I just came home from the NCL Pride of America Hawaiian Island excursion (April 2 - 9, 2011). Traveled with 8 friends. The bad points: Although we had paid extra for a balcony cabin, the room was TEENY-TINY. Two single beds about 10 inches apart, a bathroom you could barely turn around in, and very limited storage in the one closet and four drawers. When we traveled on Royal Carribean in 2000, the room was three times bigger and much less claustrophobic. The TV had basically 8 channels, other than the couple of channels reserved for the ship's activities. There were 3 news channels, E! channel, one movie channel for Japanese speaking customers, two movie channels,& one network channel for very old comedies.The food was OK, went to the Aloha Cafe buffet for breakfast most mornings, had a wide variety of food. Ate at the Skyline Restaurant 3 times, the first time was good, the other two times was mediocre (we noticed as the week flew by, the service and food quality went down incrementally each day). By the end of the week, the servers were surly (really!) and food was quite poor.We ate at the Steakhouse one night ($25 extra per person) and we actually had great food and wonderful service. Highly recommended. Do NOT bother with Little Italy - the food was bad and service terrible (we were there for literally more than 3 hours before we could escape).Be aware that most of the food and beverage services automatically charge a percentage for gratuities, although there's a separate line item for "Tips" on the food/drink bills. I overtipped through most of the trip before my companions pointed it out to me. My bad.You are certainly nickeled and dimed to death on this cruise - if you order expresso coffee, it's an additional charge. Same for milkshakes in the Cadillac diner, soft drinks anywhere, and things most people take for granted cost extra. When you consider this trip costs in excess of $2500, that's outrageous, especially when you realize most of the food is served to hundreds of people at a time and the quality is just OK.As for excursions, we went on several, including the Pearl Harbor tour (highly recommended), the Volcano Gourmet tour in Hilo (quite wonderful). We also went on the Historic Kona (waste of money, don't bother), and the Waimea, Wailua, and Fern Grotto trip (the Waimea and Wailua parts were great, the Fern Grotto a huge disappointment!). I think you can do the same excursion (Waimea, Wailua) without the Fern Grotto - if so, choose that one instead. Save yourselves $59.Also, the bus drivers for the excursions expect tips, and that wasn't a problem for the really good ones ($5 is standard per person). But, the Historic Kona trip bus driver was quite bad, couldn't speak good English so most of the trip was a waste. We stilled tipped him, just not as much. It's not his fault he was boring. The Historic Kona trip takes you to Kona, where there's a park building with a statue of King Kaumeamea (sp?) and an old Federal building with restrooms which were, quite literally, not much above sani-potties (for some reason, most of the restrooms don't have soap or paper towels). My companion and I also found out, on the fourth day, we didn't have transfers from the ship to the airport. Apparently, there's an additional charge of $21 per person w/tax when you book the cruise. Since no one told us, we didn't have this included in our e-Docs. When I spoke with the main desk, the clerk told me we were better off, we could just catch a taxi from the pier to the airport for $25 for both of us. Turned out he was 100% correct - we took a taxi instead of waiting for a huge bus, and the taxi driver handled our luggage for $25+$5 tip. We were just angry NCL didn't tell us this up front.We're glad we went on the trip, we saw wonderful scenery on the various islands and had gorgeous weather. However, if I ever go back to Hawaii, I'll just stay on Oahu and rent a car to explore that island. Mahalo and aloha!