Pre-cruise - Tuesday, 7/13 Honolulu Just for some background, this was my seventh cruise, my wife's fifth cruise and my step kids (daughter age 14 and son age 18) third cruise. I have previously cruised on Carnival and Royal Caribbean and have found them to be comparable in quality. This would be our second time on Norwegian Cruise Lines after trying them out for the first time last summer on the Norwegian Gem, which we enjoyed (but I thought was slightly lower in quality than Carnival or Royal Caribbean). We also found out 2 weeks before the cruise that the cruise would only be 6 days instead of 7 due to an unexpected coast guard inspection of the ship. We received $800 on board credit and an overnight stay at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Hotel because of the change (more about this later).

We left on Tuesday, July 13 for the journey to Honolulu on a non-stop flight from Dallas (DFW). The flight was delayed about a half hour and left at 2 pm but we made up most of the time in the air and were only a few minutes late arriving in Honolulu a little after 5 pm. The audio didn't work on the flight so we didn't get to see a movie or anything so it was indeed a long flight (we ended up getting 6,000 frequent flier miles each though for the inconvenience). It was sunny and warm upon our arrival in Honolulu and we were all pretty tired but excited. We were greeted at the arrival gate by a lei greeting (I had arranged this in advance through leigreeting.com). My wife and kids really enjoyed this and it started the trip off with a smile on everyone's face so was worth it! We found all of our luggage with no problem and were soon in a taxi on our way to the Grand Waikikian (part of the Hilton Hawaiian Village). We encountered some heavy traffic on our way to Waikiki (in fact this seems commonplace even on weekends as we hit this same traffic almost everyday that we were here).

We arrived at the hotel at 6pm and our room was ready but with a slight glitch. We had booked a two bedroom ocean view suite with one bedroom having a king sized bed and the other having two double beds (for the kids). The hotel only had two bedroom suites with each bedroom having a king sized bed. They were very accommodating though and offered us our choice of changing rooms after one night or bringing us a rollaway for free. We opted for the rollaway and the kids were fine with it as they took turns using the rollaway and bed on alternating nights. The room was fantastic consisting of a living room, two bed rooms, two bath rooms and a small kitchen (complete with full size refrigerator and dish washer) and dining area. There was also a small stackable washer and dryer which came in handy and three flat screen TV's. The kitchen was stocked with dishes, silverware, paper towels, and a small amount of dish washer soap and laundry detergent. There was also a coffee maker and coffee. We had plenty of room for all four of us. We had two balconies and had a really nice view of the ocean from the balcony in the living room. We also could watch the Hilton's luau each night from our balcony which was amusing. The Hilton holds their luau on top of a parking garage so we skipped it, as this wasn't really the authentic experience that I was looking for. We really enjoyed our stay here and found the staff members to be friendly and accommodating (despite some reviews I had read in advance stating the contrary). Read more