It raised our eyebrows. 

The Corvallis, Ore., Gazette-Times published a piece called “The Buzz: Holy Hawaii!”  Its reporter, Jake Tenpas, was just back from a trip to Maui and the Big Island. 

Tenpas took it upon himself to make up a few new Hawaiian gods. Lokikapi, who sneaks giant cockroaches into your bedding. Wakiluau, patron diety of macaroni salad. Mamamana, goddess of sea turtles. And Papalui, the god of traffic congestion and ridiculously low speed limits.

On the phone, we asked the reporter if he’d gotten any grief for the piece. “No,” he said.  “Did you call to give me any?”

We pointed out it’s at least bad manners, if not outright insensitivity, to play light and loose with Hawaiian culture. And mentioned how much trouble Celebrity Cruises found itself in, when it ran an ad of King Kamehameha’s statue holding a champagne glass. "I can see that," said Tenpas.

Others might, but we didn’t give him much grief at all. He said he meant well, and had gotten his introduction to “real Hawaiian culture” at his favorite restaurant in Corvallis, called Local Boyz—where he orders No. 23, the sweet and spicy chicken plate with rice and macaroni salad.

You can read Jake’s piece here.  But don't say we didn't warn you.

 

And then there was one.

NCL Corporation announced today that it will be withdrawing its cruise ship Pride of Aloha from Hawaii inter-island operations beginning May 11.  This is the second ship that NCL has removed from Hawaii in recent months. Back in January, NCL relocated Pride of Hawaii to Europe, renaming it the Norwegian Jade.

The move leaves NCL with a single cruise ship, the Pride of America, offering inter-island cruises.

In a press release, NCL president and CEO Colin Veitch acknowledged “extraordinarily difficult” times for the company’s Hawaii operations. He blamed lower prices and “an unprecedented expansion of capacity” from foreign-flagged competition.

NCL’s Hawaii cruise ships are United States flagged.

NCL executive vice president of marketing, sales and passenger services Andy Stuart said, in the same release, that the company could not justify further investment in Pride of Aloha.

“Withdrawing Pride of Aloha was an extremely difficult, but necessary commercial decision,” said Stuart.

A Honolulu-based spokesperson for NCL told HawaiiMagazine.com that the Pride of Aloha crew would be offered employment opportunities on other cruise ships in the company's worldwide fleet. The jobs of more than 850 NCL employees here will be affected by the loss of Pride of Aloha.

NCL officials said that Pride of America will operate in Hawaii through 2010. If the market demands, the company could return another ship to the Islands.

Pride of Aloha will be transferred to Hong Kong-based Star Cruises and re-flagged for Asia cruises.

UPDATE, 2/13/08: NCL president and CEO Colin Veitch says remaining inter-island cruise ship also at risk.

 

Is NCL going to shut down its Hawaii cruises?  That rumor was posted on the Web this morning.

Hawaiirama.com suggested that Norwegian Cruise Lines would be suspending all of its Hawaii cruise operations.  The rumor was based on information received from Bruce Fisher, a contributor to the site. Fisher also posted the rumor on his own Hawaii Vacation Blog Web site.

Not true, insists NCL director of public relations, AnneMarie Mathews. Mathews  acknowledged she’d seen “some things in a Google alert.”  But asked point-blank if NCL was indeed suspending Hawaii cruise operations, Mathews replied, “Not that I’m aware of.  NCL America is still operating as usual.”

Let’s hope that NCL America would make its own PR director “aware” of an impending Hawaii shutdown.