Caribbean or Hawaii?

[ClaudiaB]

Unless you cruise the NCL or similar cruise around the islands where you get a taste of the islands, I don't like the itineraries that are offered nowadays around Hawaii. It deserves it's own dedicated cruise, not as an add-on to something on the US west coast, but YMMV.

We took a cruise in 2004 on Infinity to Hawaii. 5 nights over but then 7 nights there, and we flew back. It was fabulous. Two days on the big island, two in Maui, one on Kauai and two in Honolulu. Now the cruises either skip Kauai or just pass on by the Na Pali coastline. Beautiful, but you need to get IN. So a year later we rented a home on the beach on the north coast of Kauai for a week and intend to go back. We'd also like to spend a week or two in Maui.

 

We have taken many Caribbean cruises since it's about a 95 minute non stop flight for us to Fort Lauderdale. We love the long southern and exotic Caribbean cruises. I'd take a longer cruise there. Save Hawaii for when you can actually get more than just a mere "tease", a cruise that doesn't try to combine San Francisco and other places on the same thing. Not sure why they're not doing the one way with 7 days on all the islands. By the way, we only had a bit of choppy seas for a few hours leaving Kauai, and no problems on the way to Hawaii. We had worse chop in the airplane coming back.

[ChiGal1962]

One of the other differences between the two is that the sea days on the Hawaii cruise are all together, followed by all the port days, whereas in the Caribbean, they are more interspersed. I usually do prefer switching between sea and port days, but really did enjoy the Hawaii cruise. And yes, I found the water to be rougher the first day off the US coast, but after that it was smooth as ever.

 

Hawaii is absolutely beautiful. The long plane ride home was a downer, but since you're coming from the UK, it's going to be long no matter which you choose.

 

The primary reason I would go back to Hawaii is to see Pearl Harbor (we got to Honolulu right when the government shut down, so it was closed :( ).

[gordylad]

thanks for all the great replies

 

we have decided to do the southern caribbean cruise and at a later date if celebrity starts a california round trip go for that alternatively wait a couple of year and if the repositioning cruise from vancouver - hawaii - sydney is still around take advantage of it

 

cheers