Our cruise included a hotel the night before departure. We spent the night at the Waikiki Marriott. What a beautiful place! Thanks, NCL. We traveled with our immediate family, 10 in total. The kids caught an Uber at the hotel and went to walk up Diamond Head at 6:00 in the morning. Our luggage was picked up from our hotel rooms and magically showed up on the cruise ship. Our bus transportation to the port was on time at noon. Check in wasn't crowded and we breezed through. We immediately headed to the buffet for lunch. Plenty of delicious choices so the vegetarian and gluten free folks easily found acceptable choices. It was my youngest grandson's first cruise. With huge eyes he said, "I think I'm going to like this!"

For our family we had 4 cabins on level 7, starboard side toward the front of the ship. I'd recommend the starboard if you have a balcony because you get to see the land and the lava. Two of our cabins had 3 people, and they were cramped, but we really weren't in our cabins except to sleep, shower and change clothes.Our cabins were clean, well maintained and the bed and linens were really comfortable. One of our group did have toilet trouble one night, but it was fixed before bedtime after a vague response from maintenance. That was really the only glitch in the whole week.

There were beach towels in our room and beach towels available near the buffet entrance. Read more