Hilo

It is 7:30am and I am sitting on the balcony writing this post as we pull into Hilo to dock. Hilo is one of two ports we visit on the big island of Hawaii. Today we go to visit Volcano national park. Tonight we will travel between Hilo and Kona and will see the lava flow. I am hoping to get some pictures of that. It is misty out now and we hope that the skys clear up for our trip later this morning.

Let's talk about the cruise so far. We are on board the "Pride of America." This is an NCL America ship. The theme of the ship is americana. The seal of the United States adourns the floor in the main lobby - They call it the capitol lobby. You have the South beach pool area and the Jefferson Bistro - To give you an idea of how americana makes it into the ship room names.

The ship is smaller then most of the RCCL ships we have traveled on yet very very nice. The staff is all american. For those of you that have cruised before you will recall that it is rare to have an american crew memeber. Since this cruise never leaves US waters (Is always in Hawaiian waters) the cruise line must abide by all us laws including labor laws (FLSA, Over time, etc. etc.). This is why the crew are all americans - You would need a labor visa or green card to work here otherwise. This is very nice as you are able to easily communicate with crew members. Since US labor laws apply you do not get to see as much of the staff (like your room stewards) as they can only work 40 hours before being paid overtime. I think this is a good thing. The conventional wisdom on board is that other cruise lines avoid Hawaii due to the restrictions. Also of note - There is no gambling in Hawaii and therefore no Bingo and no Casino on board.

The Food - So far we have eaten at 2 of the specialty reastaurants (They require a small fee to eat there - $10 to $25). The first one we ate at is a French Bistro called Jefferson's Bistro. This is a french reastaurant and the food was excellent. The service was excellent even if our waiter was a Yankees fan... The Maitre'd was a red sox fan from Rhode Island so he had us sit at the Yankee fans table since I was wearing my redsox hat and 2004 world series championship t-shirt. We have eaten at the "little Italy: restaurant twice so far - The cover charge is $10 there. The service is great - The food is good but not great. We had Veal Scalopini one night and Chiken Parmeasean the other. We have also eaten at the Aloha Cafe - the ships buffett - The food at the buffett has been very good, as good as we have had on any other ship. Yesterday in the AM we decided to eat at the main dining room for breakfast - Can you say slow motion... It took us more that 45 min to get food. We were seated immediately and it looked like man to man coverage (Crew to guest ratio in the restaurant). It took at least 20 min to get coffee and longer to get our order in We will try it again for dinner but will stick to the buffett for breakfast.

ok - Time to go we have to eat and head out to Hilo!!!