First, I want to say that this site was very helpful to me when preparing for my cruise. Special kudos to kwbound, who created a lovely exhaustive description of this cruise which was helpful to me.

Some background: My husband and I, our two children (a tween and teen), and my 69 yo mother took this cruise. We moved to Oahu this summer, and thought this would be a great way to preview the other islands while we are here. We left Dec. 25, 2010 and came back Jan. 1, 2011.

I must say I was frightened to book this cruise because of all the negative things written about Pride of America -- however, when I spoke to people here (in Oahu) who had been on the cruise, they all thought it was wonderful. I think this must depend on how you approach cruising. My DH and I are not cruisers -- the last cruise we went on was a Carnival Cruise to the Caribbean for our honeymoon 18 years ago. It was cheap and we were poor :). So, if you cruise all the time, and are used to more upscale things (for instance, the Westin Resort instead of an Holiday Inn -- or Ruth's Chris steakhouse as opposed to Applebees), then you may be disappointed. However, if you (like us) are your average middle-income family traveling with people of all ages, and don't do this as a regular activity, you will like it just fine. Read more