Pam Woodfin

I sailed on the Pride of Aloha on August 22, 2004. This was my first cruise and I had no previous experience of which to compare. The ship is beautiful inside. They did a fabulous job on renovations. It seemed to take quite a long time to board the ship. Once we got on the line to the buffet was another long wait. By Monday evening it was quite clear that there was not nearly enough staff to accommodate the amount of passengers. Some people had waited three hours to be seated for dinner. When walking through the dining rooms half the tables were empty. There was a room full of angry passengers who were hungry, grumpy and tired of waiting. The quality of food was poor. Juice from their machines was so watered down it looked like yellow water. The buffet food was horrible. Breakfast was by far the worst. The scrambled eggs were either not cooked or dried out from sitting under the hot lights. The turkey sausage reminded me of liverworst. Fruit was not ripe and had no flavor. I could grow pinapple in my backyard that would taste better than what they served. I was expecting sweet, juicy fruit in Hawaii. If you obtained a reservation and ate in their specialty restaurants the food was excellent. The Kahili room was superb. You received an excellent meal and attentive service. It was obvious that most of the crew was overworked. In general, the crew did not appear to be happy, they were not friendly, and not all that helpful. We did meet a handful of friendly, outgoing staff. Our room steward, Nathan, was excellent. His assistant Clarissa was also very friendly and nice. Most of the bartenders were not friendly and tipping them was a fiasco. We read in the Pride of Aloha's "welcome" book that a 15% gratuity was to be charged on all bar tabs when leaving the ship. So, we were not tipping. It became apparent that the bartenders were pissed off and we received bad service. When we inquired with a manager at the reception desk we were told that the information printed in their "welcome" book was a misprint and that we would not be charged a 15% gratuity upon leaving. I then pointed out to the management that this was incompetent and unfair to their bartenders. Other passengers were under the impression that a $10 a day charge was to cover tips. Cleanliness also was an issue. The bathrooms were often dirty and none of the public restrooms had seat covers. Sheets did not appear to be changed during the entire 7 days. Some people complained that they had dirty sheets upon arriving. Our electrical outlet started to throw sparks and when we reported it to the reception desk they said they would have it looked at. To my knowledge that was never done. The excursions were very good and seemed organized. They were a bit pricey but we did not investigate using any outside sources. It was great to see four islands during the 7 days. The beauty there is fantastic and I plan to go there again very soon. However, it will not be on this cruise line. I will not cruise again with NCL. My overall review for NCL and the Pride of Aloha is they were very disorganized, did not have adequate staff and provided poor quality food.