In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit up front that my family got such a good price on the cruise that we could have almost put up with anything and still considered it a bargain.

I traveled with my husband and two teenage children, and we booked a last minute cruise (six weeks before sailing). I had actually wanted to take this cruise ever since I read that NCL was launching the service, just because it seemed like a brilliant way to see Hawaii. And, indeed, it really is. If we were to have tried to see this many islands by hopping planes, we would have spent half of our time in the airport and the other half packing our bags. It was our first time in Hawaii, so we really wanted to see all of the highlights.

After a horrendous flight by Northworst (including a mechanical cancellation that got us to Maui a day late and missing one of our bags) we were at our ship at the crack of noon. Of course, since all the hotels have an 11 or noon check out, so was just about everybody else. The line that snaked through the unairconditioned port terminal was long but, to NCL's credit, it moved fairly quickly. After living in the same clothes for two days, and lugging our heavy baggage through the hot, humid check-out line, I was in no mood to have a family photo taken in front of a backdrop of the ship. The cheerful NCL rep was also in no mood to take "No, thank you!" for an answer. After three polite declinations, I had to be more forceful until the young man let me pass w/o a shot (this, by the way, was just a picture to be sold, NOT the picture to be used for ID purposes. I dutifully smiled through my sweat for that one!) Read more