Pre-Cruise in Honolulu

[spurt]

Is it better to go through NCL for pre-cruise hotels in Honolulu or deal directly with a hotel? If through NCL, which hotel would previous cruisers recommend? Thanks.

[griffy116]

I've always found it to be less expensive to book the hotel directly than to go through the cruise line. We stayed at the HHV..mostly for sentimental reasons, but it's right on the beach. Love eating the breakfast outdoors and walking right onto the sand.

[Barb Nahoumi]

Because we did the Hawaiian cruise in the winter, flying to Honolulu from Boston, we booked the flights through NCL as well. I think that we stayed at Hawaaian Village.

 

In case of flight delays or cancellations, we thought that the cruiseline would help with getting us into port if we used their service.

 

Transfers between airport, hotel, and pier were also included.

 

We returned to the hotel for a post cruise overnight, and flew home the next day.

[Tyskie]

We did the HHV as well. Booked privately.............beautiful, a bit pricey, but this was our once in a lifetime Hawaiian adventure! If we did go again, we would again spend time in Waikiki maybe more centrally located. Check the ports of call and TripAdvisor.

[Twiz]

We booked our own and stayed at the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach, LOVED it....

[Cruzn Bills Fan]

Have been to Oahu dozens of times and I also would highly recommend Hilton Hawaiian Village.

[WatchHill]

We are staying at the Hyatt Regency Resort on Waikiki and using our Hyatt points. Since we are also renting a car, it was a good decision because Budget is in the lobby and the hotel has self parking on site.

 

In comparing hotel rates through the cruise line with self-booking, we have always found it less costly to do it on our own. There are so many great hotels in Hawaii.

 

We, too, are flying out of BOS in winter, but were very selective about the connecting flight because we didn't want to fly into an airport that potentially had winter storm issues. We made that mistake once, never again. Even though we had a two hour connection on a return flight, there were delays. Once we landed in Newark, we could see our connecting plane, but they closed the gate and sold our seats. The baggage made the connection, we didn't! We called the air/sea dept., but they were closed - so much for their help. No more seats on any flights for two days and we all had to be at work the following day. Panic! Called our TA who told us to rent a car, drive to BOS to pick up our car at the airport and he would take care of details. By the time we hit the GW, got a call from the cruise line assuring us they would cover all costs, etc.

 

Darcy

[CactusFlower527]

Is it better to go through NCL for pre-cruise hotels in Honolulu or deal directly with a hotel? If through NCL, which hotel would previous cruisers recommend? Thanks.

 

 

we just booked our own hotel.. you can use sites like Booking.com just to get an idea of what the costs are at the various hotels, but then we just booked directly through the hotel itself. It was actually cheaper for us to do it that way than through NCL. (By the way, the rental car agencies will shuttle you to the ship's port complimentary.. so.. )

 

We are flying into Honolulu the Thursday before our cruise.

[OceanDreaming2]

We just spent a month on Oahu and found our place on VRBO.com. If you don't need a spa, concierge, etc. then look into having your own place, preferably without crowds. They generally have a 3 day minimum rental.

[Zimomiller]

We booked our own and stayed at the Outrigger Waikiki on the Beach, LOVED it....

 

Ditto.

 

Outrigger Waikiki on the beach is perfectly located on Waikiki and was perfect for our family of 5 for 3 nights pre cruise and one day post druise pre flights home.

 

In our experience, never ever book air or hotels through the cruiseline unless you want to pay too much, get really bad flights, poor seating (think middles for everyone) and crappy locations in the hotel.