Not-So-Smooth Sailing in Hawaii

It spends all its time in Hawaii and is as American as apple pie. At its re-christening last December, it was renamed the Patriot, and Maggie Inouye, wife of Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye, broke a bottle of champagne against its side.

That’s the way cruise ships are welcomed--or re-welcomed--into the world. And in Hawaii, where cruising waned around 1960 as air travel became more prevalent, the Patriot arrived as a bundle of joy, promising to bring jobs and tourist dollars.

The 1,212-passenger Patriot, built in 1983 as the Nieuw Amsterdam for Holland America Line, joins its sister, the 1,066-passenger Independence, the only big cruise ship operating in Hawaii before the Patriot came along. Both are owned by New Orleans-based American Classic Voyages, the largest operator of U.S.-flagged and -crewed cruise ships. Together, these ships offer an easy way to get to know four islands in seven nights.

The Patriot and Independence won’t have Hawaii to themselves for long. In April, Celebrity Cruises’ 1,950-passenger Infinity is scheduled to begin 11-night voyages from Ensenada, Mexico, to Honolulu. Later this year, Norwegian Cruise Line’s 1,960-passenger Norwegian Leo will stop at four Hawaiian isles and in the tiny Micronesian nation of Kiribati.

With high hopes, I booked an outside cabin on the Patriot’s lowest deck. I knew I wouldn’t get a balcony (there aren’t any) on my mid-January cruise, the ship’s sixth on this itinerary. But the Patriot has all the other cruise ship bells and whistles: two restaurants (the formal Manhattan dining room and the casual Outrigger Cafe), two pools, shops, workout facilities, showrooms, bars and lounge areas aplenty and a Hawaiian culture center. So I packed my Hawaiian shirt and threw in a notebook so I could keep a log.

Day 1: Oahu

I’ve cruised before and am hard to impress. Even so, my expectations soared when I saw the ship, gleaming white against the blue water. I envisioned unforgettable ports-of-call and exciting excursions. A luxurious stateroom and genie-in-a-bottle service. Fireworks and streamers.

Moored close to the Art Deco Aloha Tower in Honolulu Harbor, the Patriot looked like a great expectation, with nine decks and the American eagle on its navy-blue stack. It was stirring to see it, the first of the new fleet headed for the islands. One well might wonder what has taken the cruise ships so long to come to Hawaii. The reasons include small harbors and antiquated passenger terminals, the attractiveness of land-based Hawaiian vacations and the state’s gaming prohibition. The chief impediment for foreign ships has been a century-old law that prevents them from picking up and dropping off passengers at a U.S. port without first cruising to a foreign country, which explains the Norwegian Leo’s detour to Kiribati.

None of these problems deterred the Patriot, even though it flew a foreign flag when American Classic bought it for $114.5 million. But under legislation passed by Congress in 1997 to promote cruise ship construction in the U.S., the company was allowed to fly the Stars and Stripes on the Patriot in return for having two new 1,900 passenger ships built in Pascagoula, Miss., scheduled to be sailing in the islands by 2004.

Porters were waiting as I stepped on board, providing my first impression of the 400-member crew. They were mostly in their 20s and 30s, joking with one another, having a good time and doing a little work while they were at it, all very familiar and casual.

Frequent cruisers know that ships exhibit the personality of their countries of origin in sometimes subtle and sometimes obvious ways. The Patriot is all-American, with an unreservedly friendly, even rambunctious crew.

Cruisers who look for a high level of luxury, service and decorum would probably be appalled by waitresses who call you “love,” the undistinguished cuisine of the ship’s dining rooms and the plastic patio furniture on the decks.

The passengers didn’t strike me as sticklers for service, though many I talked to had cruised before. Many were Midwesterners who were fleeing winter and wanted an uncomplicated vacation. The Patriot was a good fit for them: The crew spoke English, the ports-of-call were American, and hamburgers and scrambled eggs were served every day.

The Patriot’s Hawaiian storyteller, or kumu, Huanani Kaui, who often regaled us with tales from the islands, summed it up nicely in a welcome lecture. She said we were all one big ohana, or family, because we had a relative in common: Uncle Sam.

Before I boarded the ship, I visited the Hawaii Maritime Center, where I saw a re-creation of a white-walled stateroom from the old Matson lines, which used to provide passenger ship service to Hawaii. The room was cozy and commodious--far more attractive than my cabin on the lowest deck of the Patriot.

My stateroom had a porthole and two single beds, but it was otherwise hideous, decorated in early ‘80s oranges and paisleys. It smelled terribly musty, especially the bedclothes. The carpeting and drapes were stained, and tiles in the bath were missing.

I had to wonder what the line did with the $21 million it spent on refurbishments after it acquired the ship, and I started adjusting my expectations downward. As I walked around, I found “Saturday Night Fever” decor in most of the public spaces, built-in ashtrays in lavatory stalls (smoking is allowed in some areas) and an unexpectedly beautiful collection of Hawaiian quilts in the stairwells.

In the Manhattan dining room, I had a steak that had been left too long under the warmer, then went out on deck for our 9:15 p.m. departure.

On the pier, hula dancers performed, a boat circled us spewing fountains of water and there were streamers. It was quite a show.

Still, I went to bed reflecting that the best thing about the day had been chatting with a cab driver who was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Institute for the Sexually Gifted.”

Day 2: Kauai

I slept reasonably well as the Patriot plowed through the 100-mile Kauai Channel to the Garden Island. My daily program advised me of a 7 a.m. stretch class in the Kohala Fitness Center, which has massage rooms, saunas, a small collection of exercise machines and air-conditioning set much too high.

Ann Marie, our instructor, seemed to be holding the class for herself, never helping any of the older women follow her bending and stretching instructions.

I ran a mile (five times around the Promenade deck on nice old wooden floorboards) while we approached Kauai in a pelting rain. Then I listened to the Patriot’s storyteller talk about Kauai, which, like all the ports-of-call on this cruise, I had visited before.

I was already starting to think that Huanani was the best thing about the ship, given her knowledge of Hawaiian mythology and history. And I took her advice, catching a free shuttle to the Kmart in Lihue, Kauai’s port city. There, I bought a cruise wardrobe--shorts, T-shirt, a bikini and muumuu--for about $60.

That night I attended Capt. Mark Zarynoff’s welcome aboard cocktail party. The captain turned out to be quite the showman, telling jokes and calling his top officers on stage. He reminded us that the Patriot was an American ship, with an American crew, ports and pride.

I was assigned to the 8:30 p.m. seating, the second, in the Manhattan dining room, where an air of panic prevailed among the staff. My table mates were an older couple from Washington state and a family of three from Argentina, who spoke little English, making conversation difficult. Daniel, the Argentine man, did communicate that he thought the ship disorganized; he had five lamps in his stateroom, but none worked, and there were no sheets for his 10-year-old daughter’s pull-down bunk. Bob and Judy from Washington said they’d cruised on the Nieuw Amsterdam 15 years ago for their 25th wedding anniversary and hadn’t realized that it had been reincarnated as the Patriot when they booked this cruise to celebrate their 40th. Judy said the ship looked 15 years worse for the wear and that she didn’t like being served by an Outrigger Cafe waitress with a pierced nose. “I didn’t come on a cruise to see that kind of thing,” she said.

Body piercing doesn’t bother me, but I had to wonder what the captain was so proud of.

Day 3: Kauai

Up at 5 a.m. for my first excursion, a bike trip down Waimea Canyon on the dry west side of Kauai. This was one of 80 excursions offered; I could have taken a helicopter ride over the island, visited the Fern Grotto or ridden in a four-wheel drive in the back country of Kauai. The islands are well prepared for tourists, and the cruise line has been able to capitalize on existing touring options, so its daily excursion menus are varied and interesting.

A van pulling a trailer loaded with bikes took us from Nawiliwili Bay near Lihue to the top of the canyon, where we had coffee and pastry and watched the sun rise. Then we set off 12 miles downhill to the hamlet of Kekaha.

Back at the ship in the afternoon, I lazed by the pool, had a martini in the Eagle’s Watch Lounge, the swankiest bar on the Patriot, and skipped the formal evening meal. Instead, I had a bowl of ice cream in the cafe and retired to my cabin to watch a movie (Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot,” of course).

Day 4: Maui

I slept until 8 a.m., an indulgence as big as the ice cream dinner. By the time I got on deck, we were docked at Kahului Harbor in Maui.

That afternoon, a two-hour horseback ride took a group of us from the hills overlooking jungly Waimea Canyon to the beach, where we were allowed to let our horses run. I got back to the ship just in time to shower and put on my Hawaiian shirt for the luau at the Maui Prince Hotel, one of the big resorts on the Wailea coast. The pink-streaked sunset was sublime, the barbecued pork excellent and the Hawaiian entertainment top-notch. Still, a little voice inside my head wanted to know why the luau was an excursion passengers had to pay extra for when it could have been offered on the ship.

Day 5: Maui

I planned to spend the day on the ship, starting by doing my laps around the Promenade deck. Every so often, I passed a nice older man walking the opposite way, who encouraged me and said he was doing 10 laps to my five.

For everything that irritated me on the Patriot, there was something to enjoy, like this endearing man.

Another thing to like is the line’s effort to include authentic Hawaiian flourishes.

The most attractive, best-refurbished part of the ship is the Hawaiian study center and lanai on the Promenade deck, where arts and craft classes and lectures are held. It has beautiful old photos of the islands and wicker furniture with deep cushions. Every afternoon there was a hula and ukulele class. Kumu Huanani’s talks continued to be wonderful; she clearly cared about what she was doing.

The man who sold beer and soft drinks from a cart in the Outrigger Cafe seemed to care too. He called out his wares as though he were at a baseball game, teasing and enchanting all the women who walked by. I had to laugh when I passed a table of women and overhead one say: “I ate too much yesterday. Maybe I’ll just have desserts today.” My tan was deepening, and things were looking up; I decided to give that hula class a try.

I don’t think my hips are cut out for the hula. But it was fun to watch the class learning the moves to “My Little Grass Shack.”

The performers in the evening show, a pastiche of songs and scenes from the ‘50s through the ‘70s, were far more polished, of course, some of the best I’ve seen on a cruise ship.

The program featured a band backing the singers and dancers on Elvis and Motown tunes, the “Gilligan’s Island” theme song and disco music. The room really came alive when they launched into “Boogie People,” which went perfectly with the decor in the Stars and Stripes showroom.

The atmosphere at dinner was somewhat calmer, though the food continued to disappoint. I had vegetable aspic, Manhattan clam chowder, Caesar salad and a bland white fish.

Day 6: Big Island

When we docked in Hilo, a group of elders came aboard to perform the hula. I stopped in on my way to the pier, where I was to join a daylong van excursion to the celestial observatories atop Mauna Kea. I was so completely disarmed by the graceful hulas of the old folks that I wanted to stay.

The van tour took about 20 Patriot passengers west on the winding Saddle Road, then up the 13,796-foot mountain. It was exceptionally clear, so we could see Hilo, Haleakala on Maui and steam clouds over Kilauea, the low but active Big Island volcano.

The cruise was to end Saturday in Honolulu, but I had planned to get off at our Friday stop on the Kona side of the Big Island.

What a life, right? Cruising and then writing about it for a living. How much work could that be? Of course, it’s not like running a cement mixer. But it does require a cool head, because it’s all too easy to become accepting as a cruise progresses.

The sun shines; you have a beer and feel mellow. So what if your cabin smells like a root cellar and the Parmesan cheese at dinner is out of a can, as long as your ship takes you by wonders like rivulets of lava on the southeast flank of the Kilauea volcano? I got to see that on my last night. The lava channels looked like red-hot ski runs on a dark mountain under a Jackson Pollock smattering of stars.

Day 7: Big Island

Aboard the tender that took me to Kona, I met a travel agent with lots of suggestions for the crew. But she finally said, “I never met a cruise I didn’t like.”

Well, I have. I am as American as apple pie, but the Patriot doesn’t live up to its Hawaiian itinerary, all the more distressing because cruising and Hawaii should be a match made in paradise.

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GUIDEBOOK

Setting Sail in the Hawaiian Islands

Getting there: The cruise line arranged my air fare, which cost $534. From LAX, Northwest, Hawaiian, American, United, Delta and Continental fly nonstop; restricted round-trip fares begin at $329.

About the ship: The Patriot is part of United States Lines (owned by American Classic Voyages), 1380 Port of New Orleans Place, New Orleans, LA 70130; telephone (877) 330-6871, fax (504) 599-5579, Internet https://www.unitedstateslines.com.

The ship has 606 cabins in 15 categories, with prices that vary depending on the cruise booked. They range from the Presidential Suite, which begins at $3,999, double occupancy, to interior staterooms, beginning at $1,599, double. These rates don’t include Hawaiian state tax or air fare. Specials are sometimes offered; trip extensions (in hotels in Hawaii and California) are available.

For more information: Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, 2270 Kalakaua Ave., Suite 801, Honolulu, HI 96815; tel. (800) GO-HAWAII (464-2924), fax (808) 922-8991, https://www.gohawaii.com.