Pride of Aloha
by Mathew Hough
Hawaii
July 11, 2004
The Pride of Aloha is a refurbished ship being advertised as a new ship that sails the Hawaiian Islands. The itinerary is amazing. It starts in Honolulu and proceeds to Kaui, Hilo, Kona, and Maui. The tours are well organized and well worth the money
The ship and crew itself is a disaster. We will start with the fact it took over 9 hours before we got our luggage. Also the rooms were not cleaned before we got on the ship. When we complained, the beds were simply maid but there were still dirty glasses on the counter, the carpet was not vaccuumed and there were no towels. These problems continued when at midnight we asked for clean sheets and changed them ourselves. The next sheets complete with blood stain were put on the bed and it took a complaint to the head of housekeeping before the cabin steward would admit that they were not clean. The carpeting in the hallway was coming up in several places. The ship was quite dirty, something I would not expect to see on a two week old vessel.
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The service and dining on this ship were also far from acceptable. The crew was unwilling to do anything that was not their specific job. There was no coffee at the buffet for several days. IF something ran out and you asked for it, the crew replied sorry we must be out.
The dining experience was awful. There was an average of an hour wait to be seated for dinner. The food was not up to typical standards, and only three main dish items and 3 desserts changed every night. Service was slow. There were many many empty tables that needed to be cleared and sat for at least 30 minutes at a time while people waited. We even watched the waiters drink on the job. They hid alcaholic drinks in their stations and were drinking when the maitre d' turned their backs.
The entertainment was good, at least the production shows. There was a real lack of anything to do on board at most times. I have never watched so much tv on a cruise before.
Overall this cruise is not worth the money and I will not be cruising on any NCL vessel in the future.
