Poh -- 04/02/07

[IMCSICK]

We got home today (4/10) and I wanted to post a few observations from our cruise.

 

My family had a good time but felt like the cruise was a little disappointing. I'm glad we had such beautiful ports of call (Kona was my favorite!). We never did meet our cabin steward. I used the "wheel of misfortune" outside the door everyday and we encountered the same thing each time: the steward would come in and replace the towels and make the beds, but never actually do any type of turn down service. No chocolates on our pillow. :(

 

I will say I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the cabin (#8602). I had posted previously that I was concerned about being give an obstructed view, handicap accessible cabin. For the most part, the lifeboats were low enough that we still had plenty of daylight coming in, and even though we did have some issues with the shower area, it was very minimal and we were grateful for the extra space. Plus, our cabin was down the hall from Blue Lagoon which was very convenient for grabbing a quick coffee or pastry in the morning.

 

My first encounter with a crewmember's bad attitude was almost immediately upon boarding, while trying to purchase the kids' soda card (sticker?). The young woman maning the beverage area in the buffet handed me the charge slip to sign and I made a comment that I didn't realize the gratuity wasn't automatically included and that I was learning the ropes as it was our first NCLA cruise. She informed me that it wasn't her first cruise and she wasn't there for enjoyment, blah blah blah, and needed to pay some bills. She was rather nasty with me and then went on to say how everyone was really mean to her. While I felt bad for her situation, I was also thinking...hello -- we just paid several thousand dollars for this cruise, which was for enjoyment by the way, and would you please just take my charge slip, give me my little sticker, and let me go!

 

What we realized is the crew members that are bad, were really bad. But thankfully for every bad one there were many more that weren't. The thing I found the most frustrating was that it was very difficult to even get them to make eye contact with you to try to engage in any conversation what-so-ever. Maybe they've been complained to by so many passengers that they don't want to bother anymore...which is really sad if that's the case.

 

We ended up eating the majority of our meals at either Blue Lagoon or Aloha Nui, mainly because we just didn't want the hassle of trying to get reservations anywhere else. We also tried (and enjoyed) Papa's and Paniolo's. Topsider's Grill was another great place for a quick bite to eat. Our few visits to the dining rooms were nothing special.

 

As a matter of fact, our first attempt to eat in Alizar was breakfast on Day 2. I think we were seated at a table that did not have waitstaff assigned to it. We basically sat there for over half an hour with absolutely no acknowlegement -- it was like the whole family was invisible. I tried to flag down a waiter/jr. waiter, but they were so busy they seriously would not look up from what they were doing. It's the strangest thing I've ever encountered. We decided to leave and go to the buffet as we realized that it would still take at least another thirty minutes to be served even if the invisibility cloak was removed. :p

 

One other thing that I noticed that was rather upseting to me was the damage done in public areas (ie: names scratched into ping pong tables, broken equipment, etc). I think this can be attributed to the teenagers running wild on the ship. Not many of them actually spent much time in the Wipe Out Club, but used it as a base to get enough of them together to start roaming the halls. I don't think that it's the fault of the teen counselors -- it's just the mindset of that age group.

 

I know this review seems negative, and that was not my intention. I'm just trying to be realistic about what our first-hand experiences were. Neither my husband or I are complainers and many of the things we encountered probably would have been different if we'd been more proactive about voicing our displeasure. But hey, we were on vacation -- didn't want to spend the whole time whinning! :D

 

The cruise was exactly what we expected -- a floating hotel which created a convenient means to visit multiple islands during our visit and...it was nice to have some food and entertainment thrown in.

[New KAJO]

Hi Imcsick,

 

Thanks for the review !

 

Can you please explain more in detail the situation with the obstructed view ? Did you just had light coming in, or where you able to see the ocean ? ( you don't have a picture of the view in your cabin by coincidence ? )

 

We will be on the POH soon and also have obstructed view. We are worried about it.

 

Kajo

[IMCSICK]

Don't worry about it...we had a great view out of about 50-75% of our window. The lifeboat could be seen out of the lower section. Plus we had all the sunlight we could handle. I was pleasantly surprised as I was expecting the worst.

[Twice-a-year]

Sorry to learn about your not so good experience on the Pride of Hawaii. By the way, did you have a chance to view the lava flow? and in which port or night that you view it? Which side of the ship that you view the lava flow?

Thanks

[IMCSICK]

You view the lava flow from the port side of the ship. After the ship leaves Hilo they sail very slowly so you will be able to see it at night. The day of course will be determined by which ship you are on.

 

It's not that our experience wasn't good -- there just wasn't anything really special about it. I haven't cruised since 9/11 just about wiped out the travel industry. It could be that none of the major cruise lines has really come back completely and my expectations might have been a bit high based on previous experiences. Many cruiselines had to cut corners because they had to stay afloat (no pun intended)...now I think they do it because they can get away with it.

 

I'm still glad we went but I wasn't shocked to see NCLA was moving PoH to Europe and wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being for a longer period of time than originally stated.