to see the four major islands in a short period of time and that it was. Check in was relatively quick and painless. We were on board in about 45 minutes. Once on board, we enjoyed lunch in the Skyline Dining Room, then a bit later went on a guided tour of the ship, which proved helpful. We were in an inside cabin on deck 9. Most of the other decks got the announcement that their cabins were ready. We finally decided we would head for deck 9 anyway and found our cabin was ready after all. We soon tracked down our bags and were ready to cruise. Our cabin (9537) was small but well designed with plenty of storage for two people. The single beds were pushed together to begin with but we got them separated that evening while we were at dinner. We were only in our room to sleep and change so we did not need a lot of space. The bathroom was small but functional

I found the ship to be clean and attractive. They were in the process of redecorating and changed out what looked like practically new carpet in the hallways during the week we cruised. I had heard the crew was unfriendly but we were constantly greeted with "Alohas" as we made our way around the ship. We also found the food to be very good. We usually had breakfast in Moderno, behind the main buffet area, and enjoyed having a little more peaceful experience there. We had dinner every night but one in either the Liberty or Skyline. Both offer the same menu but Liberty has a bit stricter dress code and a slower pace of service. My niece really enjoyed the chocolate lava cake, which was offered every night for dessert. On the last night, we had some ship credit to use so we ate in the Italian specialty restaurant. It was good but by that point in the week we were pretty much sated! We had a couple of lunches in the Skyline restaurant, a couple in the buffet, and one at the poolside buffet (hamburgers and hot dogs only).

I did not arrange any shore excursions through the cruise line; I made my own arrangements. We did a couple of excursions with Roberts Hawaii - the Rainbow Falls/Volcanoes Natl Park tour on the big island and the Waimea Canyon tour on Kauai. On Maui, I rented a car the first day and we drove to Lahaina. On the second day, we did the Haleakala bike tour which picked up across from the port at the mall. In Kona, we tendered in and did an AVA 10k walk (Hot hot hot but beautiful). We also did a kayak excursion to the "Secret Falls" on Kauai. We caught a taxi from the port up to the river where this begins. I was pleased with all the tours we took. We learned a lot and saw a lot. I think If I go back though I will probably rent cars in each port and do my own exploring. Read more