exaggerated. In this post I'm just going to talk about the ship, I'll talk about dining in another post. I think one of the problems that NCL America had was that at one time they had 3 ships operating in Hawaii, they only have 1 now. I suspect they grew too fast in Hawaii and the staff was spread thin. By moving two ships out of Hawaii they may have been able to get rid of the poor members of the staff and consolidate crews and made a better experience for cruisers.First, our Embarkation went ok. The terminal isn't set up well. You have to haul your luggage to the end of the terminal to drop it off, then walk back the way you just came to start the boarding process. This wouldn't have been so bad but the signage was lacking. But after this everything went smoothly and we were on the ship relatively quickly.
The ship wasn't as grand as some of the other ships I've been on, but it was still nice and had all the amenities you needed. Other then having an American theme there was nothing special about this ship.
We had a balcony cabin on the Starboard side of the ship on the 9th floor - cabin 9100. I had heard the cabins were small, and they are, though they didn't seem much smaller then other lines. But they were poorly designed. You walk in the cabin and the bathroom is on one side with a closet on the other side. Then there are the beds and near the balcony is the sitting area. The problem was that the placement of the beds made it nearly impossible to get around the room, especially at night if you had to go to the bathroom. And if you had to get your luggage around you had to pick it up and lift it over the beds to get around.
Our cabin met its purpose, as did the ship and considering how much time is spent in port I think the ship is well suited. I do think a balcony is a great advantage for this cruise. Although the view at the ports wasn't all that great we did sail the Na Pali coast one afternoon and also sailed by the volcano another night and it's really nice to have a balcony for those things.
