We had a great experience cruising Hawaii on the Pride of America. The ship was more appealing than I had anticipated. I thought the American theme would be bit over the top and garish, but nearly every venue was comfortable and well designed. The ship looked good and was consistently clean throughout the week.

The specialty restaurants were great. We particularly enjoyed breakfast and lunch in the Lazy J Steakhouse (a suite perk.) We had no problem getting reservations in the specialty restaurants, and we did not use the early booking available to us. We typically went to the reservations desk the day before we wanted a dinner reservation to make our arrangements. We walked up to the sushi restaurant and were seated within a few minutes. I noticed a few people walking up and being seated at specialty restaurants throughout the week, but that was hit or miss without reservations. The Aloha Cafe was better than I anticipated. We had one breakfast and one lunch there. There was a nice selection at the action stations, and other than the scrambled eggs at breakfast nearly everything I had was good. The food in the main dining room was OK, but not impressive. This is one of the few aspects of the cruise that I thought needed improvement. We never had to wait to be seated in the main dining room.

The live music around the ship was generally enjoyable. We didn't go to the evening shows. Hawaii kept us too busy to sit in a showroom for long. I liked the music selection on the lido deck, and the pool deck service was good. We rarely had to wait long for service, but we didn't feel pestered, either. The chilled towels and water mists were a great way to keep cool under the sun. Read more