HONOLULU -- Passengers on Hawaii's newest cruise ship are complaining of bad service and dirty conditions on board the Pride of Aloha.

The cruise line offered small cash refunds and discounts on future cruises.

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KITV 4 News spoke by telephone Wednesday with several passengers who say the cruise is suffering from unsanitary conditions and bad service, because it has a huge staff shortage.

"This is our 25th wedding anniversary. This is a trip of a lifetime and there is something wrong," passenger Robin Huibregtse said.

Huibregtse and her husband, Dean, came to Hawaii from Idaho and paid $3,400 for a weeklong cruise, but when they arrived in their stateroom Sunday, they immediately saw it had not been properly cleaned.

"The bathroom spelled like urine, and so we called up right away. Then we went up to the buffet line and that's when I just knew we had to get off this thing," she said.

Huibregtse said food in the buffet line was a mess and there was lots of food spilled on the floor. The next morning at breakfast there was more.

"My scrambled eggs were served floating on wet eggs that weren't cooked and that did me in for the dining room," she said.

So the Huibregtses are leaving the cruise Thursday in Kona and flying to Oahu, spending more money to stay in a Waikiki hotel instead.

"We're shattered. We're sad and we're just going to try to salvage what we can of our anniversary on Oahu," she said.

"Some people are saying, 'Keep my money. Just let me off. Tell me how to get out of here. This is horrible,'" a passenger from Virginia told KITV 4 News. "The public bathrooms here are soiled, because they don't have the crews to clean them."

The visitor from Virginia told KITV 4 News that the cruise employees have complained that there is half the staff working, but the ship is at capacity with 2,000 passengers.

"We stand in line as long as two hours, trying to get in because, only half of these huge, beautiful restaurants are being operated, due to the fact that they only have a portion of their personnel on board."

While employees have told passengers they are working 17 hours a day to make up for staff shortages, it is apparently not enough to keep things clean.

Norwegian Cruise Lines issued a written statement, apologizing for what it calls "a number of start-up challenges."

The company said it's taking "aggressive actions" to address the problems. A company spokesman could not detail what the problems are or what is being done to fix them. NCL is sending passengers refunds of $35 and 20-percent credits toward future cruises.