Pride of America Cruise Review

This review is posted in three parts on the NCL board... however, here are the links to each of the parts:

Part 1 the ports

Part 2 the ship

Part 3 overall

Thank you for posting this here in the Hawaii forum, also. It will be helpful to everyone traveling to the islands!

Great review, very detailed and helpful. Thank you!!

Thank you for writing and for sharing your review.

Keith

Great review, thanks for posting!

Wow John, this was fast! I haven't even started thinking about my review yet. Lol

Thank you for your organized and in depth review!

POA reviews are pretty infrequent, so I appreciated it very much!

Happy Sailing..........

Good meeting you at the Roll Call meeting, which ended when we all had to report to our lifeboat stations. Sorry, we never crossed paths again.

It was a great cruise. I read some people's negative reviews on the PoA, but we never encountered any such problems. I called one of the numbers that we were given on the meeting with a minor stateroom issue. It was taken care of, and a letter of apology was sent to our cabin, giving us a free dinner at our choice of specialty restaurants (with bottle of wine). I was surprised as I didn't complain, only asked that they check on the problem. NCL really wanted to make sure we were enjoying our cruise. (Did being in the Cruise Critic meeting have anything to do with that ?)

Good meeting you at the Roll Call meeting, which ended when we all had to report to our lifeboat stations. Sorry, we never crossed paths again.

It was a great cruise. I read some people's negative reviews on the PoA, but we never encountered any such problems. I called one of the numbers that we were given on the meeting with a minor stateroom issue. It was taken care of, and a letter of apology was sent to our cabin, giving us a free dinner at our choice of specialty restaurants (with bottle of wine). I was surprised as I didn't complain, only asked that they check on the problem. NCL really wanted to make sure we were enjoying our cruise. (Did being in the Cruise Critic meeting have anything to do with that ?)

It certainly didn't hurt.

We ran into a few others from the Meet & Greet throughout the cruise. We had an excursion in Hilo with a few from our group as well.

Like you, we didn't have any negative experiences on board. Every crew member we came across was friendly and smiling... greeting us and asking if everything was going okay. I'd sail the PoA again in a heartbeat... same cabin as well.

Thanks for your informative review. We plan to take the Pride of America in 2016 and are looking forward to it.

The only beef I have is the expense. The POA is over twice as expensive as my upcoming Alaska cruise. I'm sure the reason is a lack of competition.

We're going on the cruise anyway but I sure wish other cruise lines had the opportunity to offer an inter-island cruise.

Thanks for your informative review. We plan to take the Pride of America in 2016 and are looking forward to it.

 

The only beef I have is the expense. The POA is over twice as expensive as my upcoming Alaska cruise. I'm sure the reason is a lack of competition.

 

We're going on the cruise anyway but I sure wish other cruise lines had the opportunity to offer an inter-island cruise.

While lack of competition may be a factor in the cost, the fact that the PoA is an American Flagged vessel, with a primarily American crew, also contributes to the increased cost to operate in American waters. Don't forget to add in the higher cost for supplies... fuel alone was nearly a dollar higher than it was back home; some places were even higher than that. Everything that is brought on board had to be shipped to Hawaii first... and those costs are passed on along the way until they finally hit the consumers' pockets.

And, I'm sure NCL has also factored in the loss of potential revenue by not being able to operate a casino on board.

Although you can't do much about the cost of the cruise, with a bit of research, you can find lots of bargains & discounts on activities away from the ship. Also consider the time of year... while Hawaii may not have a true "off-season", there are certain sailing dates that are significantly higher than others.

Enjoy your cruise... we certainly did.

Thanks for your informative review. We plan to take the Pride of America in 2016 and are looking forward to it.

 

The only beef I have is the expense. The POA is over twice as expensive as my upcoming Alaska cruise. I'm sure the reason is a lack of competition.

 

We're going on the cruise anyway but I sure wish other cruise lines had the opportunity to offer an inter-island cruise.

As far as I know, any other cruise line could have one of their ships reflagged to America. I'm sure it is a difficult and expensive proposition and very difficult to make a profit in Hawaii. That is why there is ONLY one US flagged ship, the POA. Much easier to flag a ship in the Bahamas where regulations are not so strict and expensive and it is much easier to make a profit. So the higher prices are not just that the POA is the only ship in town, and NCL is "sticking it" to those of us who want to cruise the islands just because they can.

If you are really interested in the reasons, do a search in the search box at the top of this forum for a thread titled "POA, some realities" by chengkp75 who was a senior engineering officer on the POA from 2004 to 2008.

Per chengkp75, Unlike other cruise ships, POA employees must be US citizens or have a green card. They must have Merchant Marine certifications, and off site training at a USCG certified training center, which add up to $8,000+ for every employee before they even set foot on the ship. Other things, like higher turnover in employees, ( think young spoiled American kids getting their first taste of reality and soon catching the first plane home ). Fuel and supplies are much higher in Hawaii. Per Chengkp75, fuel alone is 1/4 million per week at the time he wrote the comments.

You could do a land vacation there, but unless you do a lot of inter island flying, you won't see nearly as much, and by the time you add in hotels, food etc., I don't think you'd save much, if anything. You get a lot of bang for your buck, IMO and you can't beat the ease and convenience of a cruise.