Travel Rewards

The ship arrived on the Kona side of the Island of Hawaii at 7:00am on Wednesday.  This was a tendered port. We had not signed up for any of the tours; so we had a leisurely breakfast while we waited to the the tour guests to be tendered to shore. We finally went ashore and browsed the stores along the street where we had come ashore. Found a bar and had a Bloody Mary.  Had a chat with a couple of the crew that were on liberty. We did not get a chance to see as much as we would have liked of Kona; guess that means we have to come back. The ship left Kona that evening at 6:00pm; starting out on the longest leg of the journey to Kaui.

I had looked online to see what my options were. There was the Pride of America that left the day before the Pride of Aloha had been scheduled to leave. The difference was in availability and price.  There did not appear to be any ocean view staterooms available. There were some staterooms with a balcony available; but they were about double what we had booked out ocean view for on the Pride of Aloha. That following Monday after a short game of phone tag we reached the travel agent.  She explained that NCL has decided to remove the Pride of Aloha from cruise service in the Hawaiian islands. The had contacted the travel agents to offer alternate travel options to guests that were booked on the Pride of Aloha. She admitted that she had slipped up and would need a few days to see what could be worked out. Well it probably took another five of six weeks to get everything finalize. That was a real worrisome period. In the end they gave us a balcony at the price of our origin...