I start by saying this was the best vacation my husband and I have ever taken! This was my 6th cruise, his 5th, and our first with NCL. We loved the crew. It was nice talking to people who's first language was English for the most part. My husband got to "talk football" with a couple of waiters. We always laughed with the buffet crew. We have found that the subtleties of the English language make a lot of conversation difficult with most crew members on the RCCL cruises we have taken and this was not the case here. Very refreshing! As for the itinerary, it was great for us. Since we were able to spend 2 days on three different islands, we were able to see so much more than if we were only there 6 to 8 hours (as the other cruise lines who do Hawaii do). We rented a car for our first day on Maui. We drove up Mt. Haleakala. Word to the wise on this one - no matter what the weather when you start out, at least take a jacket (we wore shorts and t-shirts and were so cold). We came down the mountain and drove to Lahaina and walked around seeing the sights there. We also drove to the Kaanapali beach area, but didn't go to the beach like we planned, as it was getting late in the day and there was still more to see! There was no worry about getting the car back at a certain time to get back to the ship because we were docked there overnight. That was great. The next day we did take an excursion offered by the cruise line (road to Hana). We did this on the second day so that if there was an issue getting back, the ship would have waited for us. I recommend that excursion too. At Hilo, we rented another car and drove to Volcano National Park. DO NOT MISS THIS! Too beautiful to describe. We should have started earlier, as we could have stayed a lot longer at VNP. At Kona, we grabbed a shuttle at the pier for 10.00 each and it took us to a bay about 10 minutes away by bus, where we swam over coral reefs, saw amazing fish and swam with sea turtles! DO NOT MISS THIS either! When we went on to Kauai, we rented a car and drove to Waimea canyon. The drive around the west side of the island to get to canyon was beautiful in itself and we stopped at a few places along the way, but nothing compared to the beauty of the canyon. The second day on Kauai, my husband went up for a helicopter tour of the island (also arranged through the ship). He hasn't stopped talking about it yet! We didn't regret one thing we did and there was not one stop where there was not something wonderful to see. For the sour note? Well, the ship was dirty and our cabin was disgusting. It's a good thing we didn't spend much time there. When we got into our room, we found that the bathroom had not been completely cleaned. There was toothpaste goo in the medicine cabinet, hair in the sink and the trash receptacle hadn't been emptied. We went to the desk and asked to be moved to another cabin. The ship was full they said, so that was not possible, but they were extremely concerned and apologetic. They said they would send someone to our cabin to re-clean the whole bathroom, which they did. Later we found more things in the cabin that were dirty too. The beautiful pictures had spatter and smudges on them (from gooey kids hands it looked like). The set of drawers under the coffee maker had splashes of what looked like coffee on them. Overall, there was no attention to detail in the cleaning and these smudges, and splashes, and such were there all week. The irony of this, is that all the common interior areas of the ship were kept very cool and we were told by the crew that this was done because the captain believed that it helped prevent the spread of germs! If they would have kept the hand sanitizer stations full (at least half the time they were empty), and cleaned better, they could have turned the thermostat up a degree or two and been a lot further ahead in the prevention of germs department. The food areas seemed to be much better tended to with regard to cleanliness than our cabin and the food was very good overall. Not as good as RCCL, but we did like the freestyle dining option, so I guess it was a bit of a trade-off. If the ship would have been cleaner this would have been a perfect cruise!