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Norwegian Cruise Line
NCL Pride Of America
Hawaii

Martin Brown
Age: 35
Occupation: Electrician
Number of Cruises: 35
Sailing Date: February 11th 2006

We have sailed mostly with Royal Caribbean but have cruised a number of times with NCL as well as Carnival, Princess, Costa, Disney, Fred Olsen and Festival. This cruise sounded ideal as you could get straight into the cruise without any days at sea from Los Angeles or San Diego. Everything started off OK. We landed in Honolulu and were immediately met by someone who then escorted us to a waiting bus which then took us straight to the Port. We only had to queue for about 20 minutes in the terminal building before we had our Welcome Aboard photo taken and then straight up to the Latitudes check-in desk as we are previous guests of NCL.

Once onboard apart from the smell of sewage in various places around the ship which lingered around the ship during the week, we found that we had the smallest balcony cabin that I have ever been in, deck 8 cabin category BF. There were 3 adults in this room so therefore the sofa had to be converted to a bed, which meant that you could not open the drawers of the dresser to get your underwear out as the bed fitted tight up to the drawer. There was not even enough room to get your suitcase out from under the bed without pushing the other beds out of the way first.

We ate in the Skyline restaurant the first night and found this to be truly awful. We found that the waiters did not know how to ‘wait’ at the tables as on other ships I have been on. We had to ask for water to be served at the table as well as rolls and butter. When we were finally able to order our meal with the fourth waiter by now, we had to order not only the starter and main course but also the dessert at the same time (how do you know you are going to want anything). We have never experienced that before in any restaurant either on land or at sea. When the food ‘finally’ arrived it was cold and the strip steak was the toughest and thinnest I have ever seen before. When the time came to have the vanilla ice cream that I had ordered for my dessert the waiter said they had run out. Bearing in mind this was the first night on the ship and I don’t think we had even set sail by then as the ship doesn’t sail until 8pm. We found that the Freestyle dining system simply does not work. This is the first time we have been on NCL since the Freestyle dining has been operating so we didn’t realise that you had to book all the different restaurants that you would like to use for the week the first day on board. This meant that we could not get a single reservation in any of the speciality restaurants the whole week so we had to eat in the Aloha Café 3 nights, Cadillac diner twice, Skyline once and Liberty once. On the formal night we all got ready for dinner and went down to the Liberty dining room, we were told we would have to wait 2 hours for a table, so with much anger we accepted a pager from a member of staff so we would know when our table would be ready. We thought this would be a good time to see the singing and dancing show in the Hollywood theatre. Luckily for us our pager started bleeping about 40 minutes into the show, this was a blessing as this was the worst show I have ever seen on a cruise ship, talk about un-professional. The show was about nothing, it was as if they had asked the kids club to write the lyrics to some of their songs. Anyway, when we got back to the restaurant we then had to wait another 45 minutes as the table wasn’t ready, even though we could see dozens of empty tables. Obviously they have not got the staff to cover all of these tables. The problem with this is that we had children in the kids club and they have to be picked up by 10pm, so one member of our group had to leave early and not finish his dinner. (I don’t think he minded though).

In the Aloha Café you always had to pick up at least 4 cups to get a clean one, most had coffee stains and lipstick. I think twice I had to pick up about 9 cups. The cutlery was just as dirty, when they had enough. There is nothing more infuriating than finding a table to sit at only to find that when you unwrap your cutlery there is dried on food, so you have to get up again to get more cutlery. One of the chefs in a food station in the Aloha shouldn’t be called a chef as he couldn’t even make an omelette or a fried egg.

We went to the John Adams coffee bar just off the Capitol Atrium, deck 5 for a cappuccino one day, it was only after we had ordered it we realised that they were $6 each. I think this is a bit of a rip off as the machine that they use is exactly the same ones as you will find in the Aloha Café which are free to use.

A disappointing fact about NCL is that they seem to buy the very cheapest of food and do not make any pastries, cakes or rolls aboard any more, they bring them all on. They even unpack the sliced bread and bagels from the plastic wrappers just as you would buy in the supermarket in front of you in the Aloha Café. This is so un-professional.

As I am a Latitudes member I was expecting some benefits onboard but all there seems to be is some free internet time so long as you register that you are a latitudes member between certain times on the first and second day of the cruise. After that it is too late as I discovered, even though I checked-in at the Latitudes members check-in on the pier before getting on the ship for the first time. You would think it would be automatic.

I assume the reason for docking in Kahului in Maui is for cost purposes, as most other cruise lines anchor off Lahaina, Maui, including the Norwegian Wind, which is where most of the excursions are so it means a very long bus ride to the other side of the island if you want to do anything there.

NCL have tipping that is automatically applied to your cruise card account so therefore the staff do not seem to want to work as they know they are getting tipped at the end of the week whatever. The short skirts that the female waiters and bar waiters wear obviously don’t suit women of all ages, and there are all ages believe me.

After chatting to lots of other passengers on the ship I soon realised it wasn’t just me, everyone was complaining of exactly the same things that I have pointed out.

According to the NCL Freestyle brochure ‘We’ve streamlined disembarkation, so there’s no need to hurry. Sleep a little later’, yeah OK that’s why my cabin steward knocked on my door and before I could shout anything came in at 6.30 am on disembarkation morning.

This ship is still in its inaugural year but the ship looks tired, well used, chipped paint all around the main pool deck, rust, nothing is being maintained, and none of the staff seem to care, no-one seems very professional. The only good show onboard was the juggler. As far as we are concerned, Freestyle cruising does not work if you are allowed to book the restaurants for the whole week in advance. They are better off allowing you to only book in advance if maybe you have a party of 6 or more and obviously want to sit together, otherwise you go on the day at the time you want your meal, either wait or move onto another restaurant which is not as busy, just as you would at home. The way it is at the moment you are not ‘free to dine where, when and with whom you wish’.

I have been on about 35 cruises in the past and this is the worst one ever. I will stick with Royal Caribbean.
I can honestly say that I could not recommend this ship or cruise line to anyone, it was that disappointing. It’s supposed to be the ‘Pride Of America’.