My wife and I just completed the Pride of America Hawaii inter-island cruise in October of 2016. It is probably the best way to efficiently and economically see multiple islands, but unfortunately the ship itself leaves much to be desired. So much so that we may not sail on Norwegian again. We have now sailed on 10 different cruise ships, and the level of service, quality of food, and maintenance of clean conditions in the public areas of the Pride of America was without doubt the worst we have seen. The itinerary, cabins, cabin steward service, and most other functions of the ship were excellent. No complaints. The ships entertainment was also not only good, but was in fact quite excellent. The problems seemed to come in two areas. The first was food quality. The buffet is fairly good, although small, with very limited choices. But the dining room is the poorest we have seen. In fact, after three failed attempts to get a decent meal there, we simply quit going and relied on the buffet. I do not know about the extra-cost specialty restaurants, as we did not try them.

Since this ship does not dock at foreign ports, it seemed to have a very high percentage of young Americans working in the public areas of the ship as servers, cleaning crew, etc. This may have accounted for the fact that the food and beverage service areas were often not clean or maintained, dirty dishes where not removed in a timely manner, and service generally was just slow and chaotic. We repeatedly saw these young American crew members standing around chatting, or checking cell phones, or otherwise ignoring their jobs in ways that we have simply never seen on other cruise ships. It was remarkably different, and not in a good way.

In short, this is a great way to see the islands, and for that reason we have to recommend it. But if you have cruised before, be prepared for a dramatic difference in the food and service. If you have not cruised before, do not judge the shipboard experience based upon what you will see. Norwegian needs to give some serious attention to this ship.