NCL Pride of America I 12 Days in Hawaii Highlights  

Hopefully you had better weather at VNP than we did. Sorry you all missed Kona too. We were really looking forward to our snorkeling excursion in Kona but the Volcano and VOG had other plans. What different things did you do after disembarkation?

Was everything on the ship open ? Saw a few vlogs from 11 months ago and seemed half the bars and restaurants on board were closed

@@greghodges6489 In early December, almost all the restaurants had reopened except Liberty, Gelato, East Meets West, and Sushi. Moderno had just opened for our sailing. We ate at Cadillac, Cucina, Skyline, Aloha Cafe, and Jefferson's.

Cruise was great! We’ve been on many NCL cruises, mostly Caribbean itineraries, and knew that the POA is one of their smallest ships. It doesn’t have racetracks, giant pools with slides, or anything crazy. It’s a floating hotel. Our dining options were limited (December 2022) and our ship wasn’t quite at capacity yet. We were there to see Hawaii and as much of it as we could. NCL offered the easiest way to do it! We rented cars in most ports, planned everything out well over a year in advance, and enjoyed every minute. We were thankful and grateful to see Hawaii. Your trip is what you make of it. We didn’t let the little things bug us and just went with the flow.

@@adventureawaitswithjulietravis thanks my travel agent best friend for some reason says these are a waste but since there are no inter island ferries I think it seems ideal I have been on two cruises to Alaska which I loved and Mexico which was not my thing. I am not sure about the Caribbean for me. I don't do beaches. But we will see

@@chicagomike We live in Florida so barely hit the beach in Hawaii. We wanted to see things like volcanos! To us, this was the easiest way to see as many islands as possible in 12 days. Puddle hopping on planes every few days did not seem like a fun idea. A floating hotel... that agreed with us. Again, we have been on one of NCL's smallest ships (NCL Sky) and already knew we were getting on one of the small ships in the fleet. We were ok with that. We also knew that it was a majority US Citizen/green card holder crew (Hawaii had just given NCL the greenlight to add more international crew to the POA when we were on board). We knew it would be a different experience than our other NCL cruises but all of our adventures have been different. No matter if we were cruising or on a road trip (especially post COVID). If something goes wrong, like when our cruise couldn't tender in to Kona due to VOG (volcanic fog), we got to spend more time in Hilo, went shopping, and bought some day passes for the spa. Those thermal chairs and the sauna were nice. We try to make lemonade out of lemons on our trips. Hope this helps. Tell your TA best friend they should go before they just make a decision. Oh, and the Spam Loco Moco at the Cadillac Diner was delicious! One of the best Hawaiian dishes I had over the 12 days (on and off the ship)!

Noted! We just make these for fun. If you haven't already, join the two Facebook groups for the NCL Pride of America. There's a ton of information in there to help you plan your trip. We sailed in December 2022 and things have changed since then. We had limited restaurants open on the ship and weren't sailing at full capacity yet. The POA is one of NCL's smallest ships in the fleet and our big advise is to treat it like a floating hotel. It was a fantastic way to get a taste of each of the islands in a short amount of time. Also, make sure you fly in early! We are on the east coast and had a 2 day deviation before we boarded. We were very happy we did that to adjust to the time change and see Pearl Harbor and Diamond Head before we boarded.