cruising hawaii

[lexie33]

If we take a hawaiian cruise, do you get much time on the beach.

[karen327]

First, you should decide on weather you want to take the NCL ship called Pride of America, which is a 7 day cruise which starts and ends in Honolulu, or a longer cruise which travels all the way to Hawaii and back from California or Canada.

 

If you are on the longer cruise (several companies offer this one), you will have at least 8 full sea days, just 3 or 4 days in Hawaii ports, and if you sail out of California, one day in Mexico so it can be called an international cruise.

 

If you take the one through NCL, you will spend 2 days at 3 different islands, on two of those the ship will stay overnight at the port, so you can return as late as you want and not worry about missing the ship.

 

Cars are very cheap and easy to rent at those ports, and many people get them. There are many beaches in Hawaii and you can spend as much or little time at them as you wish. If you don't want to rent a car, you can probably pay for the ship excursion or a taxi to take you there.

 

Also, many if not most people spend a few days either pre or post cruise on the beach. There are some good deals on hotels at the famous Waikiki Beach and you can probably spend as little or much as you want, depending on where you chose to stay.

 

If you chose the cruise with sea days, you will not have the opportunity to add a few land days to your cruise unless it is a repositioning cruise, but can still have some beach time while in port.

[Donray]

If you want beach time in Hawaii take a land vacation. You can fly over and spend two or three days on a few of the islands at a nice hotel that is right on the beach. I enjoyed the Pride of America, but no beach time, since there are other things to see like volcanoes, etc.

[lexie33]

Thanks useful information. We will be going ncl, don't want to waste five days at sea. Glad you also put in the part about rental cars as that was another thing we were wondering about thanks;)

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

days at sea could be fun

[karen327]

The Hawaii forum has a lot of information you may be interested in.

[back to the islands]

We did the inaugural cruise of the Pride of America from San Fran to Hawaii. Hilo is rainy and not a great beach day, so we rented a car and did 3 ship's excursions in one day for less $. We went to the volcano, up to the top of the island, and to a waterfall. At Kona, we drove down to the park where the Hawaiian royals stayed and snorkeled next to it and saw the sights. We saw lots of fish and turtles. At Maui, we went to a couple of beaches and snorkeled and on Kaui we drove North and visited the lighthouse where the birds nest and saw dolphins and a monk seal and on to Kee Beach (sp?) where we snorkeled. The road ends there. We had a wonderful time and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! It's the only cruise I've ever been on and my only time to Hawaii. I want to go back, especially to Kaui. The cruise is nice so you can get a taste of each island. We rented a car at each island.

[Duck Duck Cruise]

Thanks useful information. We will be going ncl, don't want to waste five days at sea. Glad you also put in the part about rental cars as that was another thing we were wondering about thanks;)

 

They are our favorite days. When we took a 15 night Hawaii roundtrip from San Diego the sea days were our favorite. We could have skipped the islands and taken 5 more sea days. But, that is just us.

[back to the islands]

We did enjoy our 5 boat days going over. We could've used a couple more before our LONG flight home since Hawaii is port intensive!

[mking8288]

Curious, how were the seas out in the open Pacific on those 5 days? DW got motion sickness both times sailing out to Bermuda from NYC & wanted to know - missed the casino on sea days, something not offered on POA. Otherwise, we loved the busy ports schedule on POA & would do it again in 2 or 3 years.