My best friend and I cruised on the Pride of Aloha on the inaugural sailing on July 4, 2004. This was our very first cruise and our first time in Hawaii. We were thrilled to be there and had no expectations, especially since I had been reading not-so-positive reviews about the ship from the sailings from California to Hawaii.
Embarkation was a little chaos, but we didn't care. All of our luggage, except for one, was waiting for us by the time we reached our room. The last one arrived about 3 hours later, well before we went to bed.
We had decided before we even went on this cruise that we were going to DO as much in Hawaii as possible since we were without husbands and our kids. This was going to be an adventurous time and it was.