Hawaiian Cruise - pricing?

[vesw01]

Best time of year to go for the least cost? I was thinking the week after Thanksgiving or the first weeks of Dec. Not sure what time high season is. What is a good price - I know on a regular cruise $100 per day - we would like a balcony. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

[PaddleAddict]

Are you looking for a Carnival cruise? As far as I know, they only cruise to Hawaii twice a year--once to Hawaii and once from Hawaii--but they don't do a Hawaii to Hawaii cruise.

 

I was thinking the Oct Hawaii to Ensenada myself. 12 days with 5 sea days.

 

Otherwise (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), I believe NCL is the only cruise line that does Hawaii?

[mississauga]

Are you looking for a Carnival cruise? As far as I know, they only cruise to Hawaii twice a year--once to Hawaii and once from Hawaii--but they don't do a Hawaii to Hawaii cruise.

 

I was thinking the Oct Hawaii to Ensenada myself. 12 days with 5 sea days.

 

Otherwise (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), I believe NCL is the only cruise line that does Hawaii?

 

Princess has a 15 day round trip cruise from LA.

[PaddleAddict]

Sorry. To clarify, what I meant was it is my understanding that NCL is the only line with 7-day inter-Hawaii cruises.

[luv2cruz44]

Hi All,

 

I believe there are 4 Carnival Hawaii cruises each year, 2 in the Spring & 2 in the Fall. The first goes from Ensenada to Hawaii and the second from Hawaii to Vancouver, in the Spring and the reverse in the fall. These are popular cruises and sell out early so best prices I believe will be early booking.

[vesw01]

Oh ok, I thought that they did a Hawaiian Island to Island too.... I will look into the longer cruises, but not sure my kids will be ok with being on a ship that long.

[beachchick]

Best time of year to go for the least cost? I was thinking the week after Thanksgiving or the first weeks of Dec. Not sure what time high season is. What is a good price - I know on a regular cruise $100 per day - we would like a balcony. Any suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

It is extremely unusual to be able to get a balcony on any of the Pride ships for $100 per day. The average is more like $175 (on the low end) and substantially higher for Pride of Hawaii (PoH); Pride of America (PoAm) is often a bit lower than that; Pride of Aloha (PoAl) does seem to have more specials than the other two.

 

"High season" in Hawaii is most of spring, summer (during school break), fall (although there are several weeks where prices are lower in September and October), and all of the winter (winter is definitely very high season for snowbirds). There are no real "off" seasons in Hawaii because it is a year-round destination.

 

The best times to look for specials and lower fares is after school goes back in session (say late September through October, except Columbus day week), and, as you suspected, the weeks between Thankgiving and Christmas (especially the first two weeks of December every year seem to have the best specials; that's true again this year). Other than that, it will just depend on how well a specific cruise is booking as to whether you will find good specials.

 

Keep in mind that NCL will not adjust (as in lower) your cruise fares after final payment and many, if not most, specials start after final payment. Just keep checking the fares and book when you think it's lowest or book "last minute" within 2 months of your intended cruise date if a special fare becomes available. For a balcony, any fare of $1200 p/p or lower is considered an absolute steal on PoH. Don't count on finding those far in advance though. They are often last minute fares. Or they could be Senior or Resident fares, which are often added 4 or 5 months or less (sometimes only weeks or days) before the cruise dates. OTOH, I've seen some specials that are "from X date to Y date" and can include a Y date that is 6 or 8 months out. I really don't know about the other two Pride ships in terms of fare specials or what have you.

 

PaddleAddict is correct that NCL (that is NCLAmerica) is the only line allowed to do the 7-night Hawaii-only itinerary. So for that your choices will be limited to the three Pride ships. Otherwise, you have some choices of mainland round-trips (which will include at least 8 sea days, shorter time in the islands, and require 14 days or more) or the spring or fall repo cruises that some lines do to/from Alaska for the summer season. Those would be one-way to or from the mainland; basically, they cruise out to Hawaii, do a "once around," and drop cruise one pax in Hawaii; they then pick up new pax (cruise 2), do another once around, and head back to the mainland; so you've got about 4 or 5 sea days and about 6 or 7 days around the islands. It depends on how much time you have, how much you love sea days (that many are just not our cup of Kona), and whether the ship or the islands are your primary interest. The Pride ships will give you the most time in ports and has no sea days (just one afternoon of coastal cruising).

 

The time you are thinking of going is definitely one of the better periods in terms of lower fares. I hope you find my rambling here to be helpful. IMO, you can't go wrong going to Hawaii any time. Have fun planning!

 

beachchick

 

p.s. I would consider $100 per day for a balcony on any modern ship to be an utter bargain. The average "specials" seem to be significantly higher ($140 per day or more).