Just returned from Hawaiian cruise on the POA. Date of trip was 9/3/05. Be forewarned.....housekeeping is virtually non existant!!!!! Cabin always dirty, three adults in the cabin yet we were always given only 2 towles. Kept asking for more but never received, finally had to raid the housekeeping carts for towles, tp, tissues, soap. Balcony furniture was dirty from day one and never cleaned. Cigarette butts and straws on the floor. Had to sacrifice a clean towel and place it on the balcony chair in order to sit on it. Steward managed to take the towel the following day but never gave us clean ones or cleaned ANYTHING!!! Kept complaining to front desk...nothing was ever done. At end of trip, we withheld money from the daily lack of service charge!
NCL kept screwing up the shore excursions. We signed up prior to sailing but that did no good. Most of the excursions we chose were good however DO NOT take the Kona land and sea excursion. Big time rip off!!!!
Ate at the Bistro, Lazy J, Little Italy restaurants. Little Italy was horrible (no upcharge) The Bistro and the Lazy J were very good. The Bistro is $10 extra but where can you order escargo, filet mignon...as much as you want... for 10 bucks! The same for the Lazy J. Both are well worth the money. Service is slow, expect to spend 2 - 3 hours for the entire meal. Get the reservations as soon as you get on the ship as they sell out fast. We also ate at the Liberty dining room. Food was pretty good but again service very slow. The buffet was better than I had on Royal Carribean. Food was good and there was always plenty to eat.
Embarkation went very smooth and the disembarkation was also smooth and you could leave pretty much when you wanted. Another problem with NCL air was the three of us were scattered on the plane, had to work with the Flight attendents to get seats together. Flight to Hawaii got in at 1:30pm and we were taken directly to the ship. Flight home was at 10pm (a red eye) We spent 2 additional days in Honolulu. NCL put us in the Hilton Hawaiian Hotel. It is a 22 acre resort with a very large beach area and several pools.
The Islands were great and we saw and did a lot. Just be aware that the service on NCL POA is not good, the cabins are dirty and EXTREMELY SMALL. We were aware of this and our main purpose was to see as much of Hawaii as possible. If you want to be pampered and you want all of the service....NCL won't give it to you. If you want to see 4 Hawaiian Islands for a great price...NCL delivers.
In all fairness to the crew....they did a real good job, always eager to please and very friendly.

I don't quite understand. If "the crew was eager to please"
WHY was your cabin always dirty and why couldn't you get the towels you needed?

quote:

Originally posted by KAYE:
I don't quite understand. If "the crew was eager to please"
WHY was your cabin always dirty and why couldn't you get the towels you needed?

It's possible the room attendants were trying to please, but they didn't have any clean towels to put into the rooms because the part of the ships' crew you don't see isn't cleaning and drying the towels fast enough, or possibly the laundry equipment used to clean and dry the towels have broken down.

A cruise ship's crew is made of many people, with different responsibilities, working together or against one another. It only takes one rotten apple to ruin the entire bushel.