Tahitian Princess - Honolulu to Tahiti Itinerary Advice

[razorbackcruiser]

Hello, my girlfriend and I are considering taking this cruise and have been unable to find any reviews about this itinerary. I found one review from Tahiti to Honolulu, but it was not too helpful. We are considering taking the July 31st date and are looking for any help/guidance.

 

I'm especially concerned about being at sea 4 days on such a small ship. Also, I'm a bit concerned that we don't hit the nicest islands in FP. It seems the roundtrip Tahitian cruise hits more spots. Has anyone been on this particular trip that could provide some guidance?

 

It will be our second cruise ever, the last being on the huge Carnival Liberty. Any comments or help would be great! Thanks in advance.

[dforeigner]

Bumping this one in hopes that someone will reply as I am also interested in reading some of the answers.

[razorbackcruiser]

Surely someone has been on this trip. Maybe it's a new itinerary or something......

[C-Ked]

I'd recommend checking out the Pacific Islands ports of call forum -- the majority of posts there deal with all the Tahitian Princess itineraries, and they've got lots of great advice on all the different stops.

 

My understanding is that this particular itinerary isn't as common -- usually, the TP goes on the Cook Islands or Marquesas Islands itineraries. But my DH and I are booked on this sailing (the July 31st one, actually!), primarily because we want to be able to do both Hawaii and Tahiti in one go.

 

So I'd recommend posting your questions on the Pacific Islands board -- or the Hawaii one, for that matter. You'll get a lot more answers there!

[Toto2Kansas]

We have done this trip once from Hawaii to Tahiti (12 days), and then as a B2B from Hawaii (24 days).

One thing to keep in mind is that although the cruise has Christmas Island on the Itinerary, if conditions are not right, they will skip that stop which will result in 5 straight days at sea, so you need to be prepared, just in case. It did happen to us on the B2B not being able to stop either way.

 

It is a delightful trip though and you can see the best of both worlds, Hawaii vs Tahiti.

 

Personally, we would take it again in a moment, but the prices have really gone up on this one since we last sailed on it, and they no longer have any B2B's from Hawaii, just from Tahiti, which isn't the best news. :( We enjoyed only having to fly to Hawaii instead of that 8 hour jaunt to Tahiti, Hawaii is a much closer port for us.

[kruzingtogether]

This isn't directly responsive, but it might be helpful -- We loved the 10 day Tahiti round-trip, on the whole, but we did have nearly three days at sea when Rarotonga (Cook Islands) got cancelled. The open seas were quite rough, and even my husband, who never had been seasick on any previous cruise, felt ill. I couldn't imagine if that had been 5 days instead of 3...

 

I am not sure which islands the Hawaii-Tahiti itinerary skips, but we loved all the ports in French Polynesia. I am guessing it skips either Raiatea or Huahine, both which were pretty amazing. Also, it was nice to have two days on Bora Bora b/c there was just so much to do there. Moorea is also really beautiful, but if the ship skipped that one (which I doubt it does since it is so close to Tahiti), you can always take the 30 min ferry over from Papeete when the ship is docked on the last day -- we liked Moorea so much that we actually used that last day in Papeete to go back!

 

And, all in all, the flight to Tahiti wasn't that bad, and Air Tahiti Nui was a really pleasant airline to fly.

[dazee8]

If your time is flexible and you can take cruises anytime of year then no worries. But if not, then you might want to think about booking this year.

 

Princess does change schedules from time to time, but not often. With the recent news that the Tahitian is going to be spending the summer in Alaska next year, we are thrilled to be able to do Tahiti to Hawaii this year. If we waited another year... we would have lost out.

 

Happy planning,

:)

[chasetf]

Hello, my girlfriend and I are considering taking this cruise and have been unable to find any reviews about this itinerary. I found one review from Tahiti to Honolulu, but it was not too helpful. We are considering taking the July 31st date and are looking for any help/guidance.

 

I'm especially concerned about being at sea 4 days on such a small ship. Also, I'm a bit concerned that we don't hit the nicest islands in FP. It seems the roundtrip Tahitian cruise hits more spots. Has anyone been on this particular trip that could provide some guidance?

 

It will be our second cruise ever, the last being on the huge Carnival Liberty. Any comments or help would be great! Thanks in advance.

We have done a B2B on the Tahitian, but not the Hawaii to Tahiti or Tahiti to Hawaii. If you do not enjoy sea days then the 10 day around the islands would probably be more to your liking. We enjoy sea days so we would do it.

 

There will be plenty to do on the sea days. My brother and his wife did a B2B from Hawaii to Tahiti to Hawaii on the Dawn a few years back and really enjoyed it. The seas and weather on their trip were calm and beautiful.

 

The pluses for the 12 day are you will see Tahiti, Riaatea, Moorea, and Bora Bora which are the best islands. On the 10 day you would see Huahine and Rarotonga or Rangiroa, Nuku Hiva, and Hiva Oa depending which itineray you chose. But the trade off is you get the Hawaiian ports in trade.

[Times Prince]

Hello, my girlfriend and I are considering taking this cruise and have been unable to find any reviews about this itinerary. I found one review from Tahiti to Honolulu, but it was not too helpful. We are considering taking the July 31st date and are looking for any help/guidance.

 

I'm especially concerned about being at sea 4 days on such a small ship. Also, I'm a bit concerned that we don't hit the nicest islands in FP. It seems the roundtrip Tahitian cruise hits more spots. Has anyone been on this particular trip that could provide some guidance?

 

It will be our second cruise ever, the last being on the huge Carnival Liberty. Any comments or help would be great! Thanks in advance.

We took the reverse trip for our wedding anniversary and it was one of the best cruises we ever had - if not the best. The days at sea were pleasant for us and we were able to stop at Christmas Island, which was rustic and delightfully charming. Christmas Island is a shallow draft port for the tenders from the ship - even in good weather they can go aground if not careful.

 

The smaller ship (we were on Pacific Princess II, the sister ship to the Tahitian Princess) was extremely stabile in the open ocean and offered the amentities of a bigger ship with more intimate environments.

 

We loved this cruise. There are beautiful and awesome things to see at almost every port, and the shore excursions offered a great variety, so it wasn't just snorkeling at every port - we really mixed it up. It was our first time to any of the ports, so the whole trip was simply

... MAGICAL

[razorbackcruiser]

Thank you all for your input. It's a hard decision, so any help is great!

[Tahitian Princess]

We've done both the cruise from Tahati/Hawaii and also, the 10 day cruise FP cruise( 3X's). Although, we had a great time on the Tahiti/Hawaii cruise. We prefer the cruise that stays in FP. We felt with the Tahiti/Hawaii, you didn't have enough time to enjoy the islands of FP, in my opinion the most beautiful islands in the world. The sea days were okay, we would rather spend the time at Tahiti and Her Islands. I'm sure which ever cruise you decide to do, you'll have an amazing time.

 

Now, that the Tahitian Princess won't be in FP during our summer(which is a huge disappointment to us), because

the weather is normally, so much better at those times, warm with less humidity. Our next trip to FP will most likely, NOT be a cruise. We just want to enjoy the islands, especially at the time of year we choose(July, August or Sept.).