What a fabulous time on this newly refurbished cruise ship! For my first time in Hawaii this cruise could not be beat and being on its second run after coming out of dry dock was an added bonus. We had a 2 bedroom family suite with a large balcony room (8702). When they say large balcony they are not kidding! Situated aft the balcony curves around and has about six chairs on it with several little side tables. The room has a regular bedroom with a queen bed, a sitting room with a huge floor to ceiling window. The sofa converts into a double bed and it has a pocket door. The living room was spacious and we had our own espresso machine!! Now that was a bonus. There was a ton of storage and shelving, 2 closets and flat screen TV's in every room. Our butler was on the ball and was right there whenever we needed anything. This was the perfect room for us and the price was really well worth it. We feel we got a fabulous deal!! The bathroom was a little small for the room but it worked and there was storage and the shelves in the shower were perfect. Gotta say the towels were great , big and fluffy! Strangely I have to say we only had one small trash can in our room. Loved the little tucked in area with shelving and the safe. The sofa in the living room converted into a queen bed so you could potentially have 6 people in that room. There was just the 2 of us and the room was spacious and well laid out. The room was in a great location we had no problem with noise and we had great views of Kilauea at night, the Napoli Coast was amazing and our balcony gave us just incredible views of everything from sunrises to sunsets.

Boarding the ship was a bit much. We got to the port around 1pm and then stood in line to check our luggage for about 30-45 minutes. It was very warm and even though we had priority boarding that did not pertain to luggage check or security. Once we checked our luggage there was the security wait for about 15-20 minutes. Once we got thru those 2 things then we were escorted to the priority boarding area and that was a piece of cake. We were then escorted onto the ship and taken into the Napa Wine Bar for a little chat with our Concierge and then told we had access to Cagney's for breakfast and lunch as part of the suite! We had no idea and thought this was such a great treat, loved the steak and eggs for breakfast. For lunch my favorite was the shrimp cocktail and the chicken and cheddar polenta , out of this world!

We did try the room service breakfast one morning but it was not nearly as good as the restaurants, of course the view while we ate was a show stopper! Read more