Party of 8 – Our Hawaiian Adventure on the POA (with pics)

Always very helpful. Thanks much. Guess I got some waiting to do. Thanks for the tip, mongee.

Does anyone know how far ahead NCL makes their excursions available on their site? Saw a few mentioned in this review that I would like to check out.

I don't remember when ours were available, but I booked one last June for my cruise this month. Just over 9 months in advance. I know they weren't all available then and NCL kept adding over the months. Now our cruise shows 102 available.

Thanks. I'll start watching in April for my January cruise.

Thank you for your review. We're on the POA in May and you answered a lot of questions I had. Also appreciate the car rental website, big savings there. Love the pictures and can't wait to sail.

Great Review. Thanks so much. I'm going to read it again and take notes. We leave April 18th. Super excited.

Thank you for your review. We're on the POA in May and you answered a lot of questions I had. Also appreciate the car rental website, big savings there. Love the pictures and can't wait to sail.

Great Review. Thanks so much. I'm going to read it again and take notes. We leave April 18th. Super excited.

Thank you both! I love knowing that my review has been helpful to so many people! I hope you both enjoy your cruises and end up loving Hawaii as much I do. :)

Sunday and Maui!

 

Our sweet ride docked at Kahului.

 

 

I had been to Maui many moons ago with my parents and I was anxious for my family to see how beautiful it is. We had plans to rent cars the first day and do the Molokini snorkel excursion through NCL the second day.

 

We were on the shuttle bus to Thrifty by 8:45 for our 9:00 pick up time. They offered us an upgrade to a Dodge Charger for only a little more, and since we knew we might have Mom with us for part of our trip, we went for it to have a little more room. Plus, hubby’s a huge Charger fan, having owned a couple of the classics back in the day. He was excited!

 

Off we went to our first stop that we were all doing together, Iao Valley. I had forgotten how beautiful the entire area is. We all loved this stop.

 

The Iao Needle

 

After viewing the needle, we made our way down another path, down to where the stream flows. Just gorgeous. We ventured out on the rocks while Mom stayed on the path and snapped pictures of us. I took this one of our girls.

Mom decided to go with us when it was time to leave Iao, as SIL and BIL weren’t sure exactly what they were going to do. They thought they might want to hit the beaches on the west side of the island, Ka’anapali or maybe Napili. Our plan was to head south and west also, but we wanted to stop in Lahaina and also Whaler’s Village. And to hopefully see some whales along the way! I had yet to see any and was anxious to. That appealed to Mom more than huffing it around on the beaches.

 

We pulled off at an overlook just past Ma’alaea and were rewarded! Our first glimpse of the whales. They were too far out to get decent pictures, so we didn’t take any. I knew we would see more the following day on our snorkel trip. We continued on and stopped further down at small beach Mom could navigate and the girls waded in the water for a little while.

 

We eventually made it to Lahaina. I was disappointed in how much the area has been developed in the 20 years since I’d been there. Sign of the times, I guess. But we parked and walked around and did a little shopping. We had lunch at Cheeseburger In Paradise. The girls asked if we could have lunch at one of the restaurants on the waterfront and this fit the bill perfectly. Hubby and I had burgers. They were good, not outstanding, but good. Mom had Mahi Mahi that she enjoyed, and I can’t remember what the kids had. Something “kiddish” I’m sure.

 

On to Whaler’s Village and the whaling museum there. We all really enjoyed it and it filled the remainder of the afternoon. We started heading back to Thrifty to drop off the rental car around 4:30 and were back to the ship by 5:30, I do believe. We met up with SIL and family for dinner at the Aloha to talk about our respective afternoons and share our stories and pictures. They had been to Whaler’s Village, too, and the museum, just earlier in the day because they had skipped Lahaina and gone directly there. After, they found a beach that BIL said would’ve been perfect for snorkeling. I’m not sure which one he was talking about, but it was out past Ka’anapali.

 

The kids played ping pong for a while after dinner, then asked if they could swim and use the hot tubs. The pool deck was virtually deserted every night by seven, except for the eight of us. The pool deck bars were closed, the loungers and chairs stacked away. We just took what we needed to sit on and then re-stacked them when we were done. The Gold Rush Saloon is directly aft of the pool deck and accessible by walking through the ping pong area. It was a good place to get a drink in the evenings while we were watching the kids swim. I loved their Bahama Mamas. Hubby tried several new beers and his favorite of the trip ended up being the Kona Longboard.

 

Speaking of the kids, besides ours, we saw maybe six or seven other kids that were our kids’ ages, and about that many really little ones. Ours didn’t utilize the teen or kids clubs at all, so I have no information on that.

 

We were in bed early again. Our meeting time for our snorkel excursion was at 8:20 the following morning out on the pier. We were all looking forward to it very much, especially our older daughter. This was her gig, the one thing she really, really wanted to do. It appealed to all in our group and so we pre-booked on-line as soon as the shore excursions became available.

 

I wanted to add a pic of our 1st towel animal, but I can only include six images at a time, so I'll do it in another post.

Thanks very much greatlakesgirl! Your review is wonderful and helping me to figure out what to do on our POA trip this coming July! I can't wait for your next installments -- particularly about Molokini -- that is MY big want! Thanks again!

Thanks very much greatlakesgirl! Your review is wonderful and helping me to figure out what to do on our POA trip this coming July! I can't wait for your next installments -- particularly about Molokini -- that is MY big want! Thanks again!

I hope you have a great trip! Thanks for reading. :)

We are booked on the POA in March of 2016 ( our 40th anniversary!) and I am enjoying reading about your adventure.

We tossed around the cruise and a few days before and after on Oahu or doing a complete "land" tour and decided we would see more on the cruise as we wouldn't want to hop to 5 different locations!

Looking forward to the rest of your review! I am taking notes for our adventure!

So glad my review is helping you plan! We had such an amazing time and made memories to last a lifetime. Enjoy! It is a fabulous trip!

Amazing, isn't it? Kauai was my favorite island. Mom's, too.

 

Thanks for the compliment! 7556 was BIL and SIL's cabin. They had a great view, too. Theirs was different than ours in that they had a small sofa against the wall on the left hand side, right near the window. And next to the sofa was the bed - twins pushed together to make a queen. It was a nice room. Small but functional for the three of them. BIL is 6'8" tall and he managed just fine.

 

Oh, I found these! I'd asked if they minded if I post some of their pics and they said fine, just no clear, up-close face shots. That's cool. So I pixelized SIL and nephew. They're very private people.

 

 

Out their window. If you turned to the left a little, there's nothing there. We're in Kona here.

Thanks for the cabin photos...we are trying to decide if we want to go with an obstructed cabin and this helps give us an idea of what to expect!

Would you by any chance have any photos of the view from 7554? Since we are getting more than one cabin, we are wondering which would be a better combination... 7554 & 7556 (which are adjoining) or 7556 &7558 (in case the view is less obstructed for 7558.)

Just thought of another question!

In the connecting rooms, does having the door between the rooms take the space of what would have been any storage unit or anything else in a "non" connecting cabin?

Thanks! Can you tell I tend to over-think things??

Hi AryMay! Thanks for reading my review!

7554 was my Mom-in-law's and older daughter's room, exact mirror opposite of 7556. It looked out over the middle of that small boat and, out of the three rooms, probably had the least "best" view, as it looked directly at the little boat. Sorry, no pics of it. I can't speak to 7558, of course, but that's where the larger, regular-sized lifeboats started. I purposely chose the three cabins because they had the small boat in front of them. Also, if you want a cabin with the little couch for somewhere to sit, don't book a quad, which is what ours was. 7558 might be a quad, so check it out first if you don't want the room to look like ours did! lol

The connecting door was at the foot of the beds. So, no, it didn't take up any space that could've been used for storage.

Enjoy your cruise! We had the best time! :)

Hi AryMay! Thanks for reading my review!

 

7554 was my Mom-in-law's and older daughter's room, exact mirror opposite of 7556. It looked out over the middle of that small boat and, out of the three rooms, probably had the least "best" view, as it looked directly at the little boat. Sorry, no pics of it. I can't speak to 7558, of course, but that's where the larger, regular-sized lifeboats started. I purposely chose the three cabins because they had the small boat in front of them. Also, if you want a cabin with the little couch for somewhere to sit, don't book a quad, which is what ours was. 7558 might be a quad, so check it out first if you don't want the room to look like ours did! lol

 

The connecting door was at the foot of the beds. So, no, it didn't take up any space that could've been used for storage.

 

Enjoy your cruise! We had the best time! :)

Thanks for the response.

We are traveling with another couple and had originally each booked cabins "between" the lifeboats thinking the view would be better. In order to do that, we had about 3 cabins between us. (We had cabins 7566 and 7574.) Several years ago we did obstructed view cabins on the Carnival Legend and the view wasn't bad if you were located between the lifeboats. Here is a photo taken from that cabin...

But...after looking online I "think" the supports for the lifeboats on the POA block much more of the window...perhaps more than the actual lifeboat so I was second guessing our choices. I also found an old photo online of the cabin we had booked (7566) and it looked like the window was a lot skinnier than what your photos show.

So...after reading your review...or at least skimming it for now...being by the smaller lifeboat seemed like a better option. I also thought it would be more convenient to have the adjoining cabins rather than running back and forth when our cabins were several doors apart.

Hopefully we made the right choice!! Although I would have loved a balcony, the cost was just too high. Our balcony cabin for our Alaskan cruise last summer was considerably less than what we are paying for this obstructed view cabin!!! :eek:

Now that we (hopefully) have finalized our cabin locations, I plan to go back and read your review in detail to get ideas of what to do in the ports!! You may be hearing more from me!!

One thing we loved about our location was that it was right by the elevator and stairs. Never heard any noise, so don't worry about that. Also, you are just one flight up from the promenade deck, deck six, which goes around the entire ship, and no one is ever out there. We watched the Na Pali coast sail-by from there and it was fantastic. There's pics of that towards the end of the review.

Thank you very much for your report. So excited to see your cabin pics. We will be in two of them Oct 2015. Such fun to get to see them in advance! Thanks for your time, it will be very helpful in my planning.

I'm so pleased my review is still helping people over a year later! Thank you for reading. The rooms are small, to be sure, but perfectly functional. :)

I so hope you have as great a time as we did and fall in love with Hawaii!

Thanks for your time spent on this review. I know it's been a while since your post but I bookmarked this specific post so I could refer to it when needed. Was this snorkel tour taken through NCL or booked on your own?

Thanks for your time spent on this review. I know it's been a while since your post but I bookmarked this specific post so I could refer to it when needed. Was this snorkel tour taken through NCL or booked on your own?

Thanks for reading! We booked the snorkel excursion through NCL for the sake of convenience. You could easily do it on your own through the Pacific Whale Foundation (that's who NCL uses) or another company of your choosing, and then drive there on your own if you have a rental car. We only did the rental for our first day on Maui.

I'm so pleased my review is still helping people over a year later! Thank you for reading. The rooms are small, to be sure, but perfectly functional. :)

 

I so hope you have as great a time as we did and fall in love with Hawaii!

I'm not cruising on the POA until Mar/16 but by accident came across your fantastic review !!

Thank you so much! I am so glad my review is helping people plan their cruise. I know i read quite a few before our cruise, so I was happy to give back. Enjoy your cruise!!! :)

Your review has certainly helped me plan our days on the cruise in January, 2016.There are 6 of us so far and I am the lead. They will think I am so smart and organized.

Thank you so much.

Your review has certainly helped me plan our days on the cruise in January, 2016.There are 6 of us so far and I am the lead. They will think I am so smart and organized.

 

Thank you so much.

I know how you feel, I was the organizer for our trip. They teased me for planning so far ahead (a year), but still to this day they remark about how well the trip went off. ;)

I'm glad I could help! Hope you have an amazing time, I know we sure did!

Whew! What a great review. We are sailing on 8/1/15 and I need to get started with the planning. Thank you so much!

Candy

You are welcome! Have fun planning and have fun in Hawaii and on the cruise!