We booked our vaction/anniversay on The Pride of Hawaii. Starting in Honolulu our first stop was in Hilo(the big island). We took the tour up to the most active volcano there still is ther. Seeing the craters, lava tubes and steaming vents from the eart was a great tour.
Next stop was Maui..beautiful beach by the black rock were fun was snorkling and jumping from a lava cliff.
Moving on to Kona was one of my favorite. We took Captain Zodiac to a marine presserve. I have snokled a lot before but this is the most wonderful place. It is located at the monument of Capt. Cook's death site. On the way there our guide Bob and Kimmy located some pilot whales for us to get near and observe. The other favorite place was touring the Na Pali coastline. Amazing water,sand,ocean, and scenery.

How was the cruise ship itself? I have been looking for someplace to go for vacation next year and was looking at a cruise on the Pride of America. I have done a few cruises before, but none on NCL. I haven't always seen a lot of great things said about NCL as a whole, and was wondering if their Hawaiian cruises were better. I thought I would like the idea of cruising Hawaii, without a bunch of days at sea, to and from. NCL seems to be the only line that cruises right out of Hawaii. Any comments on NCL's Hawaiian cruises?

Don: The one big bummer about NCL is that their food is the same quality as airline food (or worse)....although I will admit I had one of the best burgers on the Pride of Hawaii. But who goes on a cruise to eat burgers all the time? You need to book into the premium restaurants for your meals--the ones that charge an extra "cover charge" for eating there.

The spa is incredible. I could have spent all my time at the spa, but that's a girlie thing!

Certainly the Pride of Hawaii is the classiest of the Hawaii cruise line. Pride of America, being the second newest, is second best.

It depends on what you are looking for, though. I tried an abbreviated version of the Holland America cruise (which I believe sails out of San Diego) and everything was great. The average age of the passengers was 70 and the crew was not too ..... good with the English. On the flip side, NCL skewed younger and the crew was all articulate in English. For some reason, though, the people on the Holland America cruise were absolutely addicted and had been on the same cruise several times. I don't think I see the same kind of loyalty on NCL.

Also there was no casino on board NCL, whereas Holland America had a cute one. For ME, that was key. But that's totally my preference.....

So defreeman....did you shop at Aloha Tower Marketplace in Honolulu?

dfreeman: Did your ship pass the south side of the big island at night? Is it true you can see the red hot lava flowing into the ocean from the ship's deck?

When we took that cruise last year, there was danger of the lava shelf dropping into the ocean, so we didn't get to see that side of the island from sea.

But the final night made up for that loos. On the advice of the concierge when we boarded, we booked ourselves into the Italian restaurant (no extra charge), got a window seat -- and were treated to sunset views of the spectacular Na Pali coast of Kaua`i. Yes, we live on Kaua`i -- but those views are never tiresome! The ship was so close, we could actually see the feral goats scampering up and down the pali...