Norwegian Cruise Lines America
Pride of Aloha Cruise Review
Hawaii

Nadim Musafa
Age: 36
Occupation: CEO
Number of Cruises: 18+
Sailing Date: August 25th, 2006

Before I set sail for Hawaii I checked all of the reviews for NCL Pride of Hawaii. I was surprised at how many bad reviews the ship had I thought to my self darn complainers! The bad reviews are due to it being a new ship they certainly have the bugs worked out right WRONG! Well here goes I just returned from my sailing on Pride of Hawaii on Aug 25- Sep 4. I now understand why people are complaining!

Since I had read all of the reviews I knew I had to make dinner reservations ASAP.

We were one of the first people to board the ship we boarded about 12:00PM. As soon as I boarded I asked about making my dinner reservations. I was told just go to any restaurant and you can make your reservations. Well first restaurant said no you have to go to jasmine’s to make reservations. I got to Jasmine’s and they said oh no if you have 7 in your party you have to make reservations at the information desk. The information desk said oh no they don’t make any reservations you have to go to the Blue Lagoon upstairs. I get to blue Lagoon and they give me a pager? I said I don’t want a pager I am just trying to make dinner reservations. They then informed me that you have to wait to get an appointment to set up your dinner reservations just go and find your state room and relax we will call you when your appointment is ready. No one seems to know what is going on.

Great I now go to my stateroom and surprise none of the keys for neither of the 2 staterooms will work. Now I am back to the information desk to get new keys. All this time we are carrying our carry-ons all around the ship.

I then go back to the blue Lagoon to check on my Appointment to make my dinner reservations. They tell me it will be a few more minutes. I finally get to talk to the reservation person. I pick my reservation for Monday night she tells me no its all booked the earliest available is 8:30 or 9:00 PM ok now Tuesday oh that is booked also What? Ok how about Wednesday yes you guessed it booked also! I then asked how can it be booked up if I am one of the first people on the ship? Then she told me if you have a large party 6or more (we had 7) you are restricted to reservations before 6PM of After 8:30PM. What happened to Freestyle Cruising have freedom, dine when you want that’s not true. I had to tell my self to relax because I was getting real upset you are not supposed to go through this stress during a vacation.

Our first night at dinner at 8:30 PM we went to Grand Pacific Dinner. We sat down and ordered our dinner 9:00 PM and still no appetizers no bread, no salad. Finally I asked and the bread came around 9:30. 10:00PM 11/2 hr later still no dinner. By this time the kids had fallen asleep at 10:15PM we decided to leave it had been almost 2 hrs and no dinner. I spoke to the materde he apologized and said he would look into it. He told us there was the 24 hr café Blue Lagoon. I arrived at the blue lagoon and I was informed oh no our party was too large and they could not accommodate us they only had tables for 4. I said ok then give me 2 tables for 4 she said oh we can’t do that. I tried to explain our situation that we have not had dinner her response was IT IS NOT MY PROBLEM! What kind of response is that? I insisted on getting the 2 tables and finally was able to get the 2 tables when I refused to leave. By the way both tables were side by side they could have been easily joined together. But they were not we ordered from 2 different waiters. One table got there food and the other one did not. We had to reorder food from the first waiter. It is now 12:00AM this is not what I had in mind about Freestyle Cruising®.

Second night we went to the steak house Cagney’s ($15-$25 Cover charge per person) 9:00 PM Reservation. Again it took almost 11/2 hr to get our food. The food was good but the kids fell asleep before dinner arrived at 10:30PM.

Third night we went to Jasmine’s this is the Asian restaurant ($10 Cover charge per person) food was good, service was OK.

Fourth night we went to Grand Pacific Dinner I guess I did not learn the first time however we got food this time lousy food but we got it.

Fifth night we went to the Teppanyaki restaurant 9:00PM reservations($20 Cover charge per person) Food was good service was marginal at best.

Sixth night Papa’s Italian food service was horrible food was ok nothing special.
This is my 24th cruise therefore I am not new to cruising.

This was a very bad experience. My recommendation is stay away from this cruise ship especially if you have a large party of more than 4 persons hell just stay away period.

This is supposed to be a vacation and this Freestyle Cruising® is an absolute joke “dine when you want” yea right!

By the way we missed most of the on board shows because they were mostly at 9:30 PM during our extended 2-3 Hr dinners.

This is a spectacular itinerary of the Hawaiian Islands beautiful landscape volcanoes at night. However, there are many good people working on this ship then there are a whole lot more who don’t have a clue or simply just don’t care! I don’t know if it is because it is an American ship with an American crew? This is the first ship I have sailed with an American crew. I think this ship needs to be reregistered in a foreign country and hire a new workforce. Sorry to say that but the service is not there most of the crew simply did not care. Maybe if they started to fire the bad apples it may get better. I However did not appreciate being NCL’s Ginny pig. Especially when I am paying the bill!

 

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