Hawaii Help

[Kiwis]

Hi,

 

My partner and I are on the 14 night cruise to Hawaii next year for our honeymoon. This will be our first cruise, so we're looking for some help!

 

We'll be stopping at the following ports:

 

Hilo

Kailua Kona

Nawiliwili

Honolulu

Lahaina

 

And are looking for your help. What are your suggestions, do we just book a rental car and see where that takes us? We'd like to do a snorkel trip - which island should we do this at? We've also booked 1 rental car so far in Kauai at the airport - how far is the airport from the port??

 

So many questions?! :D

[wwinfl91]

We did our first Hawaiian cruise last fall on the Island Princess. We visited the same ports as you are going to. We elected to go with ship sponsored shore excursions since it was our first visit to the Islands and beside that we didn't want to take any chances on missing the ship.

 

I set up a Yahoo group for the cruise that you might want to visit. It has lots of links on it for information on each of the islands. There are also pictures from our trip of some of things you might want to see in the different ports. You will need a Yahoo ID to get access to the site but you don't need to sign up for one of their free email accounts unless you need another free email account. Here is the Link.

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/islandprincess100604/

 

We didn't want to do the rental car thing because I wanted to be able to see the islands we were visiting and not have to be spending my time and attention on driving the car. There are maps on the links that should have you with the distance from the port to the airport in Kauai.

 

Have a great first cruise.

[beachchick]

Kiwis: Welcome (I mean, Aloha). May I suggest that the first thing you do is do an Advanced Search, selecting this board only, with specific questions. Really though, your best bet is to start by just scrolling through back threads. Yours are good questions, but they are asked all the time. So, there are many, many threads that will get you started and give you lots of ideas and info. No doubt you will have many specific follow up questions--it's really easier for us (or at least me) to answer questions that are a little more specific.

 

In answer to your specific questions now, we prefer to rent cars at all Hawaii ports for the flexibility. The best island for a snorkel excursion is either the Big Island (Hawaii) or Maui. All of the islands have good snorkeling, but those two are best, IMO, if you want to book an excursion. It's about 10 minutes to the airport from the dock in Kauai.

 

You will love Hawaii.

 

beachchick

[Middleager]

We just came back from a wonderful cruise trip on NCL Wind Aug. 24 - Sept. 3, to the same ports, plus Fanning Island.

 

It was our first trip to Hawaii and first cruise. Except for Fanning Island, we rented a van at each port and did our own driving. With a little planning, you can have lots of flexibility and save a lot of money. I'll be writing up about our trip soon and hope that'll help.

[Kiwis]

Thanks to you all for the suggestions.. the link provided will be really useful.. so much work you've saved me .. as theres not much time with the wedding planning! :)

[wwinfl91]

Glad to hear that the site is useful. I spent a lot of time getting the links together and while they aren't all inclusive they do cover a pretty good range of things to do on the islands we visited.

 

It is really interesting that the site has about 9 new members since I posted it here and on another board when someone was asking about Hawaii information.

 

Have a great next cruise and a great honeymoon.