Pride of Aloha is at home, at last
By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser travel editor
At 6 a.m. yesterday, the Pride of Aloha was a ghostly form emerging from the mist at the mouth of Honolulu Harbor.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser
A half-hour later, the 12-deck ship was squarely in the center of the channel, attended by Coast Guard vessels and the harbor pilot boat, her port side kissed by the edge of an arching rainbow that even a Hollywood producer couldn't have placed more perfectly. At the end of Pier 9, Josh Chang, 15, and Aukele Anderson, 17, nervously fingered their pu 'ole 'ole, readying to greet the ship with the haunting sound of the conch.
Dancers greeted the Pride of Aloha cruise ship as it pulled into Honolulu Harbor early yesterday morning. The ship, formerly known as Norwegian Sky, begins its seven-day Island cruise itinerary tomorrow.
By 7:01 — prompt almost to the minute — Norwegian Cruise Lines' new Hawai'i-based ship and its first U.S.-flagged ship was home at last, snugged up to Pier 11, the trailing plumeria and orchid lei painted on her sides forming a bright backdrop for the deserted open-air stage of Kapono's nightclub.
On the pier were about 75 souls and a dog, plus what was almost certainly the most concentrated pocket of clicking cameras in the state right at that moment — passengers snapping greeters, greeters clicking away at passengers and each other, press photographers jockeying for position.
The Pride of Aloha, formerly known as Norwegian Sky, launches a seven-day cruise itinerary tomorrow. Only U.S.-flagged ships are allowed to cruise solely within American waters; NCL secured an exemption to federal maritime law to make the new schedule possible. It's expected to appeal more to local cruisers as well as travelers with no interest in visiting Fanning Island, formerly a mandatory part of NCL's 11-day island cruise schedule.
A gala charity cruise is set for tonight and the official maiden voyage departs at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow.
"Haaaa-waaa-eee caaaaalls, with a message of aloha," sang Moana Chang, whose family has been performing for cruise ships for four generations.
Earlier, Frank Chang recalled how his wife's mother used to perform for the old-style boat days, and the kids would come down and get themselves all tangled up in the streamers that the passengers flung down to the dock. Now, though Moana uses a wheelchair when she's not performing, and Frank is just retired, they volunteer with the Aloha Boat Days Committee, which greets all incoming cruise ships. "We enjoy it. It gets the family together," he said.
"This is turning out really well," said Leonard Adams, bustling around, handing out plumeria lei. Adams is pier coordinator for the Boat Days Committee, which is going all out this weekend, seeing the Pride off this afternoon and tomorrow.
Arriving ships usually get a handful of stalwart wavers, a trio of musicians and a couple of hula girls. But yesterday, the Changs brought enough aunties, uncles, brothers, sisters and grandchildren to stage a family reunion (which they had just been having, as a matter of fact, in Las Vegas). The youngest of the Changs mo'opuna were lined up in front of their hula-dancing 'ohana, holding wooden cutouts that looked suspiciously like the ones that were a standard feature of the old Kodak Hula Show, spelling out the word A-L-O-H-A.
Everyday citizens made a special effort, too, despite mandatory "Hawaiian blessing" (rain). Ken Wakumoto can see the cruise ships come in from his condo window, but yesterday made the effort to come down in person. "NCL has done a lot for Hawai'i," he said, "and it's wonderful that (the Boat Days Committee) can do something like this."
As the ship spun around to present its stern to Pier 11 — and what a job of parallel parking that is — Ron Hopper clutched a cell phone to his ear and gazed upward as though to try to locate someone on board. He was talking to his son, Robert, 19, a galley worker, for the first time in 4 1/2 months. "I am so happy they're back; it's been hard (to be out of touch). I hope he's going to get the whole day off; he said they worked 100 hours last week," Hopper said.
He was among a number of O'ahu folks who were hoping to spend at least part of the Fourth of July weekend with NCL workers who have been rehearsing for this voyage for months, having joined the ship in California, where shakedown cruises took place.
Gina Vilayvong hadn't yet heard from her boyfriend, James T. Gardner, a veteran of the defunct American Hawaii Cruises who is also working in the Pride galley. She clutched a lei in one hand and her cell phone in the other and scanned the top decks, where white-coated kitchen crew members could be seen. Gardner had been gone for two months and Vilayvong has been taking care of her three children — and the one on the way. Gardner called her the day before from Kaua'i and promised her the whole day together. But that's "still not enough," Vilayvong said
A short while later, she was on the phone, smiling broadly, and the Changs were quickly gulping down doughnuts and juice preparatory to yet another unusual feature of the morning: a lei greeting inside the terminal.
The Pride's routine itinerary will have the ship leave from Honolulu each Sunday evening for Nawiliwili on Kaua'i, then to Hilo and Kona on the Big Island and finally to Kahului, Maui, before returning to Honolulu each Sunday morning.
Reach Wanda Adams at 535-2412 or wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.
