Island Princess Review 12/5 -12/20

[Tom O.]

The Cruise: This was a 15 day round trip from Los Angeles to Hawaii. There are four “at sea days” each way. I had not done this cruise before. It appealed to us because we would not have to fly anywhere (we live in the L.A. area) and we have always loved “at sea” days in the past. I had heard from others who had done this cruise that the first day out of L.A. would be cool, but then it would warm up and we could enjoy our balcony.

As it turned out, temperature was not the issue. It was wind and sea spray that kept us off our balcony for 6 of 8 of those “at sea” days (see “The Sea” below).

The good news is that the weather was beautiful once we reached Hawaii and we made all of our ports, which is not so easy in Hawaii.

We have decided that we won’t be doing this cruise again. “At Sea” days are great as long as you can relax on your balcony, not so great under “Gale” conditions.

The Ship: The ship was beautiful. Everywhere I went service was excellent. We usually don’t go to shows, or get involved with activities, so I have no opinion on entertainment. We never went to the casino

Our Cabin: We had a regular balcony room on the forward section of the Emerald Deck. I love the Emerald Deck, the balconies are covered so no one looks down on us, and we don’t look down on other people as well.

Dining: We had late traditional dining. The service was exemplary. The food was very good, but I don’t think it was up to the standards of my last Princess cruise – last January on the Sapphire. But food is a subjective thing. One couple at our dinner table really disliked the food. But, they were what I call queasy eaters. They didn’t eat seafood of any kind, would not consider trying anything they weren’t familiar with and ended up ordering a steak every night, well done. They wished the food was more Traditional American in nature. I did not care for any of the soups I tried, and most of the fish dishes were a little too fishy for me. I never ate dinner at the buffet, but those who did, told me it was not so good. I thought the breakfast buffet was quite good.

Fellow Passengers: This was the most elderly group of passengers I have seen. My guess would be that more than 60% were over 65 and many of those were way over that age. There were quite a few 50+ people. But the group that was very under represented was the 18-30 year olds – I bet there were fewer than 50 of them on the whole ship (out of 1900 passengers). Someone told me, there were only 20 children on board.

This was also a very formal group. I wear a tux on formal nights and I expected to be among a small minority of men doing so. But not this group. Most men wore tuxedos, and those that didn’t, wore very nice business suits. I didn’t see a single person that was dressed inappropriately. I heard there was even quite a few people in formal wear eating in the buffet.

The Sea: This cruise was cursed with the worst sea conditions I have ever seen. The first day out of L.A. was calm, we had no idea what was waiting for us in the middle of the Pacific. I noticed even on this calm day that the ship wobbled more than what I have seen before in fair weather.

Then came day 2. It started out just a little choppy and continued to get worse by the hour. The ships navigational information channel, channel 55, on our TV, gave the wind speed using the Beaufort Scale. When I first checked it was at Force 7 - Near Gale. Then I watched it go to Force 8 - Gale, then Force 9 - Strong Gale. Then finally it hit Force 10 – Storm. That’s winds 55 to 63 miles per hour. According to Wikipedia, Force 10 results in waves 29.5 feet high. The ship would create huge splashes as it crashed through these huge waves. Sea water continually splashed on our balcony and even our sliding door, making the balcony impossible to use. The ship also reported wave height, but I think they were trying not to alarm the passengers by reporting large waves. Although for about an hour they reported Rough Seas, most of the time during this storm they continued to call the waves Moderate. All the passengers were joking about the “Moderate Seas” afterward.

My wife and I have never been seasick before, and had booked a forward cabin. That day my wife became seasick for the first time. That night was our first formal night. She insisted I go without her. I discovered that the dining room was almost empty. I think there were more waiters than passengers. There I sat wearing my tux, at an empty table – none of our table mates made it to dinner. Many people were seasick, but also many who weren’t, thought it too dangerous to be walking around with so much violent motion.

Although the rough seas were a little better the next day, we had a rough passage the rest of the way until we were protected by the Hawaiian Islands. Even then while moving at night from one island to another we would hit rough seas.

On the return trip, the Storm was right there where we left it, and it wasn’t calm until our last “at sea” day. So, of the eight “at sea” days 6 of them suffered from continuous Gale or worse conditions.

The Ports: All of our ports were enjoyable, some more than others. We rented cars in all five Hawaiian ports. We discovered that some ports are better for car rentals than others.

First, I will never rent a car again in any port that requires tendering. We had two tender ports Kailua-Kona (Big Island) and Lahaina (Maui). The problem with renting a car here is that because we are not booked on an excursion, we don’t have priority status for tendering. Also most of the people on this cruise were Princess Veterans and had Elite Status, giving them tendering priority as well. We have not reached Elite Status yet, and it took forever to get off the ship at both of these ports. In Lahaina the ship arrived at 8 am, but by the time we got off the ship, waited for the car rental shuttle, stood in line at the agency counter, we didn’t get behind the wheel of our car until 11am. The last shuttle back to the pier was 4pm so we had a max of 5 hours.

Also, some port operators just made it easier for people to find their rental shuttles. Hilo and Nawiliwili (Kauai) were the best ports to rent a car from. And it turns out these were our favorite ports.

The port of Honolulu, does nothing to make it easy for people to rent cars. There are no agencies near the pier, and it was confusing trying to find out where to find a shuttle to the airport rental agencies. But this is one of the best ports to rent a car because you have until 10pm to return it. I don’t care that much for the congestion of Honolulu, so we drove to the North shore and found a beach that we had all to ourselves.

Don’t rent from Thrifty in Honolulu. I have another thread about that experience here:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=8606651#post8606651

Our least favorite port was Kailua-Kona, We would have preferred to have two days in Hilo and skipped Kailua-Kona.

Overall Experience: Despite the bad seas, we enjoyed ourselves and it was a good cruise overall. Hawaii was beautiful and we visited some beautiful places. But we will not be booking a cruise like this again, that has so many “at sea” days in the open ocean. Previous to this cruise, we had considered making a Trans-Atlantic cruise, this is no longer something we want to do.

[huskerdan25]

Hi Tom! Really appreciate the review of this itinerary as we are strongly considering it for April 2008 on the Diamond. I actually would prefer to take the Island but looks like only the Diamond will be servicing this itinerary in 2008. One of the reasons we are considing this cruise is the number of sea days. To us, the vacation is being on the ship, not the ports, so we don't look for port intensive cruises. We really enjoyed the Sapphire in Jan 2006 with 4 sea days and we will be on the CB next month, with that itinerary also having 4 sea days.

 

Do you think it was the time of the year that resulted in such poor weather for your cruise or just plain bad luck? I have posted asking when is the ideal time to make this cruise and have never really gotten a response back. I'm curious if we can expect better weather in April.

 

Glad you had a good cruise overall and I hope you have better weather on your next one!

 

Dan

[mii]

Tom, i really was interested in your review as I will be doing that cruise next Nov. on the Diamond. It was most unfortunate that you had bad weather. Maybe it is the time of year as T&J who is currently on the Tahitian Princess doing Live Threads is right now having alot of bad weather on that ship. Heck maybe the whole Pacific Ocean in the whole month of Dec. is bad.

 

Thaks for the well balanced review and by the way your web site on the deck plans of the Coral/Island are extremely helpful and I thank you very much.

 

Marilyn

[LARGIN]

Thanks Tom.. We will be on the Island the end of April. Hopefully the seas will be kinder to us and we will be able to use our balcony.. We are in a forward mini on the Baha deck. During your off ship time, any special "must see" places?

[Colo Cruiser]

Thanks for the review Tom. :)

[Tom O.]

Do you think it was the time of the year that resulted in such poor weather for your cruise or just plain bad luck? I have posted asking when is the ideal time to make this cruise and have never really gotten a response back. I'm curious if we can expect better weather in April.

 

Dan, I think it was both bad luck and time of year, but I think the bad luck part was the major issue. On the other hand, we had good luck with our weather while in Hawaii, we only saw a little rain in Hilo and that lasted less than an hour. We also had good luck in that we made all our ports. The previous cruise had missed Lahaina, and I have heard of several cruises that missed Nawiliwili.

[Tom O.]

Thanks Tom.. We will be on the Island the end of April. Hopefully the seas will be kinder to us and we will be able to use our balcony.. We are in a forward mini on the Baha deck. During your off ship time, any special "must see" places?

 

Our favorite time was a small road that we took along the coast South of Hilo in an area known as Puna. There are no tours to this area, you have to have a car. The coast is beautiful there, and on the way you go through an incredible jungle. If you time yourself carefully, you could also go to the volcano, as it is not far away. We chose not to do the volcano, and instead had a leisurly time in Puna. It was the highlight of our trip, partly because we didn't see any other tourists there.

 

In Kauai, we chose to go to Waimea Canyon, the road there was very pretty.

 

If you are planning to go to a beach, try to plan it on a weekday. One of the reasons we didn't like Kailua-Kona that much, is we decided to see some pretty beaches there. It was a Sunday and the parking lots were so full of cars we could not stop at any of the beaches we had planned on. Turns out that lots of locals go to the beach on weekends, and you can't get near them, while on weekdays they are uncrowded.

[ccrain]

First of all, after all the great work you did on the Coral class balconies (http://mysite.verizon.net/res76zxu/princessbalconies/) its a real shame the weather was so bad on your cruise. I can't begin to imagine your state of mind when your wife had to endure a dream cruise turned nightmarish for days on end.

 

Secondly, and with a profound sense of relief (big WHEW!), your cruise validated my decision to cancel our April Hawaii cruise, after Judy's bout with "rough" seas on the 12/1 Dawn, and go back to the bathtub of the Caribbean. I just couldn't imagine rolling the dice just to have her seasick day after day after day.

 

I for one would love to do the Antarctic Penninsula, or a transatlantic through Greenland, but I couldn't begin to expose her to those potential sea conditions - especially Cape Horn!

 

The Island does start Grand Panamas in 2008 so we'll take advantage of her then...

 

Better luck on your next cruise

[mii]

Our favorite time was a small road that we took along the coast South of Hilo in an area known as Puna. There are no tours to this area, you have to have a car. The coast is beautiful there, and on the way you go through an incredible jungle. If you time yourself carefully, you could also go to the volcano, as it is not far away. We chose not to do the volcano, and instead had a leisurly time in Puna. It was the highlight of our trip, partly because we didn't see any other tourists there.

 

In Kauai, we chose to go to Waimea Canyon, the road there was very pretty.

 

If you are planning to go to a beach, try to plan it on a weekday. One of the reasons we didn't like Kailua-Kona that much, is we decided to see some pretty beaches there. It was a Sunday and the parking lots were so full of cars we could not stop at any of the beaches we had planned on. Turns out that lots of locals go to the beach on weekends, and you can't get near them, while on weekdays they are uncrowded.

 

Tom my gosh I remember the Puna district. We have been to Hawaii many times on land vacations and we toured the Puna dist, gosh in the 80's. I would imagine it has changed some. It was a lovely area, void of alot of tourists. When you said Puna dist. it did bring back alot of great memories. The Waimea Canyon was also beautiful in Kauaii. If you ever do a say a land vacation in Hawaii go back to the Big Island and tour the Parker Ranch area. Also another beautiful site.

 

Marilyn

 

Marilyn

[cruiserjanet]

I'm glad you had a nice time, Tom, even though you had rough seas. That can be a bummer. We went in October (2005) and the sea was very pleasant except for the first night leaving California where it was a little rough but tolerable. DH can get seasick quite easily whereas I don't. He was close to taking meds but ended up going to sleep and was fine. I recommend October for anyone thinking about taking this cruise. It was recommended to us. However, with the weather we've seen lately, you never know how the patterns will change. The sea days were my favorite (so relaxing) and I would love to take a transatlantic cruise some day.

[spingal]

Tom,

 

I am so sorry that the seas did not cooperate. I took this cruise in April 2005 and we did not have any problems. And I am taking it again next October on the Diamond!! I hope the conditions are OK at that time of year! I can not imagine what you experienced!! :eek: :eek:

[Bucky3]

Tom, it was nice meeting you at our roll call get-together and running into you a couple of other times during the cruise. You are "right on" in your description of the seas on this trip - worst we have ever experienced in over 20 cruises. Having done this crossing twice in September/October with no problems, I think our experience was just bad luck. We now know WE DO NOT get seasick and that's certainly a plus ! We loved the Puna area too on a previous trip. This time we needed to go to VNP as we were showing friends the islands. Also definitely agree about car rentals in Honolulu - Thrifty took over an hour to pick us up. I saw Enterprise and Hertz there when we arrived. I will definitely be looking into another rental location next time - I think the Hilton Hawaiian Village has a Hertz office, and I know the Waikiki Marriott has one. We were able to use our balcony some - we were mid ship on Caribe Deck 10. Spray didn't reach us there. One more comment - actually we had 5 sea days on the return as we didn't reach Ensenada until 5pm on the 5th sea day. Happy Holidays to you and Mary Ann. Bucky

[1FatPER]

Tom:

 

Thanks again for your review. I knew you would be totally honest. I don't think I will show your review to my wife, or she might get cold feet. Hopefully you absorbed all the bad weather and we'll write another review after we get back in March. Welcome home.

 

John

[Cruisin' Chick]

Good review! I'm just a bit pensive today as I realize it was exactly one year ago that we left San Pedro on the Island (about this time, we were enjoying one of the great deserts). This is definitely not a cruise for first timers -- and I know there were a few on our cruise. We had some rough seas for the first few days but we were not quite so fortunate with the ports -- we had to skip Kona (and got a full day in Ensenada, joy, oh joy :( ). Have to add that we had great weather.

[yakcam]

Thanks Tom for your report!

 

Where did you rent your cars from in Maui and Kona? would you change companies if doing it again?

 

We are on the Island Princess for Jan 27 and are planning to rent cars.

[armandpaul]

Thank you.

 

We are heading out in a few days and will change one of our car rentals and hope for calm seas.

 

thank you for your efforts and Happy New Year

[Tom O.]

Thanks Tom for your report!

 

Where did you rent your cars from in Maui and Kona? would you change companies if doing it again?

 

We are on the Island Princess for Jan 27 and are planning to rent cars.

 

I rented from Thrifty in Kona and Dollar in Maui.

In Kona you should choose either Thrifty or Dollar as they are the only two choices that have facilities at the pier. Both companies are operated from the same desk in the lobby of the King Kam. hotel.

In Maui you can choose from several companies that operate at a near by small airport. Thrifty does not have service here, so don't rent from them, (they do have service from the main airport on Maui, but it is on the other side of the island from Lahaina).