Prior to sailing on the Pride of Aloha, we did quite a bit of research and read lots of negative reviews. We felt we could overlook the lack of service or the mediocre food because of the itinerary we were going to travel. However, as we got closer to our sailing many cruisers came back reporting problems with the air-conditioning aboard the ship. That was a little something we didn't think we could overlook.

That was one of my first problems with NCLA's customer service--they denied repeatedly, that anything was happening. Then we finally got someone to admit there was a problem and a supervisor was willing to switch our cabin for us. We did that only to discover we were still in the affected areas.

For us, this trip to Hawaii was a belated honeymoon and the idea of spending it sweltering in a cabin wasn't appealing--that was when we got the gift of a lifetime. My mother (a TA, I'll admit) called NCL and paid for us to upgrade into one of the penthouse suites. The reasoning was if the AC was out, at least we could sleep on the rather large balcony and have some privacy (We'd read reports on CC of people sleeping out on deck. OUCH!) Read more