Aloha. We are a family of 4 with two kids (ages 7 and 4) who traveled with my husband's family on Pride of America. We stayed at the Grand Waikikian timeshare section of Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki for 6 nights pre-cruise. We loved our accommodations at GW (we got upgraded to a penthouse) and the island of Oahu, though did not particularly love Waikiki. We were glad we rented a car and explored the island. Highlights and favorites on Oahu were the North Shore, driving around the east coast, hiking Diamond Head (where my 4 year old was the first to the top), Hanauma Bay and a romantic 10 year anniversary celebration dinner at Halekulani, Lapperts coffee and ice cream, and the Avanti Hawaiian shirt store . My kids loved the water slides at the HHV pool while I could have done without the mobs and mobs of people. Also disliked the HHV lagoon "beach" (felt like concrete covered by a thin layer of very rough sand). The Friday night hula and fireworks show was lots of fun. We did not care for the section of Waikiki beach in front of HHV. Would go back to Oahu again and explore more of the island. We really enjoyed all it had to offer beyond Waikiki.

This was our seventh cruise overall and fourth on NCL. We like freestyle cruising and NCL suite perks. We boarded the Pride of America on 8/15. We had booked an AE suite for my husband and I and a connecting BA for our kids. Our other relatives had connecting AE suites. Check in started shortly after noon. We immediately went to the concierge lounge where James, the excellent concierge, helped us with dinner and spa reservations as well as shore excursions. Then we headed to Lazy J's steakhouse for lunch, an excellent suite perk. We ate there for most breakfasts as well as a couple lunches. This was some of the better food onboard.

The ship is a little differently laid out than the other NCL ships we've cruised (Dawn and Pearl) and it was definitely not our favorite ship. The layout seemed confusing and it took til the end of the cruise to easily find my was around. Our AE suite was lovely and the balcony was amazingly huge, the largest balcony we've ever seen. The kids BA room was adequate but definitely one of the more compact balcony rooms I have seen. We were on the port side of the ship which has the best views of the Na Pali sail by by. Our other relatives were starboard which has the best views of the lava sail by and the better views in port. Our butler, Bhas, was one of the best butlers we've ever had. He was always available to us and was very helpful in our requests. Read more