Planned this cruise to travel with friends, who at the last moment had to cancel due to illness. I met very nice people to hang out with, but had to spend more time than planned indoors because of big swells (12-16 feet) and winds that approached 50 mph when added to ship speed. One port (on Maui) canceled because wind and seas too strong for tendering. Schedule was already a little awkward, with Honolulu scheduled for Thanksgiving day and the last shopping site on Sunday. Canceled port was replaced by an additional day in Honolulu - on Black Friday! Many guests were disappointed not to get to visit the Arizona Memorial as no tickets could be gotten last-minute for the extra day...

The food was very good to excellent, as usual. I especially like the way HAL works with vegetables; good variety and properly cooked. Nice portion control. I felt the nutritional value was good, as well as the taste.

It was annoying that the news channels on the onboard TV system went dead before we got to Honolulu and were not repaired before the end of the journey. I did wonder if they had disabled the channels on purpose so the passengers wouldn't be at each other's throats in the week after the US election! Read more