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Personal Background Information - My husband has been wanting to take me to Hawaii for several years. After a lot of research, including many reviews here that complained about the POA, we decided to fly to Honolulu to take the cruise which departed on our 17th anniversary.
Travel To Port of Embarkation - The flight was very long and I got a pulled muscle as a result of sitting for almost 9 hours. I would recommend first class seats, if possible.
Embarkation - We went from the flight directly to the ship, which I think was a mistake. We wish we would have had time to adjust before the cruise. The embarkation process seemed very disorganized to us and signs that were not correctly directing you.
Stateroom - Our balcony stateroom was very small. The shower is ridiculously small. I usually love to sit on the balcony, but on this cruise the people next door were constantly on their balcony smoking and the smoke went directly toward us. It was nauseating and we couldn't sit on the balcony very much at all. Also, our cabin had: a broken table, a sliding glass door to the balcony that was extremely hard to open, a stained cover on the hideabed and blood on our sheet (not from us).
Ship Info - The ship was really beautiful. It took a couple days to see everything.
Dining - We would have liked to eat at the Aloha Buffet more often, but they always had wild music playing and people running around like ants on a candy bar. The people were very rude. The food was about a 7 on a 10 point scale. Once when we arrived 15 minutes early (5:45pm) and I asked the food carver if we were early, he gave me a 5 minute lecture. When we wanted some peace and quiet, we ate at the Liberty or Skyline dining rooms. The wait staff were very nice and the food was OK, but nothing special. We also ate at the Cadillac Diner twice, but found it unimpressive. We asked to sit at the first booth, but were told it was for parties of 4 or more. The next party of two were sat at that booth. That was annoying. We decided not to go to any of the specialty restaurants. The Carnival food is much better than on this ship.
Activities - Unless you like to make leis, learn the hula or drink excessively, there's not a lot of onboard activities. I was bored and wanted to go home after 3 days.
Staff & Service - For the most part I found the staff to be very friendly. Our cabin steward, Jesse, was excellent. On our last day of the cruise one of the staff in the Aloha Buffet took a liking to us and offered to give us a dessert in celebration of our anniversary. She made me a special sundae and gave my husband a piece of cake from the Lazy J.
Entertainment - We loved Second City and Chris Alpine (comedian). Very funny! Their polynesian show was also very good.
Shore Excursions - My husband went on three excursions -- Molokini Craeter Snorkeling in Maui (not that many fish and too many people snorkeling), Mauna Kea Observatory in Hilo (over 13,000 feet above sea level -- very challenging) and Atlantis Submarine in Kona (again, not too many fish).
Disembarkation - The disembarkation process was very well organized and we were off the ship quickly. We used Aloha Airport Delivery to store our luggage until our plane departed at 5pm. It was a very efficient process. We called them as we got off the ship, they met us within 5 minutes. They took our luggage and returned it at the airport when we called them upon our arrival there. They again met us within 5 minutes. We were very pleased with this service.
Summary - Although there were some good times, overall I did not enjoy this cruise. If I had to do over again I would fly to Honolulu (first class) and just stay in Waikiki for several days. The short time we were in Waikiki, I thought it was heaven.
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