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You are awesome! Thanks for posting all that info! Love it!

Happy to help! Sorry it's taking me so long to get this done lol!

Day 5 (Thursday) - Kauai (end of the day)

We headed back to the shopping center and we caught the shuttle from the shopping center to the ship. Such a great day!! NCL kept promoting the Luau for this night, but I'm so glad we did the Old Lahaina Luau on Maui and had this day to spend as we did!

Day 5- Dinner at The Beach House

This was a highlight of the trip. I checked when the sun would be setting when we would be there, and scheduled our reservation a half hour ahead of that time approximately. We had great seats ( I don't think there was a bad one there) and went out on the lawn with everyone when the sun was setting and got some spectacular pictures. It was a little sunny until the sun set, and pricey, but I feel the experience was worth it - and the food was great too lol.

My Mai Tai...

Lobster Deviled Eggs

The views from our table

Best picture of the night

The afterglow..

Day 5- Kauai (still contd)

After lunch we headed to Poipu beach. We found a parking place (not an easy thing to do) and found a picnic table and put our Monkey Mats there (these things are cool - lighter weight than taking a blanket to the beach etc. I saw them on GMA deals and steals. They were also on Shark Tank). This was a great beach. There was a protected area that was pretty shallow, and then open areas where there were a lot of surfers and beautiful waves crashing in.

More chickens....

At one point, we heard a car alarm going off, and turned to each other and said "wonder if that's our car lol". Well it turned out it was - someone hit our bumper and left, no note etc. Luckily we had the extra car rental insurance. We usually don't get it, but since our friends were taking the car the next day by themselves, and it was just for the car itself, my hub got it. Thank God he did, or we may still be dealing with that. As it was, our friends just dropped it off and showed it to them.

We had 6:15pm reservations at the Beach house, so we changed in the bathrooms at the beach and headed that way.

We had time, so we stopped at the Blow Hole just down the road from Poipu beach. If you go to any blow hole, go to this one - it was very cool. It made this incredible noise, like a giant groan. No wonder people used to think there was a god or mystical creature underneath it.

Day 5 - Kauai (contd)

Ok if you go to Waimea Canyon, you HAVE to eat at the Shrimp Station (if you like shrimp, that is). I had the best Coconut Shrimp of my LIFE! The Papaya Ginger dipping sauce was the clincher. There were chickens and roosters everywhere. At one point, I felt something on my foot, and looked down to see 4 baby chicks pecking at my foot! They scurried off and I fed a rooster a french fry...

My coconut shrimp

Day 5 - Kauai

Hello Kauai! <3

This was my favorite day of the entire cruise! We had breakfast at the Cadillac Diner. The menu was somewhat limited compared to the buffet (obviously) and we were used to the buffet by this time, but it was still good. I would recommend eating here early in the cruise, so you don't get spoiled by all of the choices at the buffet lol. We headed out and took a shuttle to the airport to rent a car. We rented another jeep, a hard top this time, so only the top above the driver and front passenger came off. The car rental place told us to go back to the shopping center by the ship and prepay for a parking spot overnight, in case they were all taken later, so we did that. Turned out later that we could have parked on the street for free, but better safe than sorry.

We headed to Waimea Canyon, once again using the Shaka app and it did not disappoint. We got into Waimea town and headed towards the canyon.

Looking down on Waimea Town

There was some amazing pull offs, each one better than the one before. The red dirt waterfall was especially cool...

We got some homemade bread when we got to the main lookout for the canyon and walked up to the look out. It wasn't a big hike or anything and there was handicap access for most of it. There was a LOT of people there when we were there.

We stopped at the next stop after the canyon, which was a cool state park shop etc, thinking we would eat lunch there, but weren't super impressed with the menu so we decided to just eat at a shrimp place in Waimea town that we had seen earlier. We didn't head down yet, as we knew there were more things to see going up the canyon road. We followed the app to the end of the road for an amazing view of the Napali Coast/Valley.

A few more pics from Kona

Coffee Plantation - completely different from the one we visited in Hilo.

Honey Tasting! If you buy some and it's bigger than a liquid size carry on, don't put it in your carry on like my husband did - it didn't make it through TSA... :(

The Painted Church - we just stopped for about 10 minutes, but it was a nice stop

Small lava tube below a coffee place

Day 4 - Kona

We were scheduled to meet Mary Lou at the dock at 8:30, so I followed the directions in the Freestyle Daily (see my post above) and went to Pink's at 6 am and got 4 tickets to get on the tender between 8-8:30. We were group 3. They announced at 7:50 that group 2 and 3 could board the tender, so we headed that way and got right on a tender. Easy peasy! Here is a pic pulling away from the ship.

Mary Lou was waiting for us at the dock, and we all followed her to where she had parked her mini van. The first place we stopped at was a small local craft market that was set up on the grounds of a hotel. There was some great shopping there - local handmade things. I bought some baby things for new grandbabies made with Hawaiian material, knowing I wouldn't get to a fabric store myself. My friend bought some jewelry and her husband bought a beautiful wooden knife. There was some knives with shark teeth in them. Very cool and a great place to get some local handmade items.

Next we went to a beach where you could see the Captain Cook memorial across the bay. It was a nice place for some good photos. Here is the memorial.

We then went to the 'City of Refuge' - the main place I wanted to go. The tikis were very cool and we had some great photo ops there too - we saw another turtle and a barracuda that is trapped in a lagoon area - he was washed in there in a storm.

We also went to another coffee plantation, a honey farm, the painted church and a small lava tube. Mary Lou was once again a font of information, and very accomodating. She was going to take us to the Kona Brewery, but everyone else wanted to get back to the ship, so she took us back, but we saw a shaved ice place that was across the street, so she drove around and took us over there. We had ice cream in the center of the shaved ice - definitely try that!! We walked back to the ship and waited for the tender, while eating our shaved ice. We didn't have to wait too long for the tender, but it was about 3:30, so maybe it got busier later. The last tender was at 5pm. We went to the Margarita tasting at 5 and had a great time! They also had Mojito and Martini tastings on other nights. I think they were all $19.95 a person. We got 5 different margaritas and they were pretty good sized - not just a 'tasting'. Plus they had extras so we got a few extras.... here is a pic of the table next to ours.....

We had reservations at East Meets West at 6:30 but they were backed up and we didn't get to our table until 7:15! I was excited to eat here, but we weren't that impressed. The wait didn't help any. Ended up at the Waikiki bar and then back on our balcony. All in all a great day!

Great pictures! We plan to take Mary Lou's tour in Hilo and Kona too! Made reservations back in March for our November 3 cruise. How long did it take to get on the tender? I'm worried half the day will be gone! Thanks for your report.

Thanks! You are going to love Mary Lou! It didn't take us very long at all. I'm attaching a pic of the info we had on tendering. It worked really well for us! Thanks for following and I hope you have as great of a trip as we did!

Day 3 - Hilo (contd)

Next Mary Lou took us to a black sand beach, and I bought a shell necklace for $5 and a bracelet from a guy named Dave for $20. It has a 'velvet seed' in the bracelet - it's my new touchstone lol - love that bracelet! We hiked just a bit to the beach, which was basically gone - not sure if it was because of the rains, or high tide or what, but it was still very pretty.

Dave of the jewelry design...

Walking to the black sand beach

We then went to a local place for lunch and had some great fish. We also went to a coffee plantation and Rainbow Falls. It rained for a bit, but for the most part wasn't too rainy. Our weather was actually pretty great for the entire trip. We also drove by the Banyan trees and King Kamahamaha's statue. After Rainbow Falls we stopped at the Black Sand Beach close to the port - we could see the ship from there. We saw a turtle there and some interesting trees and flowers. Mary Lou is a font of information on the local plants - I really missed her on Kauai later on the cruise - I got spoiled with her telling us what was what.

This was our anniversary, so we parted ways with our friends for the evening and had dinner at the Liberty restaurant. The choices were ok, nothing really jumped out at me. I had the Teriyaki dish and my husband had the sirloin (I think that was the cut). They were good, but we could tell the steak wasn't from the midwest... We had told them when we made the reservation (which we didn't need - the place was half empty at 7:30) that it was our anniversary, and we got a rather large cake after we ate dessert. It was really nice. The lava was not flowing into the ocean unfortunately, so our cruise didn't do the southern route to Kona.

Here is a picture of my $5 shell necklace - such a great deal and I love it!

Day 3 - Hilo

We woke up to a beautiful sight off of our balcony!

We ate breakfast at the buffet, and sat out in the back enjoying the view.

We booked Mary Lou's Big Island tours for both of our days on the Big Island. Mary Lou and her husband Ken were both in the building you enter when you get off of the ship. We had booked a private tour, so it was just the 4 of us with Mary Lou and her husband had 6 people with him. We were on our own, but did go to most of the same places as Ken and his group. I can't say enough great things about these 2! If you don't have plans yet for Hawaii, contact them - we had a great time! We were planning on going to Akaka Falls, but with the hurricane and rains wreaking havoc from the week before, the road was slow going and so we went a different direction. We drove past the checkpoint for the active Fissure 8, where you couldn't go any further unless you lived in the area. Mary Lou too us to an area where buses couldn't go - we drove over lava that had covered the road, past steamy ditches where people were not allowed out of their cars due to the emissions etc. We ended at a neighborhood that was covered in lava in 2014. It was like walking on the moon - unbelievable. And people are rebuilding homes right on the lava!

It was an amazing experience.

Is wifi available for internet without signing up for any special package onboard since we are in a "state" the entire cruise unlike going to Europe or the Caribbean?

You need to buy a package - you will have cellular service in ports, but out at sea you are too far away from the towers, etc.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments! I'm glad this is helping you! I'm sorry I haven't finished this report yet! My laptop is still on the fritz but I'm planning on confiscating my hub's laptop tonight and hopefully getting it done or at least mostly done :)

Enjoying this review so far. I am hoping at some point you will post pictures of the daily newsletter (sorry don't know what its called on NCL) Or at least post was some of the daily and nightly activities were.

 

We normally cruise RCI and spend some time each evening in the casino. So this will be a change for us. Just making sure there is plenty to do.

 

We just booked for next September. The same week you just did.

Could you share what airline you took and if you booked your flights on your own? or thru NCL?? Any hints to getting a good price?? We will be flying out of Ohio. Keep hearing rumors that Southwest is going to start flying to HAwaii. Sure hope that is true.

I still have the dailies! I will take pics of them and post - do you just want the times etc or all of it?

We were on United/American from Springfield Il to Dallas, then Dallas to Honolulu. It was a super long flight, we were in the back of the plane, and it wasn't very comfy at all lol. We talked about how a break in LA may have been a good idea, but we talked to a couple who flew Chicago to San Francisco, got delayed and missed the next flight. Had to fly to LA and then Honolulu the next day. Ugh.

We went through a travel agent with Operation Vacations (online, her name is Amy - wonderful help!). She got us the free hotel night with the flight so we could use the NCL freebie for the service charges which she said was the most bang for our buck. We also had $25 credit each from some deal only a travel agent could get us. Our friends that went with us used her for the flight but booked the cruise themselves and didn't have a credit.

Thanks so much for the great review so far. We will be doing this cruise in December with family (7 adults) and are also staying at the Outrigger Ohana Waikiki Malia. We fly in 2 days prior to the cruise so also plan on hiking to Diamond Head one morning. Anxious to hear about the rest of your trip. If you have any other tips or tricks (like the Shakka app) please share! We appreciate it.

You're going to love the cruise! A tip for the hotel and the trolley - if you want to head to Waikiki Beach, don't get on the trolley directly across the street from the hotel- go around the corner (away from IHOP) and catch it there. You'll miss the extra 45 minute ride we took going to the mall etc

Tip for the Shaka app - I kept reading about taking a car charger and the aux cable so you can listen through the speakers, but we also needed the jack for the lighter plug. We are so used to having a USB in our cars, we didn't think yo bring one, and neither keep that we rented had a USB - ended up buying it at an ABC store I think.

Is there a minibar or minifridge in the room that can be used for our own items by removing what they put in it?

 

Yes - it's right below the TV. There was just cans and bottles in it you could take out. We bought a few buckets of beer and kept them in there. It wasn't locked (the pic shows a lock). Our friends that had an Oceanview may not have had one though. We had a large balcony

Richardson's Beach park in Hilo is close to the port and is black sand. There were people swimming there 2 weeks ago when we were there. Also saw a turtle there!

We used the Shaka app for the road to Hana and also Waimea canyon. It was great - lots of grea t info, music, stories, and he would tell us if we were short on time what we could miss or what we could see on the way back if time etc.

Day 2 (Monday) Maui - Road to Hana

We got up early and ate breakfast at the Aloha buffet. We took a cab to the airport - they are waiting right outside of the ship, so just walk over and get in. We got to Paia about 8am, which was right on target for our plan. We downloaded the Shaka app on our phone, and purchased the Classic Road to Hana on it. I highly recommend this app - it was right on target and took us to this little cave that we would have driven right by. It was literally a hole in the side of the mountain. It rained several times, but usually not even hard or long enough to put the top up on the jeep. We stopped at Aunt Sandy's for some of the best Banana bread we've ever had. Go past Aunt Sandy's for some beautiful ocean vistas! We drove to the State park just a few miles shy of Hana and had lunch there. We made sandwiches at the buffet as we had read that there weren't many places to eat before Hana, but that wasn't true at all. There were several places we could have stopped, if you like roadside eating etc. Personally that is my favorite kind of food. The black sand beach and cave were pretty cool. We almost missed the cave - it is to the right of the beach when you are facing the ocean. The stairs down to the beach are basically on top of it. We didn't get car sick, but we did see a woman on the side of the road, her tour bus waiting on her..... poor girl. I am so glad we rented a car - we had a great experience and avoided most of the buses. I had made us a 3pm reservation at Mama's Fish House, to have a drink and appetizer just for the experience, but we missed it by 15 minutes and the place was packed anyway, so we just drove back to the airport and returned the car. The last shuttle back to the ship was at 4, and we must have gotten the second to last shuttle. That night we had reservations at Moderno. We didn't do the dining package, just paid for this one meal. It was the best meal we had on the ship! So much good food! Our waitress Shae was amazing, but she is leaving the ship in about a week to move back to Chicago. All of the staff we dealt with on the ship were very courteous and accomodating, btw.

For a feel of the drive...

just past Aunt Sandy's...

This was a pull off with an overlook you took steps up to.

the exit to the little cave we found thanks to the Shaka App. Have your flashlight on your phone ready and be ready to duck!

lots of water falls!

Sunday Night - Old Lahaina Luau

This was a big highlight of our trip! You need to reserve this several months in advance, as they give away the closest seats 'first reserved, best seats'. We reserved ours about 6 months before the trip. If you do it online, you have to pay for the luau at that time ($125 pp) but if you call them, they will reserve your spot and you can pay when you get to the luau. When we reserved our seats we chose to sit in chairs rather than the traditional floor seating, because we are old lol. We were in the first row of chairs/tables and were about 3 tables off of center - great spot! NOTE - they do not have fire dancers at this luau, so if that is a must have for you, this is not the luau for you. They focus on traditional Hawaiian hula dancing, which did not include fire dancing. We were given leis as we entered, and taken to our seats. We took some pics, drank some Mai Tais and Lava Flows (alcoholic beverages are included) and watched the pig being unearthed. The food was really good, but the entire experience was just awesome! I highly recommend this place and hope to go back someday. We chose this one because it was all outside and you didn't have to leave your table to go sit in theater seating to see the show. It was great!

We drove back to the ship and dropped off our friends, then took the car to the airport parking lot - $15 overnight. We caught a cab for $10 back to the ship - you have to walk all the way down to the end of the airport to catch the taxi, so park down that way if possible. We parked in the extra parking, close to a walkway (construction going on) but were at the wrong end of the airport. It wasn't a long walk, we just weren't sure where we were going lol.

Day 1 (Sunday) Maui

We woke up to a nice view of Maui as we came into Port.

We ate breakfast in Skyline. It was good and the food came out rather quickly. I don't remember what time it was, but we were off of the ship right after we docked, so probably about 7:30. We rented a car at the airport, so we needed to take the shuttle to Avis. When you get off the ship in Maui, there is a big parking lot with signs on the right telling you where to stand for what you are waiting for. We thought we were in the car rental shuttle area, but is actually behind the sign and weren't far enough down the row, so we just missed getting on the shuttle (too full). We waited about 20 minutes for the next one. We rented a 4 door jeep, and asked if they had any soft tops. They had one that had just been brought in, so we had to wait while it was cleaned, but it was worth it! We headed to the Iao Valley first, and stopped at a roadside stand selling homemade breads and things. We got some Mango bread - it was one of the best things I ate on Maui! We got to the needle about 10, and the parking lot was busy and small, but we got lucky and found a spot. It was $5 to park in the parking lot I think. It was a pretty cool place.

We then headed to the other side of Maui and went to Kaanapali Beach. We parked at the Whaler's Village for about 3 hours and it was $21. We ate lunch at Hula Grill with our toes in the sand and live music - nice atmosphere! We hung out on the beach and in the ocean for a few hours. The surf was rather rough I thought, but once you got out there it wasn't so bad. I had asked a vendor if he knew if we could rent umbrellas and chairs, and he said the hotel down the beach from Whalers Village had that available, but we ended up not doing that.

Driving to Kaanapali Beach

Kaanapali Beach

We then went into Lahaina, checked out the Banyan Tree and did a little shopping waiting for the Old Lahaina Luau to open.

How easy or hard was it to find seating at the buffet fairly early in morning on the first day in each port?

It can get busy in there but they have a lot of seating, plus you can sit in the Gold Rush Saloon, the outdoor seating in the back and out by the main pool. I don't know if they did this every day or not, but Moderno was open for extra seating on the last day

Embarkation Day - Waikiki Bar etc

My hubby smokes a few cigarettes a day, and the only place to smoke is the Waikiki Bar - even if he hadn't smoked, I would have enjoyed this bar anyway. The pool back there was a nice little place to chill out and there was a hot tub back there too. For dinner the first night, there was a BBQ at the main pool, and we just ate there. I didn't take any pics of it, but it was good. We then went to like 3 shows that night! We didn't make it to any shows the rest of the week - we were just too busy! The Beatles show was awesome! So was the piano player - he did an Elton John and Billy Joel tribute. Those were both in Mardi Gras. In Hollywood, we saw a 'preview' of the entertainment that would be on the ship that week. We didn't get to bed until 10:30 - I was falling asleep during the last show lol. Here are some pics of Waikiki Bar, the aft pool and my favorite seats at Waikiki - they were super comfy!

one more of our balcony <3

Embarkation Day - Our Cabin

Getting on the ship was pretty easy - we had to walk to one end of the building drop off our luggage, then into a huge area to check in. We had to wait in line for a bit, but it wasn't too bad. They had music and were taking pictures after you got your keycard. Our rooms weren't ready yet, so we went up to the pool area and grabbed some loungers in the shade, thinking maybe the guys could grab a nap if needed. We went into the Aloha Cafe and had lunch. I don't remember what we had, but the desserts were yummy. There was a lot of food to choose from. My friend and I did the Ship tour at 2pm, which ended in the Mardi Gras. The tour was interesting, and we saw places we didn't see the rest of the week (the gym and spa, lol). While we were on the tour, our rooms became available. They announced each level of the ship as it became ready. In the Mardi Gras, another presentation was starting at 2:15 called Guide to the Pride. GO TO THIS! I saw another report talking about this and they won several things. I went and grabbed the guys at the pool and had them come down to the presentation. I'm glad I did, because my hubby was the only one to win anything - we won free social media wifi for the entire cruise! After the presentation, we headed to our rooms and unpacked. Our friends had an oceanview on level 4. We had splurged and got the large balcony on level 9, room 9014 to be specific. Our room was wonderful! I was worried that our large balcony would be like a metal cave, based on other pics I had seen but that was not the case at all! Also, many people have complained about the size of the rooms - we had plenty of space - we didn't even use all of the shelves in the closet. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom kept most of our stuff off of the counter too - I could have lived in there for a month! We slid the empty suitcases under the bed and just put our dirty clothes in there every day. A tip from my friend- the wall are all metal - she brought clip magnets to put on the wall and kept the Daily papers etc just clipped to the wall! I wish she had told me before we went lol! Here are some pics of our wonderful room!

Embarkation Day - Pearl Harbor

The Uber from Lulu's to Pearl Harbor was $50 - yikes! We had heard that you can't take any bags into Pearl Harbor, and we assumed that meant purses too. I had a heck of a time getting everything I needed into my pockets and my husbands' lol, plus I felt weird leaving my purse in my luggage, but I did. When we walked into Pearl Harbor, they had a sign with an actual 'clutch' showing that that was the biggest size bag you could bring in 'head slap' I could have taken my small cross body purse in after all! I totally did not see that in anyone's posts on here, or I just missed it! I meant to take a pic of the example, to post on here, but I forgot all about it by the time we left. My purse is about 6x4" and would have been fine, just FYI.

I had gotten us tickets for the Memorial online for 11am, but had heard you can get them earlier sometimes, so we went up to the desk and they gave us tickets for 9am. It was 8:45, so it worked out perfectly! We watched the movie and then went out on the boat. The Arizona Memorial is still not open, but we sailed by it and the Missouri, and had a narration from a gentleman who was 10 when Pearl Harbor was attacked and he gave an interesting account from the viewpoint of a boy at that time. We went through the museum, and then were trying to decide if we should do the Missouri or the Bowfin, and decided we were ready to get to the ship, so we called another Uber. I don't know how much this one was, but I think it was less going back to the hotel to get our luggage, but then we had him change the destination before we got to the hotel, so we could keep him after we ran into the hotel and got our luggage. We were at the ship by 12:30-1 I think.

Pearl Harbor Pics

USS Missouri