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Planned for a year for our 14-day cruise to Hawaii. Embarkation was very smooth and fast. Cabin was excellent -- clean and spacious with very nice beds and bedding and good cabin steward service. Food was poor at best. Although the executive chef has outstanding French culinary credentials, the food was not very tasty and was repetitive in the dining room. Some of the dining room stewards seemed to provide good service, but mine was grudging at best, which was the opposite of the Princess cruise I took to Mexico a year ago. One night he showed up for the dinner service 35 minutes after our early seating time, and my husband had to contact the maitre d' to get our service started. Food in the Lido was very good, but the stewards seemed to be trained to do their job -- pick up dirty dishes or pour coffee or put out silverware, instead of seeing to the happiness of the passengers, which was very unexpected. Service and food in the International Cafe was outstanding, as was all the food from the bakery.
The entertainment was fabulous, but you had to be seated in the showroom 30-35 minutes before showtime to get a seat, so quite a few people brought books to read during the wait.
The shore excursions in Hawaii are very expensive. The cruise to fern grotto and luau with romantic ceremony on Kauai is almost worth the expense. Small trips in a big bus that drives for over an hour and tours town in Maui is not. The excursions feature stops at many state parks that have free admission, so the expense of the excursions doesn't seem related to the cost to the tour operators.
Nobody can do anything about the weather, but the weather on this cruise was very windy and cool, and rainy on the islands. It was too cool most days to swim on board or read outside. The sound from the movie shown on the gigantic screen was an assault on the eardrums.
The cigar bar on deck 6 forward puffs cigar smoke for long distances. I would propose that the doors to the bar be closed so that the odors are more contained. The smoke on the port side of the lido deck also should be contained, as it is very offensive to have to walk through it going to or from the buffet.
The disembarkation was as speedy as the embarkation, and, unfortunately, I was happy to be off this ship.
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