princeton123211

If you have an overnight with 2 days in Honolulu you could easily fly back and forth to Maui for the first day to visit your friend. Flights are about 20 minutes, fairly inexpensive, and plenty of them.

If you have part of a day in Boston the New England Aquarium runs a whale watching boat trip that time of year. I did it twice years ago and saw a few. If you really want to see whales go to Hawaii in the winter. I've always found New England/Canada to be hit or miss for whales.

3-4 hours might be a little long but it's a lovely little town to walk around in-- very low key surfer vibe. The premade food at Mana Foods market is great. Cafe Mambo across the street is fun for casual sit down. Tobi's has some great shave ice. The shops are mostly beach related things or souvenirs. Alice in Hulaland is a funky local shop worth poking into. But as you'll quickly see-- unless you are planning on having a long, drawn out meal (which would be difficult to do there), 4 hours will be way more time than you need. Just a word to the wise-- the town will be quite busy early in the day (when folks set out on the Hana Road) and later in the day when a lot of those who didn't drive all the way around the island come back through. I would shoot for the middle for lunch and a walk around to avoid it being crowded. Bruce is right-- Mama's is my second favorite restaurant on the island (only behind the now destroyed Lahaina Grill) but you'll have to make reservations well in advance.

Back Bay would have my vote-- my favorite overall hotel in the city is the Fairmont Copley Plaza. Not the most luxurious hotel in Boston (it's a beautiful old grande dame property designed by the same architect as The Plaza in New York) but it's the location that's nearly perfect. Off Copley Square you have easy access to Back Bay and walking distance to everything historic including Boston Common/Public Garden. The Newbury Hotel (which a lot of us who lived in Boston a long time ago would still call the "old" Ritz-Carlton) would also be a superbly located hotel. Both of these are on the pricier side so any other hotels around that area that fit your budget would be what I would say to look at. The Seaport is certainly to some people's taste but for the most part it is comprised of newly build high rises and corporate hotels and lacks most of the charm and historic character that other parts of the city have for an out of town visitor.

What is your budget and what time of year? Boston hotels in the historic core can range anywhere from modest to wildly expensive-- a lot will depend on what you are willing to spend and if it is over a major city wide event like Head of the Charles or school move in weekends or runions.

It is. It sounded worse than it was-- trains were only held for a short time. Ones that had already departed NYP or PHL were allowed to proceed, just more slowly than normal.

Assuming you are talking about the Dockyard (where the bigger ships dock) and not Hamilton (where smaller ships call), the nicer beach called Horseshoe Bay isn't far-- short shared minibus/taxi/excursion ride away. Give or take 20 minutes and well worth it. There is a small beach adjacent to the cruise ships in the Dockyard called Snorkel Beach which is manmade and generally awful.

As Bruce said-- this comes down to your preference as there is no real advantage each way. I've been to Athens on three occasions and the overwhelming thought is each time I'm there is "it's a nice enough city but I don't need much more than a day or two here to see the major sites". The first time we booked 3 nights (for 2 whole days) and saw everything day 1 and spend day 2 by the rooftop pool at the hotel relaxing. Rome on the other hand I could spend lots of time in and not get sick of it. Personally I would fly into Athens for a day or so, take my cruise, and have a few days in Rome afterwards. That's a personal preference through for me-- I hate getting off a nice cruise and flying home right away. I enjoy it more when I know I have something else to look forward to after.

A good rec-- it's called Sir Winston's-- but unfortunately is still closed from the start of covid with plans to reopen it shortly. If it's open by the time the OP is there, and as good as before, I would second this. The Chelsea Restaurant wouldn't be enough of a draw for me to go over there from San Pedro for dinner (unless your husband is a huge ocean liner buff) in which case a trip to the Observation Bar would also be in order to properly celebrate a birthday.

I would put it more stretching to be a half and half indoor/outdoor. Sure there is a bunch inside but some of the main aircraft displays are on the exposed flight deck and Concorde of course is outside which is a big draw.

Thats a big exaggeration. I take the Acela and Northeast Regional trains on the NE Corridor several times a week. Major delays are rare.

Amtrak owns the tracks between Boston and Washington DC-- in the Midwest, Amtrak runs their trains based on the freight line's schedule that own the track there. Outside of the Northeast Corridor Amtrak trains are always prioritized second to the freight trains that run there which is why delays outside of the Northeast Corridor are far more common.

How many people are we talking? It's literally a 5-6 minute ride (I've walked it in about 20 minutes several times). You would be best just splitting up into smaller groups and taking several Uber's or taxis. Any sort of bus or mini bus I would guess would be significantly more expensive by multiples than just splitting up for a very, very short distance.

Casinos on most ships that regularly dock overnight will be open I think after 9pm as well.

None that I've seen or heard of. It's a quick $25-30 Uber ride.

As Meadowlander said-- Bayonne is a hotel desert and don't stay at the Hudson Plaza. Personally I would do the Hyatt Jersey City-- there is also a Residence Inn and Canopy nearby that I haven't stayed at. All of them are modern hotels and will be accessible. Depending on where in Morris County you are coming, and if you wanted to leave the car at home due to the storm, you could also take NJ Transit to Newark Penn Station and spend the night at the attached Doubletree (there is a bridge on the second floor that connects the station to the hotel). From there it wouldn't be a terrible Uber to Cape Liberty in the morning. I'm in the aviation sector and from talks with our meteorologists things are not looking like it's going to be as bad as people are saying. Please do not make a travel decision based on this-- merely saying anecdotally as I think things will be easier for you than they might appear right now.

If you scroll down there are countless threads on this. It will depend on your budget and what amenities you want. My personal favorites are The Royal Hawaiian and Halekulani but they are at the higher end of the price range. If you give us more information there are a bunch of us here that can provide more pointed recs.

Hotel Ambos Mundos and Hotel Inglaterra were the two rooftops we were brought to on our tour and seemed quite popular at the time with tours-- neither of them had a pool through so I would double check that. The newer Kempinski Gran Hotel Manzana does have a nice rooftop pool. We went for drinks there on our own but you had to be a guest of the actual hotel to swim-- it was rather small. It's a fun town-- not sure what changes, if any, have occured since American tourism was curbed again a few years back. The food is adequate-- you aren't going for Michelin star dining. We had a very good meal at La Guarida which is one of the more popular finer dining restaurants. Keeping things simple from a dining perspective usually yielded better results. Cocktails on the back veranda of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba is very atmospheric (as is the main public areas of the hotel), although I would not recommend staying there as we did. It was expensive and the rooms VERY basic. They have a trio of strolling musicians in the late afternoon/early evening which is worth going over for. The two above I mentioned-- Ambos Mundos and Inglaterra-- were both Hemingway hangouts and are very nice for drinks (did not eat anything). La Floridita I feel like is sort of a must for a daiquiri. Sort of a hidden gem in the basement of the old Havana Hilton (now called the Habana Libre) is a completely intact late 1950s Trader Vics (now called El Polinesio). The whole hotel is a mid century throwback thats pretty much frozen in time from 1959.

Hamilton, along Front Street where you'll dock, is full of shops and restaurants. Some are more touristy than others. A short walk down form where your ship will be is the Hamilton Princess Hotel which is a local landmark and has several very good restaurants and bars as well as a nice afternoon tea. Hamilton is a small town but is fun to explore for a few hours. You can really do anything on the island-- you are pretty much in the middle. My suggestion, especially if it is your first time to Bermuda, would be to take a Blue Flag taxi tour (specially licensed drivers) for a 3-4 jaunt around the island so you can see a good portion of it. There is a LOT more to Bermuda than downtown Hamilton.

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Not a major difference-- I would be more concerned about air fare than which airport. LaGuardia is closer to Manhattan but JFK isn't the end of the world (and JFK does have fixed rate taxis). Honestly I would just pick the one of the 3 that provides the best overall price for your air fare.

I'm in complete agreement-- I was responding to the other poster who was grouping Westchester and MacArthur in as NYC airports-- which they are not.

It's just to the North of the Meadowlands sports complex-- generally an easy, quick ride into Manhattan BUT you cant fly into it commercially. I was being tongue in cheek when I mentioned it. It's a leisurely 1.5-2 hour ride into Manhattan. MacArthur is a Long Island airport-- its not in New York City or really even close to it. The reason I'm belaboring the point here is that I wouldn't want to be from out of town and think that MacArthur is close to New York when you have Newark, LaGuardia, and JFK much closer. Which works well in some places-- but Hobby is only about 15 minutes from downtown and the main airport is about the same in Houston. I try and fly into Chicago Midway when I can to avoid O'Hare, but Midway is both smaller and closer to downtown which is why its great. MacArthur is not any of these-- its an airport that services Long Island that is a significant distance to Midtown Manhattan.

If we are getting technical then you are leaving out Teterboro Airport. In the realm of reality, with HPN being over an hour to Midtown and MacArthur being at very least an hour and a half (on a good day), I wouldn’t expect them to be viable options for a visitor coming in for a day or two the same as I didn’t make the assumption that flying into TEB privately was viable for them. If there are any savings they are easily wiped out by significant transportation costs (not to mention time wasted).

Personally I would choose an itinerary that provides the maximum amount of time on the islands. The important things you list-- bed quality, food, and entertainment are going to be virtually identical on two ships owned by the same company. Edge is a bit newer but Solstice has been regularly updated. Unless you really, really enjoy sea days cruising to/from Hawaii isn't a really great way to see the islands. You spend much more time aboard ship than you do in Hawaii. Would a land based vacation be off the table? May is at the very, very end of whale season so that might tip me more towards May than September so you might at least have an outside chance of seeing whales while you're there. Otherwise it wont make a huge difference weather wise between May and September.