Pride of Aloha 6/13-6/18 review part 1

[aambard]

I have been considering whether to file this review at all considering that this was a very early cruise with a new crew. However, since the problems were sufficiently grave to make me move all previously booked passengers to another ship, I thought I‘d go ahead and share my experiences.

 

Embarkation was very efficient. Flower or shell lei were given on boarding.

 

The lobby and atrium were nicely decorated, as was the rest of the ship, with paintings and prints of local scenes, fish and history. New carpet was in the process of being laid---it did not extend to our cabin at first, but was laid on the second day, blocking our cabin door for most of an afternoon. I had purchased a birthday decoration package for my daughter, which proved to include a sign and balloon on the door, streamers, and a sign inside and at least a quarter pound of confetti strewn about the room--the bed, the floor, the table---everywhere! This confetti was not removed for several days and stuck to everything--especially the bedding----I am still finding it stuck to my pajamas as I unpack. A very nice cake was delivered later in the day. The cabin was extremely small. The balcony, was accessible only by a small heavy door, which, along with the refrigerator and desk could not be reached when the small sofa bed was made up. The person in the sofa bed could not reach the reach the bathroom without climbing over the bed. The bathroom was tiny, and became soaked whenever the shower was used as there was only a fabric curtain to keep the room dry which did not completely close around the 2 foot diameter shower area. There was some sort of pink soap covering almost ¼ of the floor--spilled from the soap dispenser perhaps, but never cleaned up (in fact it was never cleaned up for the entire cruise).There was very little closet space, and only 3 shallow drawers for storage. We needed to keep all of our luggage under the bed, otherwise we had no space to walk, but when the sofa was made up, there was no room to pull the suitcases out. When I walked out on the balcony, I discovered that it had not been cleaned, and was covered in salt and black dust, including deck, chairs and tables.

 

I made reservations for dinner in the Italian restaurant the first night, and the Bistro on the second night. Passengers were only allowed to make reservations one day ahead of time. My daughter and I made a spa reservation, but I was told that the manicurist was not yet aboard, and that they would call me when she was taking reservations, which, as it happens, they never did. After attending the seminar welcome meeting and getting together with fellow C1 franchisees, Terry Crowel, David Pyle and I went in search of the Cruisecritic meeting, Shortly after sitting down, we were told that the entire group would have to leave for a private function. It turned out that they only needed 5 tables, but they were unsure of how to divide the room. I returned to the room and we assembled for the lifeboat drill. The crewmembers assigned to our area kept yelling at us first to line up straight, then to smash in together, a real contradiction in terms. They started calling out the cabin numbers, but forgot many of them, including ours. When I asked them whether they were going to call it, they said they had already checked us off. No doubt they will improve with practice.

The dinner in the Italian restaurant was good, and the staff attentive, if inexperienced. Our young assistant waitress had never served cheese from the cheese cart, and seemed somewhat mystified by how to arrange the plate.

When we returned to our room, to our surprise, we found that the only effort at turning down the room consisted of tossing a few chocolates onto the bed. When we tried to open up the sofa bed, we found that there were no linens, so I called housekeeping to ask for linens. And I called. And called. Linens were not delivered until 2am, and to our shock when they arrived, they were dirty and stained. The blanket looked something like it had been found under a bridge---shaggy gray, stained and reeking of tobacco. My son ended up sleeping on the bedcover from our bed that night.

 

The following morning, I decided to grab some breakfast from the buffet for my kids, who were still asleep. At nine am, there was only one buffet open at the aft of the pool deck. There was virtually no food left, and what there was, was undercooked. The hash brown was barely defrosted and there was neither toast nor butter available. We opted to eat breakfast ashore instead. We would learn to order room service each morning in lieu of the inedible buffet, despite the very limited choices, as we are not early risers and service in the dining room closed at 9am. The room service servers were very cheerful, and made a good effort to be prompt. One morning, room service announced that they were out of toast---something I asked the hotel manager about considering that they had just stocked their provisions. He opined that someone was probably too lazy or too inexperienced to just go down below and bring some cases of bread up to the kitchen--there was plenty of bread aboard. This became a recurring theme throughout the ship----statements that “we ran out” when in fact the item had just not been collected from storage, even in the specialty restaurants. After our day ashore in San Diego, we returned to the ship to find that the room had not been made up, nor had proper linens been provided for the sofa bed. I went down to the front desk, and insisted that they get the housekeeping supervisor to our cabin. He arrived in about an hour with the person responsible for making up our room, and took notes on what needed to be done. We were ready to leave for dinner, so we asked him to make sure our cabin was ready for us when we return, with a proper duvet and pillows for the sofa bed. When we returned from the Bistro, which was quite good and in a very pleasant room enclosed by glass, we found the room made up correctly with the exception of a still dirty balcony and the soap on the floor of the bathroom. My teens decided to go up to use the gym while I relaxed and read a book. They reported that it was very nice and virtually deserted. They watched a movie in the room (there is no theater on board) and ordered iced tea and a snack from room service. The boy brought them a whole pitcher of tea--throughout the trip we enjoyed the kids from room service and tipped them accordingly--they were cheerful and enthusiastic.

 

In the morning I rose early for the seminar at sea. The NCL reps looked frazzled. First hotel manager James Deering made a presentation and answered questions. Despite his common sense delivery and honest evaluation--he agreed that the ship was running poorly and suggested that we refrain from booking for at least six months until he could get the crew trained properly---he was almost shouted down by disgruntled travel agents with groups aboard. We had yet to experience this, but we were to find that the wait for seating in the main dining rooms was averaging an hour and a half--something that didn’t set well with the agents soothing angry clients. The biggest bone of contention was the so-called “resort fee”. One agent was threatening a lawsuit as nothing in the printed documents had explained this charge. I had become aware that even employees were confused about this---my daughter earlier was charged an additional $35 for her massage in the spa, and was told that this payed the operator's salary, so she felt compelled to add a $20 tip. A $125 massage ended up costing $175!There was so much anger about this issue that in the end, we received a letter of apology signed by the captain and a refund of 50% of this fee. The tender lines were also something that was discussed heatedly (the following day in Monterey we found a line that took more than an hour to get back to the ship, resulting in our leaving the port more than 2 hours late, so we understood the anger). When Mr. Deering left, Debbie Connick of inside sales gave a presentation about NCL America as well as other ships in the regular NCL line. We enjoyed a scavenger hunt for ship details (what is the captain‘s name, what is the color of the curtain in the Stardust lounge etc.), and I won a lovely pareu for my daughter and a cap for my son.

 

Dinner that night was our first (and only) experience in the main dining room. When we arrived at 7:30 for dinner in the Crossing dining room, we were told that the wait was an hour and a half. We gave our name to the sweet if harassed looking girl at the hostess station. Her name was Tiana, and I had met her earlier when booking the specialty restaurants. I never saw this girl lose composure despite a lot of angry comments by hungry and disappointed guests over the course of the cruise. She seemed to be working all of the hours of the day and night and was representative of the many good hard working local kids onboard. The server when we were finally seated was very nice, but we were treated to many, many crashes of dropped dishes and silver in the background. The food was frankly inedible. The fish my son ordered smelled spoiled and my chicken breast was tough and leathery. My daughter, a vegetarian, was served a vegetable plate which was cold and dried out. The waitress apologized, telling us that they couldn’t get to the food in time to bring it to us hot. Despite the long wait, only half or less of the tables were full at any one time-----our waitress told us it was because so many crewmembers had left abruptly and they were short-handed. In fact, at every port we reached there were numerous crew-members with suitcases in hand leaving the ship.

[aambard]

On our final day, once again our room was not made up when we returned to the ship, and once again I had to call repeatedly. When we finally returned to a fairly clean room, although the steward had not made it past the bed----dishes and leftover room service items were still on the desk----however one detail in particular stuck out----the lid on the toilet was up, and the gentleman who had cleaned the room had forgotten to flush! I stand astonished---this was a new low in service.

 

Debarkation was very pleasant---we were allowed to stay in our cabin and eat breakfast and relax until our floor was called. Unfortunately, our floor was never called, so we just left at about 10:00am. Our luggage was arrayed on the pier and easy to find, and taxis were waiting.

 

In my opinion, this ship is just not ready for paying clients. There is a lot of work to be done in training the crew to run the ship correctly. Although the local kids will do fine eventually and many of them are wonderful, hard-working and cheerful, they need more time to learn how to provide the level of service necessary to bring the ship to NCL‘s standard. I look forward to seeing the changes brought by six months of practice. Meanwhile, I am advising my clients to make an alternate choice when considering this ship.

[gardencat]

Thank you for taking the time to post a detailled and informative report on your cruise. Your comments:

 

 

 

Despite the long wait, only half or less of the tables were full at any one time-----our waitress told us it was because so many crewmembers had left abruptly and they were short-handed. In fact, at every port we reached there were numerous crew-members with suitcases in hand leaving the ship.

Seem in line with other comments/rumors on the board recently, although these rumors have been vigorously denied by NCL.

[Guest alexMD]

sorry... I'm just really really trying to keep my hopes up for this cruise.

 

 

The one thing I truly don't understand is that NCL doesn't really acknowledge its problems. Pride of Aloha may be the most glaring example, but from what I've read it's also a fairly consistent approach across the board.

 

My own experience with this involved the "Officially Stated Rebooking Policy for Passengers who WERE on Pride of America Before It Sank". The Official Policy seemed to have nothing to do with what the rebooking agents were doing in reality. It's like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. No wonder the crew is upset, poorly trained, and (at times) misbehaving.... it is VERY hard to work when you are getting mixed messages.

 

I remember being told on this board how American Hawaii was so horrible and shabby. And I remember defending the SS Independence, and especially her crew. The crew I met on the SS Indy were easygoing and happy, but efficient. Yes, some of them were a bit unpolished and inexperienced, but their can-do attitude and genuine concern easily made up for any problems.

 

Now, although I hope NCL can bring this all together, I'm really wishing for the good ol' days of the SS Independence.

[ACCagent]

Alex,

 

It might make you feel a bit better to know that when we were on POA I mentioned several times to my husband that many of the crew reminded me of the crew on Patriot. I was never on the Indy but totally the enjoyed the Patriot. Many of the people on these boards would have made very harsh comments about the buffet and the cabins on Patriot and i believe would have also done so about the Independence. The Patriot was one of my best cruises ever due not just to the islands but also to the atmosphere on the ship and to the very caring crew. I would not begin to compare the ship to Constellation or Infinity or other newer ships but it certainly had something special of it's own.

 

Go and have a wonderful time. I would go on this ship again in a heartbeat. I just did not have the bad experiences of others that have posted.