Post-eruption Hawaii is best explored on a cruise ship

It’s official — Mother Nature wants Hawaii whacked.

Of course, California and Alaska are the states most recently licking their wounds due to mum’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, 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 (even when a certain state authority isn’t always so on the ball) is Norwegian Cruise Lines, who in October was offering reduced and sometimes free airfare for guests booking seven-day, intra-island jaunts aboard its Pride of America ship (when coupled with a one-night hotel stay and a few other fine-printy things).

If you’ve never met NCL’s 13-year-old, 2,186-passenger POA vessel, she’s really sort of a plain Jane — a girl-next-door type.

She’s not particularly ritzy (though it enjoyed pretty heavy-duty renovations in 2016, it still suffers from what one veteran passenger described as an “Atlantic City carpet aesthetic,” and there’s certainly no tuxedo/ball gown dress code). She doesn’t have a water park with over-ocean slides. Her in-room high-techery begins and ends with diminutive flatscreen TVs and spotty Wi-Fi.

Superlative-free, meh-sexy Pride is 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, snobbery-free, unfailing fun — which is precisely what still-convalescing Hawaii needs right now. What Pride does indeed offer are pool-side beauty pageants (“dudes with the best legs,” it’s 2018), way-too-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 (turns out cruise ships are, counter-intuitively, highly flammable and this is the only allowable smoking area).

People of every station in life can and do have a ball aboard POA. And their 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 ridiculous zillion-hour days, seven days a week, for five months a year (then they get five months off, assuming their contract is 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 given time. Something to do with maritime law, blech.)

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 legally sail out into whack-a-doo international waters of, say, Fanning Island, which can take days, in between.

Basically you sail or stay docked overnight, and play on land during the day. In this hyper-exotic realm where everything is imported and NFL Sundays are enjoyed over breakfast (five hour time difference!), you’ll want to maximize your time exploring.

By far the most interesting person in all of Hawaii is the guide I had on my Polynesian Adventure Tour’s Kauai jaunt, which POA arranged.

You’d have to spend a half million dollars on “Wheel of Fortune” just to buy the vowels in her first name: Kemapukakouenikealaokamaile.

But you can just call her Kana’e.

She drives a mercifully, generously air-conditioned bus around her native island, taking us to canyons and waterfalls and a coffee farm. But it’s her quirky rhetorical delivery that delights. She transitions between an infinity of topics with silly questions like, “Have you ever heard the word ‘Aloha’?” or “Do you know of the movie star Adam Sandler?” But she also gets extremely personal. My favorite: “Do you ask questions on dates? On Kauai, there are two you have to ask: Who’s your dad, and who’s your mom. It’s so small here, everyone is related. You could be dating your cousin!” And then 5 minutes later, she hilariously reveals she married her cousin (like 20 times removed, or some such). The only thing she dislikes about her rainy little island are the hordes of feral chickens everywhere that are too muscley to eat and she implores you bring them home as souvenirs (you can’t).

Other in-port activities, depending on the island, include helicopter rides (a soothsaying Debbie Downer of an Irish bartender in NYC dissuaded me from that, but I digress), forest hikes, lavender and goat cheese farm tours.

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, schmolcano.

Amid all the chaos of Hawaii’s natural disasters this year, Pride of America’s best buffet is its healthy portions of calm, serenity and good times.

Seven-day sailings from $899/per person; NCL.com. The author was a guest of the cruise ship.

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