Kona Excursions and Tender (POA)

Good evening! We're prepping for our NCL cruise this Saturday and finalizing excursions (yes, we waited until the last minute!). We are interested in doing parasailing on Kona, but it's $134/person through NCL versus $84/person directly through the company. That'd save us about $100 total.

However, I was discovering through the boards here that Kona is a port that has tenders - which I've only been on one other cruise, and there were no tenders, so this will be new for me. I read that it can take a while to get off the ship and onto port waiting for a tender.

If we booked, say, a 10am parasail time, what time do we need to be in line for tender? Does it have to be early at 7am, when the cruise docks, or can we wait until 9am to line up? (Also, I'd rather not risk having a later appointment time than 10am, as I read we should be back at the ship no later than 3:30-4?).

Also, where do the tenders dock (an address)? Would we be able to walk if the location is "in the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott’s King Kamehameha Kona Beach Hotel near the Kailua Pier"?

Just trying to figure out if the $100 extra is worth the guarantee of getting on a tender first or if we can do this timely on our own! Thanks!

I can't answer your questions about when to line up for the tenders - don't know NCL's procedures, so will let someone answer that part. However, the tender ride is less than 10 minutes to the pier, so it should go smoothly unless there happens to be high surf or winds that prevent them from launching the tenders. The easy part is getting to the Courtyard King Kam hotel - it's only about 200 feet away, impossible to miss.

Most of the parasailing we've seen is almost right over the ship, so you shouldn't have delays getting back to the tenders at the end of your excursion. You'll probably have plenty of time to walk around Kona village, pick up a few things from one of several ABC stores, or get a shave ice or lunch before heading back to the ship.

I can't answer your questions about when to line up for the tenders - don't know NCL's procedures, so will let someone answer that part. However, the tender ride is less than 10 minutes to the pier, so it should go smoothly unless there happens to be high surf or winds that prevent them from launching the tenders. The easy part is getting to the Courtyard King Kam hotel - it's only about 200 feet away, impossible to miss.

 

Most of the parasailing we've seen is almost right over the ship, so you shouldn't have delays getting back to the tenders at the end of your excursion. You'll probably have plenty of time to walk around Kona village, pick up a few things from one of several ABC stores, or get a shave ice or lunch before heading back to the ship.

Thank you! I imagined that the tenders docked on the pier mentioned, but couldn't find confirmation of that information. I also heard the tender travel time wasn't terribly long. I just want to know the line to get on the tenders (which I know you said you can't answer, so hopefully someone else will!)

We just got off of the POA and the process is this: at 6:30am that morning you can pick up a ticket for a "group" that was associated with a specific time to line up. We were meeting our tour guide at 8:30 so I got tix for 8-8:30 time (group 2). They call the groups over the loudspeaker and you then go to level 3 to get on the tender. They called our group at 7:50 I think (along with group 2 that was 7:45-8:15) and we went down and got right on.

The address for Kona pier where the tender drops and picks up guests is Kailua Pier, Kaahumanu Pl, Kailua-Kona

In NCL, which we took recently, since we were in the early 50-60 folks standing in line, we could get out first but thereafter the folks who had excursions with NCL tours got priority over the other ones. Suggest you give at-least 1 - 1.5 hr max since the queue in the morning typically gets long as we heard from others later on during the day.

Thanks all but due to our schedule change because of the hurricane we cancelled our separate parasailing excursion (got a full refund) and ended up doing a tour through NCL that took us through a coffee farm, volcano Hawaiian Park, and a black sand beach. The tender process wasn’t difficult but NCL excursion had priority. I think the paperwork we got said people who lined up to tender at 7am didn’t need a ticket? I can’t remember.

We plan to go back to Hawaii, maybe a couple of years, but probably not a cruise but may try to do parasailing then!