Advertiser travel editor Wanda Adams is on a Norwegian Star cruise around the Islands and down to Fanning Island in Kiribati. This is the first of her daily diaries.

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Travel Editor

ABOARD THE NORWEGIAN STAR, docked at Piers 10 and 11, Honolulu — The business world in general could learn much from the folks who organize the embarkation process for the Norwegian Star.

Despite the fact that the bulk of the 2,200-plus passengers arrived at the earliest possible hour — 1 p.m. — we were on board and eating lunch within an hour, had made our excursion, spa and dinner reservations and were in possession of most of our luggage within two hours. And every employee we dealt with smiled, greeted us warmly, did business briskly and moved us on our way. (I'll walk through the nuts and bolts of embarkation and our FAQs in my June 1 report in print and online.)

You're among friends

Because many kama'aina have caught on to the fact that you can get some great deals aboard cruise ships — including this one, if you are willing to travel at a week or two's notice, taking up cabins that would otherwise remain empty — we ran into a number of locals.

Lorraine and Richard Pang of Honolulu talked recipes with me as we stood in line to register and shared the tip that larger ships tend to be better organized than smaller ones. Juanita Cook of Hilo, on her second Norwegian Star cruise, noted that this is a great time for grown-ups: School's not out, so there are fewer kids on board. She's a cruiser after my own heart: left the cell phone at home and plans to be unreachable.

Linda Kessler of Honolulu, a novice voyager like me, took the spa tour and then signed up for a treatment.

This is only a drill

"I feel like Dolly Parton," said Kessler, peering down at the immense Day-Glo orange protuberance on her chest, the "personal flotation device" that was required attire for the mandatory emergency drill to which everyone was bidden a couple of hours before sailing. "I can't see my feet."

Each cabin has an assembly station and ours is — of all places — the Starlight Theatre. "Excuse me," I asked our assembly supervisor, "but if the ship's sinking, why are we sitting in the the-ah-tah?" "Because it's not sinking yet," he shot back in a cocky Aussie accent. "Oh," I said, chastened.

Nervous jokes skittered among us as we sat wearing uncomfortable, bulky vests, listening to instructions about finding our lifeboats, and then sitting through them again in Japanese. "Hey! How come hers says 'Titanic?' " the woman next to me asked, pretending to examine the label on my vest. Groans all around.

Al the man

All the world needs a concierge. Ours is called Al Almazan.

Already, he has endeared himself to us by sending us a letter of welcome, some chocolate-covered strawberries, a pupu plate involving a lot of caviar, and a platinum discount card for the Columbian Emeralds Store on Deck 7. He put me in touch with the computer guy so I could file this report, found my cabin-mate's slow-arriving luggage and appears game to solve any other problems we might encounter. If only we could take Al with us when we leave!

Pretty in plastic

Although I can already tell that I'll enjoy certain aspects of this cruise immensely — the views, the time away, our cozy cabin, writing these reports — I am also struck by how artificial much of the environment is, and how hard the sell is.

So many of the surfaces are some form of plastic imprinted to look like wood or metal or something else, and there's entirely too much ornamentation and bad art — the sort of thing you see on soap operas or made-for-TV movies when middle-class people try to imagine what it's like to live in a world of wealth.

As for the hard sell — you step on board reassured that you've paid in advance for everything you'll need, but within moments you're bombarded with a seemingly infinite variety of ways to spend additional money: shops, Internet hookups, booze, sodas (yes, they're extra), spa treatments, art auctions, onshore excursions, booze, facsimiles of your hometown newspaper delivered to your room, booze, gourmet dining, having your clothes ironed (because there are no irons in the cabins) booze...

On our way

Great excitement! It's 7:56 p.m. and just this minute, we get moving. My cabin-mate, Bonnie Judd, and I rush to the balcony to watch and listen to songs of farewell from the pier where a Hawaiian band plays and two ti leaf-skirted dancers sway.

We want to throw the puakenikeni lei overboard that my brother gave us, but we've been warned not to; string isn't good for fishes. So we keep them to scent our cabin.

We were out on our deck a short while ago, writing in our cruise journals, but night has fallen rapidly and Honolulu glows in the dark as the ship is towed away from the pier. The band begins to play "Aloha 'Oe" as our starboard-side cabin loses sight of the dock.

The harbor pilot's boat skitters like a mosquito across the surface of the water, tiny in comparison to the 965-foot Norwegian Star, and we're pushed around to face bow-first toward the harbor mouth.

Predictably, Bonnie and I tear up and wave like maniacs as Honolulu disappears. Whoever thought up the idea of reviving the old Boat Day customs, mahalo nui! It wouldn't have been half as sweet if we hadn't had some people to wave back at us, hula dancers to watch, and music to send us on our way.