The Pride of America was SO disappointing. We had to request that our sheets be changed and the free coffee be replaced. The room smelled of smoke although the staff tried to use an ionizer twice. . The ship was booked, so we couldn’t move. We had to leave the patio door open to air it out every day. The shower was tiny. It’s a good thing we got a balcony room, we could not have survived in a regular outside cabin or an inside cabin; we can’t imagine feeling any more confined. The cleaning staff was the most friendly of all. Toilets stopped working at one port. The water seemed quite calm, although the ship noticeably and frequently swayed. The customer service desk was unresponsive to complaints and did not follow up. Getting our luggage on and off the ship was organized and planned well.

The “freestyle” dining idea sounded good, however, one of the 2 main restaurants were closed when the other wasn’t used, and they would seat only during specified hours, with long waits. Calling in requests via telephone took a while as the phones were busy. I’d rate the food a 2 out of 10. There were repetitive choices and the food had cafeteria quality – not cuisine. The specialty restaurants served the same cafeteria quality, only presented nicer. One night lobster tails were served at the freestyle restaurant, but they were rubbery and tasteless. Lazy J’s speciality restaurant served filet mignon, and it too was tasteless. The specialty French restaurant was situated over one of the engines which you heard while dining. The service and presentation was excellent – the main courses were terrible – the duck was very tough and the sole was bitter and the portions small, desserts were the better choice. I didn’t eat the sole because it was bitter and I didn’t stay for dessert as the meal took so long and cut into show time.

One specialty restaurant, Tepanaki, $20 additional charge per person, would not give additional amounts of food. When my husband asked for more, “tomorrow” was the chef’s response. Each dish was served separately, with long waits in between. Vegetables and rice were served each separately before the meat or fish. They counted out the exact number of vegetables for the exact number of people at the table, example one slice of carrot, one slice of onion, one slice of zucchini – we left there hungry with the chef’s suggestion we “eat at the diner” if we were still hungry. The maitre’d was rude and loud when my husband whispered to her the chef refused to give him more food and embarrassed us unnecessarily at the table occupied by other people as well. The Italian specialty restaurant was good food wise and service – bottles of wine were overpriced.

We made reservations early on at one of the specialty restaurants, went on a tour and when we returned early evening, had a message that our reservations were changed to a later time (during a show we thought we’d attend) and they could not accommodate us at our reserved time. At this point, the freestyle restaurant was packed. The waiters at both the freestyle and specialty restaurants were not attentive, often brought the wrong dish or completely omitted a dish altogether. Service was slow at freestyle. The buffets had set times that they were open and the outdoor buffet had fewer choices. There was an onboard inspection of the restaurants, and the staff at the buffet began removing dishes during the buffet, and actually removed one of the dishes with no explanation as I was in the process of serving myself – for fear it was spoiled, I didn’t eat it.

The few shows offered were very amateurish – like a high school production and definitely not elaborate, and I think staff members were the performers. We ordered tickets for standard seating at Tony & Tina’s Wedding show, and were switched and charged to stage seating – at some points in the show the characters were acting on the dance floor while people were dancing, so that those sitting couldn’t see or hear the characters. The show was a very watered down version of the original and poorly executed. The 70s disco night was nice for the first 15 minutes, but the dj kept playing the same set of songs every 15 minutes. He didn’t know how to play to the crowd or keep a crowd on the dance floor. He’d have the dance floor filled for one song only to switch to rap music with 2-3 people dancing, and at that, he kept playing the same songs. One of the solo singers at the bar must have been drunk, slurring his words as he sang – you couldn’t understand the words. The only shows we enjoyed was the comedian, Bud.

There were no free cocktails at cocktail hour on the ship – you paid for drinks ($10 for a mixed drink – the minimum amount of liquor was exactly measured). Unlimited soda was offered at about $50 per person for the week. One of the main pools was closed several days for “maintenance” and the towel supply was frequently empty. One guest actually attempted to take two folded towels off my chair criticizing me for not “sharing” when I told her I was holding them for our friends who were in the pool. Finding a staff member to get more towels was difficult. The hot tubs were “warm” and occupied with unsupervised children. I read a review elsewhere for the previous sailing that also reported the pool on the Pride of America was closed for a time.

It felt like everything was nickel and dime – internet cost 75 cents a minute, for example. There were plenty of waiters available to take drink orders and you were asked quite frequently to refill.

The excursions desk was only helpful if you booked one of their tours – they provided no information other than excursions about traveling on the islands such as additional places to visit or even transportation such as buses on one island (which we were told didn’t exist, though I had a time schedule in hand!). They discouraged any interest in outside excursions and pushed using their excursions for fear of the ship leaving without you if you didn’t return on time when using an outside tour. We were told one show (uhlelana) that we wanted to see was their’s exclusively and we shouldn’t book it because they doubted the outside excursion we had booked during the day would get us back by the scheduled time and we’d loose our $ because they wouldn’t wait for us. Again, not their excursion, not helpful. It turns out the outside tour came back on time and actually a few minutes early, and the show we wanted to see was indeed available and we could have booked it ourselves at the 800 # we found in a pamphlet onshore (had the excursions desk told us we could book ourselves we wouldn’t have missed this show). In fact, the outside tours were half the price, went to the same places, and used the same bus line, Polynesian Adventures which the ship used for the Polynesian Luau as well. The Polynesian Luau was not worth $99 – the venue was totally misrepresented as a “private island” and the food was mediocre – pork was salty, mahi mahi was tough, and macaroni salad (Polynesian?) bitter. You could only order one watered down drink per person at a time, so you needed to get back on long lines to get a drink for your partner. The performance was good, with a raised circular stage – fortunately the actors faced us most of the time but the people sitting behind the actors mostly got a back view. When booking the Luau, the ship staff did not know the seating diagram (I find this hard to believe as this show was exclusive to the ship), so regardless of when you signed up, there was no choice of seats – you were assigned random seats.

Some friends had taken the Pride of Aloha which went to the same ports, but left on Monday. Our experiences were very similar. The ship turned out to be more like a fancy ferry. I guess the next time around we will consider a different cruise line other than NCL.