Pride of America issues 12/23-12/30 2017

We were a family of 19 traveling on this Christmas cruise as well. Our main problem was the lack of cold water in our stateroom. The water coming out of both faucets and shower was scalding hot and absolutely unusable. After 2-days we were given a key for a stateroom down the hall that we could use for a shower. I’m sorry but I felt like I was in a Hostel having to shelp my things back and forth! This certainly was not acceptable at a cost of $435./pp/pd. After the 3rd day we were moved to another stateroom that was in the middle of maintenance. At least, the water was not scalding hot but the water was turned off completely at night and a more than a few nights the toilets were shut down as well.

This was our 3rd time on POA and even though the service and food were much better than prior cruises, I don’t believe we’ll be back or would even recommend the POA to anyone. We are not new to cruising and have almost 40 cruises under our belt and I have to say that this was one of our worse.

Funny thing though, It’s Wednesday and POA did not make it here to Kona. I did a check on MarineTraffic . com to find her and the website says ‘she’s out of range’; last entry is 1/2/18. Curious to know where she may be.

My issue is, there’s a lot reasons it could have happened. It sounds like on a normal functioning day, the ship is more than able to supply itself. The pressures where great when on, doubt it was any pumps, which to me leaves combined number of units failed, one or more storage tanks failed for whatever reason, could explain one bad night of stomach problems I had, or a major failure of pipes.

They could have warned us there was a issue and gave everyone a extra bottle of water for any middle of the night issues, warned us to fill up the bucket or a used bottle with water, there’s nothing as desperate as needing to wash your hands at 1 in the morning and there just a drip coming out of faucet.

I bet this didn’t just happen starting the first night, but crossed over from at least the cruise before and is more than likely still happening if they didn’t get needed parts installed.

It’s the non disclosure of it, when asked. It’s not being told to store some water for it, only being given water after a desperate call for hand washing water and being given a harder and harder time about it was not right.

It goes back to the pod issues with the Star, everything is fixed and they only make it 70 miles, before being towed back to Melbourne and news footage from upset passengers onboard that the truth came out.

Now here we have a water supply issue and they are still doing the same song and dance as with the Star, when it’s yellow rain, they call it lemonade and when it’s brown it Chocolate moouse, there’s a systemic problem with them just A) doing the right thing, before forced into it) and just being human and considerate towards the passengers by telling the truth.

My point about the ship designs, where I live, we had a hard learned lesson about metal plumbing connections, there’s was a unfortunate reaction between two types of metal in connectors and many places in my old neighborhood many houses had to replace all the plumbing pipes in their houses, the old pipes where buried under a poured slab, so the new lines had to be run threw holes in walls.

Now I understand why the front ship reminds me of, i thought it looked a over grown destroyer

They might have had no idea how a half built ship in Mississippi might react to the materials used by a proper cruise ship building yard in Europe. The POA is a horrible ship before this problem, I wish they never pulled the pride of Hawaii and renamed her the jade, the good thing is, since very little of the jades Hawaiian features have been removed, they could change her back after a short reconversion back.

The POA is a ugly, outdated ship that should just go away. The elevators are tiny, coffins. After two nights I had enough hey dude, you almost hit everything sticking down from the ceiling.

If the ship can’t manufacture or hold the water it needs for sanitation operations of its guests, a land based hotel with the same issues would be forced closed until repairs are completed. I have deep mistrust of the current leadership of NCL and never thought I would say time to bring back Kevin.

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My point about the ship designs, where I live, we had a hard learned lesson about metal plumbing connections, there’s was a unfortunate reaction between two types of metal in connectors and many places in my old neighborhood many houses had to replace all the plumbing pipes in their houses, the old pipes where buried under a poured slab, so the new lines had to be run threw holes in walls.

 

Now I understand why the front ship reminds me of, i thought it looked a over grown destroyer

 

They might have had no idea how a half built ship in Mississippi might react to the materials used by a proper cruise ship building yard in Europe. The POA is a horrible ship before this problem, I wish they never pulled the pride of Hawaii and renamed her the jade, the good thing is, since very little of the jades Hawaiian features have been removed, they could change her back after a short reconversion back.

 

If the ship can’t manufacture or hold the water it needs for sanitation operations of its guests, a land based hotel with the same issues would be forced closed until repairs are completed. I have deep mistrust of the current leadership of NCL and never thought I would say time to bring back Kevin.

 

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The thing is, that ships have been dealing with corrosion between dissimilar metals since wooden ships started being held together with metal fastenings. Being in seawater, which acts as the electrolyte in a battery far better than any slight acidity in your home's fresh water, means this problem is far greater, and leads back to why the ship's electrical system is grounded differently than your home, leading to the problems with surge protectors. So, shipyards have been dealing with isolating dissimilar metals on ships for 150 years, whether they are in the US or anywhere else.

And, to give you a counter to your argument, the Norwegian Sky (Pride of Aloha), which was built entirely in Europe, had plastic water piping, all from one European manufacturer, all installed by one European shipyard, by European contractors, and this piping started failing long before she came under the US flag at age 6. By the time we reflagged her back to the Sky, at age 9, we had ripped out all of the potable water piping in all passenger areas, crew areas, and as much of the galleys as was accessible short of tearing the whole galley apart. So, if there is a piping problem on the POA, it is most likely not to blame on being built in two countries, as this can happen to a ship built in one country.

Just because the shipyard in Pascagoula builds navy vessels, they did not design the ship, and as I said, the superstructure was done in Europe. The original owners, Hawaiian American Cruise Line, are the ones who contracted and approved the design of the ship, not the yard.

As to the Pride of Hawaii (Jade), under the legislation that gave her the PVSA exemption, once reflagged out of the US, she is no longer eligible to flag back to US and obtain another PVSA exemption. Based on the law, the POA would always be the last ship of the three that NCL had in Hawaii, as she was at least partially built in the US.

chengkp75

Aloha and Mahalo Nui Loa for your outstanding history of NCL ship building; maintenance and infrastructure !

It is smart of you to stay far and away from the Customer Relations fray of NCL.

Each new head of the operation CEO CoB has a different idea how to run or ruin the cruise line.

People in charge of the operation are human and do make mistakes - how these people handle the goofs

and restore consumer confidence is what is remembered.

I am with nevada2121 regarding the puny efforts of customer relations to handle a trip of a lifetime gone bad.

The POA maybe a money pit but keep it fixed and ship shape don't disappoint the customers by making bad

decisions and Yes bring back Kevin !

I never deal with customer service issues/remediation/compensation for any of the lines that I post about.

POA is not, in my opinion, a money pit, other than the increased operating costs, which are reflected in the higher cabin fares. Given the US flag, the higher standards of USCG inspection and regulation means to me that the ship is being maintained in the best fashion, but as always, there can be breakdowns and issues regardless of the standards of maintenance.

Given the sudden departure of Mr. Sheehan, with no explanation from NCL as to why, and the allegations of misconduct made against Mr. Sheehan by Mr. Veitch (former CEO and board member), even allowing that the allegations were removed from Mr. Veitch's lawsuit against Mr. Sheehan and NCL, these allegations were never disproved by NCL, and NCL's major legal move against these allegations was to try to find out from Mr. Veitch how and from whom he got this information (allegedly internal board investigations and reports), not working to disprove the claims. Mr. Sheehan is innocent until proven otherwise, but as with all things in today's society, and especially with harassment issues, even a hint can taint someone for quite a time, and may be why Mr. Sheehan has not been brought onboard by any major corporation since, as they don't want even a hint of a problem.

is the water problem an ongoing/regular situation?

Have a client that is going on the POA in the next few weeks. The booking was made by the guest directly with the cruise line. A notification has just been received that they are cancelling the last day in Kauai and I think a shortened time in Maui. The ship will be coming into Honolulu on Friday instead of the normal Saturday. They were offered either 25% of a future cruise or a credit for 1 night of the cruise and the cruise line is paying for the one night hotel in Honolulu. The only statement was the POA was going in for a technical dry dock for repair but the ship is safe for guests. Has anyone else heard about this?

Have a client that is going on the POA in the next few weeks. The booking was made by the guest directly with the cruise line. A notification has just been received that they are cancelling the last day in Kauai and I think a shortened time in Maui. The ship will be coming into Honolulu on Friday instead of the normal Saturday. They were offered either 25% of a future cruise or a credit for 1 night of the cruise and the cruise line is paying for the one night hotel in Honolulu. The only statement was the POA was going in for a technical dry dock for repair but the ship is safe for guests. Has anyone else heard about this?

Similar to actual story . I am on that cruise. We received an email yesterday at 4h30 pm EST. Email saying that we will be in port one day prior to schedule, so yes on friday march 9th,making it a 6 day cruise rather then a 7 night cruise. ( same for cruise schedule to depart march 10th. They are now leaving on March 11th ) .

Our 2nd Maui day has been cancelled. We leave Maui now on Day2 at 6h pm instead of overnight. From there, day 3 is now what used to be day 4, etc etc . So they are not cancelling Kauai .

Yes we all were offered ( in USA and canada for sure, unsure about other country ) either a 25% of cruise fare paid to be applied on a future cruise OR a prorated night credited back to our method of payment. Yes hotels has been taken care of by them for Friday night for our cruise as well as transportation from Ship to Hotel.

Excursions have now been cancelled since nothing fits in the calendar anymore and are told that new arrangement will have to be made on the ship. ( was told by a fellow cc suer as i didn't personally have excursions booked with NCL )

Hope this help,

Josee.

So are we assuming that this sudden decision to perform a short dry dock repair has to do with the recent water system issues that have occurred?

The part that stop working was the pump the sucked the air out of the evaporator to cause a low pressure to help boil the water, it went out and something with the pipes below deck. To hit on why the POA is the only one out in Hawaii is because we are a US flagged ship, and due to the Jones Act is way other ships only go to two port in HI, they have to hit a international port next as they will not be allowed to dock. We are the only and biggest US Flagged passenger vessel on the waters to date. That why we are there all year around, no other company including NCL will pay about 1.5 billion on a ship to place down there just for the island. This ship is also a US job and falls under us law making it the only cruise ship to have more the 75% US workers aboard at all times. If anyone was on the ship the week of Christmas we the crew was in the same boat as our guest to ensure we had water and I do apologize for the inconvenience but we felt the same pain that week.

Why not be upfront and share some of this information to the guests? I do not believe this was in a not necessary to know category. Letting peoples imagination run amuck is not a good idea. The whole way this situation was handled needs to be addressed. Yes, it is known the cruise lines have the "right" to change their itinerary, but when a couple of the most sought over pluses of the entire cruise. I had 2 sets of customers literately cancel their trip.....the wish they expressed was it would have been nice to be offered to change to a later date, that was not offered. Just saying......