Right up front: I’m in Hawaii, where the sunlight and sea and landscape and local people dazzle me constantly with their beauty and aloha spirit. In light of all I’m being given this week, having any critical attitude at all seems, well, ungrateful.
That said: one does wish that some of the aloha spirit would spill over onto the American crew of NCL’s The Pride of America, whose spirit can only be characterized as careless, clueless, and incompetent.
When we arrived in our room, we were greeted by a sticky, gooey sea of handsoap smeared all over the top of our sink. Embedded in it was a long, brown hair that must have belonged to the staff or the previous occupant.
Later, friend D. tried to purchase overpriced (seventy-five cents per minute!) Internet services. When connections were unsuccessful, he asked the manager of Internet services for help. The manager’s response? He shrugged and said, “If you can’t make it work, I probably can’t make it work, either.”
Service in the dining room is frenzied. Sherrie, in charge of our table, runs from customer to customer barking orders when apologies are more in order. When soup arrived after D.’s meal, she smacked the bowl down on the table and said, “I don’t want you leaving saying Sherrie never brought me my soup.” Evan, our primary waiter, consistently brought us other people’s orders; when we turned them down, he would wave them in our faces and ask, “Well, then, we have an extra. You want it?” All night long, we watched as customers complained and asked to speak with management … but when so-called managers arrived, they did little more than blink stupidly at the raving customers until, finally, the customers gave up and stormed off.
Yesterday, W. and D. planned to drop more than $400 in the ship’s over-priced spa, but left when staff rudely questioned and corrected them concerning the name of the package they wanted. Meanwhile, Clyde and I looked — in vain — for a quiet, comfortable, adult space where we could relax, read books, and drink some frosty island drinks. After trying everything from the library (where whomp-whomp music from an event across the hall drove us to distraction) to the coffee shop (where a handful of people were shouting answers to trivia questions), we finally asked the staff where two people could go to read quietly and enjoy a drink. The young man behind the information counter screwed up his face and said, “There’s not a place like that on this ship.”
For dinner, Clyde and I visited the supposedly upscale East Meets West restaurant last night — one of the “better than the dining room” eateries that charges additional money for what will be, in theory, finer cuisine. The crab rangoon wontons were steeped in brine. My lamb satay — recommended by the waiter — was overcooked, rubbery, and so crunchy with salt as to be inedible. (“Too spicy for you?” the server asked.)
Meanwhile, we had been seated at a window looking out onto the Pride of America’s interior courtyard … where, unfortunately, formal night photographs were being made. For the forty-five minutes we were in the restaurant, we were subjected to the constant flashes — about one every twenty seconds — from the banks of lights the photographers were using. It was a bit like eating dinner in a thunderstorm or a bad disco. Citing the bad food and the bad atmosphere, we left the place — still hungry! — and scrounged for food elsewhere.
Frankly? There doesn’t seem to be one area — not a single one! — where NCL, as a company, goes the extra mile or puts customers first. We’re not alone in our conclusions, either. Yesterday, out of the blue, fellow cruisers on the rainforest hike spontaneously turned to us and said, “Is this like any cruise you’ve ever been on before?” We’ve spoken with a dozen or so fellow cruisers — from disappointed first-time cruisers (who say, “We’ll never do this again!”) to eighth-cruise veterans, and all of them lament the service (or, really, the complete lack of it), the rudeness of the crew, and the number of ways that The Pride of America falls short of expectations.
I am trying hard to embrace the experience for what it is … but, frankly, our NCL cruise experience has been so remarkably subpar that I can’t imagine ever cruising with this company again. While our Holland America cruise proved to be an exquisite experience that made seeing Alaska easier and more pleasurable than I had imagined it could be, NCL’s cruise around the Hawaiian islands has been a long series of disappointments, annoyances, and missed opportunities. Instead of feeling that I’m on a pleasant cruise around the islands, I feel a bit like I’m trapped on an oversized bus, eating meals shipped in from the food court at a sub-par suburban mall.
It’s a good thing the bus stops at a nice place every day … but for now, the very best thing I can say about the NCL cruise experience is that, during excursions, you get to get away from it.
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