How Rough Are Hawaii Waters

Our friend ohioNCLcruiser (James) has had several posts on his Twitter blog that the seas are rough.

How rough are the the waters in Hawaii?

Are you asking in general.....or right now? We sailed a Hawaiin cruise in 2002....late September.....the water was fine.

On one of our POA cruises, the ship could not get into the harbor at Kahului because of rough seas -- so we did a scenic cruise by Molokai, and missed Maui entirely. This was before NCLA -- it was one of the Fanning Island itineraries -- so there was no overnight in Maui scheduled.

The Seas were fine in July of 2004.

Maybe someone can fill in the other months.

I'm wondering about Mid - Late May.

Thanks to all

Beginning of May 2008 the seas were calm when we were on the POA. Never felt the waves at all.

I love these boards, INSTANT answers. Thanks grand isle joe ....

Anyone else??

You should be okay all year, unless there is a storm or hurricane. You can find their hurricane season much more quickly by googling it. The ship stays very close to the islands during most of the cruise around Hawaii. Its when the ship sailed to Fanning Island when most of the rough seas affected that stop.

We were on the Pride of Aloha in mid-Nov in 2007 for the 11 day cruise of the islands (not Fanning). There were a few rough nights and days where the decks were closed for some time. Also one day the kid's club had to be abandoned and the kid's moved to a conference room in the center of the ship, because some of the kid's were hurling due to the up and down bouncing of the ship. A few cruises prior to ours missed Maui and spent the time circling Molokai.

The cruise 2 or 3 weeks after ours was really bad. A winter storm came in early that year causing flooding in Maui. At the port of Kahului the Aloha had to head to sea for calmer waters, because the mooring lines were being snapped and the ship was slamming (damaging) the pier. The Aloha was scheduled to stay in port that night, but they stayed at sea. NCLA provided hotel rooms for the passengers and crew that were left in port. The next day the Aloha came back to pick up the people.

We were on the Pride of Aloha in mid-Nov in 2007 for the 11 day cruise of the islands (not Fanning). There were a few rough nights and days where the decks were closed for some time. Also one day the kid's club had to be abandoned and the kid's moved to a conference room in the center of the ship, because some of the kid's were hurling due to the up and down bouncing of the ship. A few cruises prior to ours missed Maui and spent the time circling Molokai.

 

The cruise 2 or 3 weeks after ours was really bad. A winter storm came in early that year causing flooding in Maui. At the port of Kahului the Aloha had to head to sea for calmer waters, because the mooring lines were being snapped and the ship was slamming (damaging) the pier. The Aloha was scheduled to stay in port that night, but they stayed at sea. NCLA provided hotel rooms for the passengers and crew that were left in port. The next day the Aloha came back to pick up the people.

WOW!!! When I read this I know that it really is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

OhioNCLcruiser also has the story of the hurricane on his regular (not twitter) blog. It's in the archive section - or at least it used to be.

www.shipblogger.com

During our 10 days cruise in April, 08 the sea was totally smooth sailing.

Frankly, no one knows how rough the seas around Hawaii will be on your cruise. Storms can happen at any time. If you have to ask, don't cruise anywhere. Take a nice vacation in the desert at Las Vegas.

The key with any cruise is to be prepared, and bring your sea sick pills just in case.

I just got back from Hawai'i and was surprised how rought the seas were when we were sailing at night. I asked the Captain if it was always rocky and he said that it wasn't in the Summer. I was glad I was wearing the patch.

1st week of Dec 2007 was very smooth. No problems. :)

The seas around the Hawaiian islands are normally fairly calm, but rolling ocean swells are common. However, when it is windy, the seas come up very fast and become steeper, causing more ship rolling and pitching.

Winter has more seas than summer --- that's why the big wave surfing contests are in the winter.

The seas on the northern side of the islands are rougher...the islands block the wind and waves coming from the north-northeast so the opposite side is generally much more calm.

Much of the NCLA island to island itinerary seems to be in the calmer water to me.

I haven't cruised Hawaii yet, but have been there a dozen or so times. November thru March is big-wave season(thus big swell season), as storms in the North Pacific send their swells south. Occasionaly, during the summer months, groundswells from Southern Hemisphere storms work their way north, though generally are not nearly as big as the winter swells. It's a crapshoot, but if rough seas are a major concern, late spring, summer, or early autumn would be the way to go. Hope this helps.

We did the longer cruise to Fanning Island on The Wind in January 2007 and had rough seas quite often (but beautiful weather!). In fact, the only time I've ever been sick on a cruise was the first night of that one. :(

The cruise 2 or 3 weeks after ours was really bad. A winter storm came in early that year causing flooding in Maui. At the port of Kahului the Aloha had to head to sea for calmer waters, because the mooring lines were being snapped and the ship was slamming (damaging) the pier. The Aloha was scheduled to stay in port that night, but they stayed at sea. NCLA provided hotel rooms for the passengers and crew that were left in port. The next day the Aloha came back to pick up the people.

Correction to my earlier post; it was the Pride of America that got slammed in Maui the first week of December 2007. Here is part of a CC review:

"As it happened there was a big storm and it rained almost everyday of our cruise: waves were 25 feet high and winds 70 mph. Oahu had the power out all down the Leeward side and the roads blocked with downed trees for several days. Maui was flooded all along the Kihei and Lahaina shores, and the power was out there for days, too. Passengers were seasick, including my husband. They had dramamine or similar at the front desk, but no scopolamine patches. It seemed that no crewmember on the ship had heard of scope patches!

The captain refused to take us to one port (Kona) because of high winds. At Maui he docked in the morning as scheduled but during that afternoon there were high seas causing the ship to crash against the pier breaking lines. So just after 6 he put to sea leaving about 1/3 of the passengers ashore. Apparently from 6 until 8 p.m. there was pandemonium on the pier as more and more passengers returned to find the ship gone and no explanation. Finally, about 8 p.m. an NCL representative arrived at the pier and started getting things organized. They were eventually all put up in hotel rooms for the night, including my husband who was caught on shore when this happened. The ship stayed out to sea during the storm and put back in the next morning to pick up the passengers who had been stranded"

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=35473

Photos and story from the Pacific Disaster Center: http://www.pdc.org/PDCNewsWebArticles/2007/MauiRainReport/maui_rain_report.htm

I just looked up the actual dates we were on the Pride of America. Looks like we were lucky and missed the storm. Our cruise was 12/18 through the 15th 2007. I had no idea we lucked out by one week. We only had a little rain on one of the days in Kuaii.(sp) We had planned on doing a zip line excursion, but when we got to the location it was sooo muddy and people were coming back covered with mud that we just looked at each other and got back in our rental car

We cruise the POA 2/2005,,,,they had huge waves without even having storms.....they were even having surfing contest on Oahu, because it is normal to have big waves that time of year. I actually found it quite fun...think its not as scary, because you know you are close to shore, and the water is warm.

One day they even drained the pools down to about a foot, yet each wave would make the water jump out of one pool,,,,over the heads of the people in the hot tubs, and into the other pool. People were having a riot..we were just watching and ROFL.

Waves only interfered with one day in Maui...

It's really rocky today! I even had to take sea sickness pills haha.

Thanks James :mad:

Ask the Hawaiin Gods for good weather in May, I'll be coming to see you.

Thanks James :mad:

 

Ask the Hawaiin Gods for good weather in May, I'll be coming to see you.

It should be better then! Glad to hear your coming onto the ship. That was a fun Dawn cruise.

We went on the Pride of America Hawaii in mid September 2007 and the sea was calm. At night the captain went a little faster to get to the other islands but it was great. If you are looking for a little adventure we went cave tubing in Kauai and it was awesome.