‘Mele Kalikimaka’ from Hawaii,
A winter cruise around Hawaii
IT’S official — Mother Nature wants Hawaii whacked.
Of course, Alaska and California are the states most recently licking their wounds due to Mom’s wrath. But earlier in 2018, the Paradise of the Pacific suffered her own rash of wildfires, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and, most terrifyingly, Kilauea volcano’s infamous house-gobbling lava vomit, which forced the evacuation of thousands.
Yet, like some kind of kukui nut-necklaced “Iron Mike” Malloy, the islands cannot and will not be snuffed out. Tourism this winter, however? The verdict has yet to be rendered. While main attractions are open and thirsty for visitors (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, among them, while its host, the Big Island, is technically larger now thanks to the lava flow), there’s something about the words “volcanic eruption” that can leave potential visitors a mite skittish. So helping out the cause is Norwegian Cruise Lines, who during the worst of it was offering reduced and sometimes free airfare for guests booking week-long, intra-islands jaunts aboard its Pride of America ship (when coupled with a one-night hotel stay and a few other fine-printy things). Now, seven-day sailings around the Big Island, Maui, Oahu and Kauai start at $899 per person.
If you’ve never met NCL’s 13-year-old, 2,186-passenger vessel, she’s really sort of a plain Jane — a girl-next-door type. She’s not particularly ritzy (though she enjoyed a heavy-duty facelift in 2016, she still suffers from what one passenger described as an “Atlantic City carpet aesthetic”). She doesn’t have a water park with over-ocean slides or faux rock walls to climb. Her in-room hightech-ery begins and ends with diminutive flatscreen TVs and spotty Wi-Fi.
The Pride of America is superlative-free: neither the biggest this, nor the longest that. The pay-to-eat restaurants aren’t anything to call home about. To be honest, some of the best meals are had at the comped buffets (albeit, I graze like a cat) which are often themed (I ushered in Oktoberfest with scrumptious bratwursts and sauerkraut) and stay open late.
Pride of America is simply and purely non-elitist, egalitarian, accessible, snob-free, unfailing fun — which is precisely what still-convalescing Hawaii needs right now. Pride does indeed offer pool-side beauty pageants (guys with the best legs, it’s 2018), intense art auctions, an arcade, ping-pong tables, cheesy magic/comedy shows, open-mic karaoke and the most beautiful sunset sailing push-offs on the planet. Oh, and the upper deck, 13, is where all the bad kids, wastrels, busted valises and, duh, Aussies (shocker) hang out and puff cigars over Jack-n-Cokes at the Waikiki Bar (the only allowable smoking area; counter-intuitively, cruise ships are highly flammable).
People of every station in life can and do have a ball aboard the POA. And its fan base — in all their many shapes (skews a tad large), ages (skews a tad old) and often motorized-scootered forms — are extremely loyal and kept continuously and reliably entertained.
Even the staffers — who work zillion-hour days, seven days a week, for five months a year (then get five months off, assuming their contracts are renewed) — can’t wipe the dang smiles off their faces. (Don’t try to buy your bartender a drink, though. They’re not allowed to have a BAC of over .04 at any time.)
What’s most keen about the Mississippi-born ship, which sails exclusively around Hawaii, is its flagagge: It’s the only major cruise ship to be registered in the United States and, yes, proudly flies Old Glory (as opposed to the Bahamian or any number of other international flags that allow for more lax regulations, less taxes and non-American [read: cheaper] staff).
This means Pride can bounce from one Hawaiian port to another (Honolulu to Kahului to Hilo to Kona, e.g.) without having to sail out into whack-a-doo international waters, which can take days, in between. Basically you sail or stay docked overnight, and play on land during the day. This is Hawaii — you can pretty much blindfold yourself and walk the plank off POA and enjoy yourself. Or don’t. While that whole getting off the boat thing was fun, my favorite day of the week was a bit of a fluke. Hurricane Olivia thwarted our docking in Kona so we had an unplanned sailing day instead. As someone who was a virgin to cruising, I was deathly afraid the heavily itinerated experience would amount to little more than recreational fascism (the cruise director’s voice being pumped directly into a speaker in my room didn’t help to assuage those fears). But all those cliches about cruising — the wind in your hair, taking salty air haymakers to the face, just sitting on a bar stool on deck 13, sipping something heavy on the ethanol and taking in the Polynesian view porn — really woke me to its magic. In short: volcano, schmalcano.