Pride of America REVIEW!

Hello all! I found SO much helpful information on this board when I was planning for our wonderful trip, so I wanted to share our experience here as well. I hope it might help others!

We flew from Oakland, CA to Honolulu on Friday, 10/24 (the day before embarkation). This was our very first trip to Hawaii (my husband and I went to celebrate our 25th anniversary), and I did so much planning beforehand. I might have been just a LITTLE bit obsessed. But anyway, we arrived in Honolulu right around noon, local time. We had pre-arranged a taxi with Johnny Cab (https://johnnycabhi.com/). I had arranged this about 6 weeks in advance. John texted us right after our flight landed, and was there to pick us up right after we got our luggage. He was super nice, and I think it was $30 (plus tip) to our hotel in Waikiki.

We stayed at the Outrigger Reef at the Beach, which we really enjoyed. We booked that several months in advance as well, and they upgraded us from a 'city view' to an 'ocean view' room, which was fantastic! I attached a photo of the view from our balcony. We were on the 9th floor. We ate lunch at Shorebird, which is inside the Outrigger Reef. We also watched the amazing sunset from the beach, watched the fireworks that Hilton Hawaiian Village does every Friday and visited the ABC store.

Day ONE - Embarkation Day

We woke up super early, watched the sunrise from our balcony and prepared for our Diamond Head hike. We had decided that we wanted to do Diamond Head on embarkation day because we were so close, well why not? We reserved a "tour" through Veltra (http://www.hawaiiactivities.com/en/hawaii/oahu/a/15841) and paid (I believe) $16/person. This was basically for a shuttle ride to Diamond Head and a bottle of water. Yes, you can do this in a less expensive manner either by just grabbing a taxi, the Bus or walking it, but we chose to do this and it was very convenient. The bus picked us up from our hotel doorstep, plus two other couples from two other hotels (one couple was already in the van, and the third couple was picked up after us). The driver took us all to the parking lot at Diamond Head. That fee also included our entrance fee (I think it's a dollar per person) and a bottle of water. We started at about 8:30am, and the hike itself up to the very top took us maybe a half hour, it was very crowded up there at the top and going up...steady stream of people. We are in our late 40's, we exercise somewhat regularly but we are not super athletes, and the hike was not as hard as we thought it would be. Sure, we were sweaty...but those views are so worth the effort. All in all, we were there for about 2 hours and the driver picked us up at 10:30am, we were back to our hotel before 11am with plenty of time to shower and check out by noon.

We had again arranged with Johnny Cab to pick us up at the Outrigger at 12:15pm to take us to the pier ($25 plus tip). He was again, right on time and a pleasure. We would highly recommend him to anyone who wants to reserve their transportation.

We arrived at the pier at about 12:30-12:40, and saw the LINE. Yeah, I had read the warnings about going too early, and the lines there, but hey, we were excited. So it was about 2pm before we actually got on board the ship. While in line, they give you a lei (ladies get flowers, men get shells), they take your embarkation photo, they'll give you water, they have a little entertainment...it was pleasant and we enjoyed talking to the people in line around us. :)

Once we boarded, there wasn't really anyone there to tell you where to go or what to do, so we wandered around feeling lost for a few minutes. We went up to the 9th deck (where our cabin was) to find that they were still working and we couldn't get in. So, we went up to the Key West Bar and Grill on deck 12, above the pool. They were serving some food up there (burgers, hot dogs, salad, fruit...stuff like that) at a buffet, so we ate lunch there and had our first festive cocktail. I think it was about 3pm when they made the announcement that the cabins were all ready.

Our Cabin

We were on deck 9, in stateroom 9142, which is a balcony cabin. We had booked an 'obstructed ocean view' cabin originally, and got this upgrade about a month before sailing through our travel agent! It is an adjoining cabin, so there was a door at the foot of the bed that adjoined to the cabin next door. We could hear people talking on occasion, but it was not a big deal.

The cabin was small, but totally fine for the two of us. There is plenty of closet space, with hangers, shelves and baskets inside the closet. There were also hooks inside the closet doors, which was nice. Outside the closet there are drawers for holding more clothing and a few small shelves with a coffee maker and ice bucket. There are two beside tables, a small coffee table and love seat, and a desk area. The desk area had more storage, a hair dryer, flat screen TV, mini fridge and safe for valuables. There was also a chair there for extra seating.

The balcony had two chairs and a small table. The bathroom is tiny, and the shower is even tinier. For larger sized people, this might be rough. There is only a curtain on the shower, no door. The shower head is adjustable and removable. There is shampoo and body wash in the shower in dispensers (no conditioner; if you need it bring your own). The sink also had a soap dispenser. There is more storage behind one of the mirrors, and a small shelf under the sink. There were hooks on the inside of the bathroom door as well and a tiny towel shelf and towel rack.

Some things we brought that were great for the cabin:

1. A hanging cosmetic bag...great b/c there's not much bathroom counter space.

2. Clips with hanger tops. We used these EVERY day to clip our wet swimsuits to the balcony chairs, and to hang things up in the closet. We ordered these from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NBRRTZI/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1

3. Post It Notes...we used these to leave Karl, our room steward, messages and that worked out really well!

4. Extension cord and power strip for extra plugin power!

5. Ziploc bags (b/c yes we DID take our lunch off the ship on two occasions...more on that later).

More on the ship:

We ate in the two main dining rooms, Skyline and Liberty. They have fairly similar menus every day, and we thought the food was good. It was not amazing or over the top, but it was tasty! The swordfish was especially good. I am gluten intolerant and I was able to find things to eat every night without having to request special foods. The service there was fine; some servers were better than others.

We also ate in the Cadillac Diner, which was fun...burgers and fries. I had my burger prepared "protein style" and they accommodated that without problem.

We ate at the Aloha Cafe every morning for breakfast. Their selection was pretty much the same every single day, which is fine b/c there was bacon and that makes it all good. :) There was an omelette station, basic pastries and such. I only ate the scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage pretty much every day. There was also plenty of fresh pineapple and papaya all the time, which was delicious. At breakfast time, there was a sandwich making area set up with bread, peanut butter and jelly and there were deli meats and cheese too. We did make some lunch stuff up on two occasions and took it with us in our insulated backpack (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003I7E6N4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). There were also yogurt cups, cartons of milk and apples/bananas in bowls. That worked really well on the days that we knew we might be off the beaten path.

We visited the art gallery area just to look, and some of the bar areas. The Aloha Cafe had soft serve ice cream most of the time, and the Gold Rush Saloon had popcorn out most of the time.

We used the main pool two or three times; always crowded in the afternoons when the ship was pulling out of port (which is when we used it too). There are hot tubs out by the main pool and another smaller pool with one hot tub on deck 12 back by the Spa. We did not use the Spa, the Gym or any of the children's areas.

We went to three different shows, all of which were really good. The NewlyWed or NOT Game was hilarious! Silas, the cruise director, is a really nice guy and very much out and about among the passengers. We met him on the first day at our CC Meet and Greet, and he remembered us all week as we saw him around.

To disembark while in port, you go down to Deck 3. I believe embarkation was on Deck 5.

Our cabin was on the starboard side.

-Leaving Honolulu, our cabin was facing the land (east).

-Pulling into Maui, we were facing land (west), leaving Maui, we were facing land (west).

-Pulling into Hilo, we were facing land (west), leaving Hilo we were facing water (east). The ship does NOT do a lava sailby at this time, so you go over the north side of Hawaii to get to Kona.

-Pulling into Kona, seemed like we came in and turned around but I wasn't paying attention. I just remember the noise of the tenders being taken down. :) Pulling out of Kona we were facing land (east).

-Pulling into Kauai, we were facing the water, and the amazing sunrise (east). The Napali Coast Sailby would be best for port side cabins, but we stayed out on the deck for that.

Days Two and Three - Maui

We reserved a rental car through Discount Hawaii Car Rental (in fact, all of our rentals were through DHCR, so I won't mention that every single time). We used Budget for Maui, Hilo and Kauai and Thrifty for Oahu.

We disembarked in Maui at around 8:30am, after the first wave of passengers had gotten off. There was no line for the car rental shuttle, which came less than 5 minutes after we got out to the waiting area. We picked up our car at the Budget office near the airport (again, no line...quick and easy) and we were on our way fairly quickly. Our first stop was the Iao Needle; very pretty and worth the $5 admission per car. Our plans after that were to find a beach to enjoy and snorkel (we own snorkel gear so we took it with us). We drove west across the island and went all the up north to a little snorkel spot that some friends had told us about (Honolua Bay). Unfortunately when we got there, we met some people coming out of the water who told us that it wasn't worth the time...poor visibility that day. So, we went back down and found a place to park near Napili Bay (I think we parked on Napili Place) and walked down a short path to the beach. Beach access is fairly well marked everywhere on the islands. We spent some time there, and then later moved to Kapalua Bay (which is the next Bay if you go north). We left our car where it was and walked to Kapalua Bay. Jackpot here on the snorkeling! We saw turtles and tons of fish. Great spot and not as crowded as Napili. We spent most of the day here. There is a bathroom with a shower near Kapalua Bay, which we used to clean up.

We headed back to Lahaina at around 3:30pm and had our first Shave Ice at Ululani's on Front Street (we parked on Front Street). That was the best Shave Ice of the whole trip! We walked down to the Banyan Tree (very cool) and walked through the little open air market there. Lots of fun stuff to look at. We had reservations at Kimo's for 5:30pm, and we ate dinner there. EXCELLENT dinner! We went a little early and asked for a table "on the rail" and we were seated with a great view of the sunset. Very nice and affordable. Kimo's is owned by the same company that owns Duke's, so they have Hula Pie, if you are so inclined. We were back on board the ship by about 8pm. The parking for rentals cars in Maui is convenient. We were back too late to get a spot in the close lot, but the overflow lot is not far, well lit and has a guard shack. There is a special walkway for cruise ship passengers so you aren't walking out on the streets to get back to the ship. It's about a 5 minute walk or so.

Day Three Maui - we were up early and walked out to our car to head over to Ma'alea Harbor and our Molokini Snorkel Tour! We did not book with the ship. After much research we decided to go with Trilogy and their Molokini Snorkel Tour (https://www.sailtrilogy.com/tour/molokini). This was probably the best thing we did on our entire trip. We went on the 8am sailing, and it was just fantastic. We stayed out at Molokini the whole time b/c there were Tiger Shark sitings at the second location, although we did see Reef Sharks out at Molokini. We have snorkeled in the Caribbean AND Mexico, and Molokini by far surpassed those experiences. Super clear water, lots of fish and amazing visibility. The Trilogy staff was great, helpful and friendly. They also served breakfast and lunch, put up the sails going back in and they treated everyone like family. We would use them again if (when) we go back. We were back at the harbor by 2pm, and we were tired so we went back to the ship to swim in the pool. Dropping off the rental car was no problem, easy shuttle ride back. The ship left port at the scheduled time (in every port this was true).

Enjoying your review.

Keith

Day Four - Hilo

We rented a car here as well. Again, we waited until about a half hour after the gangway was open to disembark. The waiting area for rental cars here at the pier was in the full sun (no shade) so bring a hat! We waited here for about 10 minutes for the shuttle to return to take us to the airport to pickup our car. The rental counters at Hilo airport are tiny; just a desk with one or two people working at them. We waited a little bit here too, but not too long. The clerk at the desk here told us to be very mindful of the speed limit b/c the police officers in Hilo use their personal vehicles and they are hard to spot. Good to know! :)

We were in our car by 9am and on our way toward Volcanoes National Park. However we had decided to take the time to drive PAST VNP to go down to Punalu'u Black Sand Beach b/c I really wanted to see black sand! If you are inclined to do this, it's well worth your time. That was probably the most beautiful thing we saw on the trip. Truly amazing and picture perfect. We spent about 45 minutes here, walking and looking (turtles!) at the beauty. I would love to go back and spend part of day just sitting on that beach.

We drove back up to VNP, and decided to use our time on the Chain of Craters Road. We did not visit the museum, but we did go to the lookout at the Jagger Museum. We also made a quick stop to walk through the Thurston Lava Tube on our way to Chain of Craters Road. We drove that all the way to the end, where the Sea Arch is...awesome drive. I've never seen lava fields like that, so we stopped on occasion just to look. There was never any flowing lava to see. We also made a quick stop on the way back to the airport at the Macadamia Nut Farm to get some of the Hershey Kisses that they only sell in Hawaii. However, we later saw them at Costco in Honolulu too! We bought gas near the airport, and were back on board the ship with a few minutes to spare.

Day Five - Kona

We did our one and only ship excursion in Kona. We did the Big Island Snorkel, run by Body Glove. You tender in Kona, so you have to meet up with your tour group in the Hollywood Theater first and they take you as a group to the tender. The tender ride is fairly short (maybe 5 minutes or so) and they were running 4-6 boats during the day.

The snorkel excursion was fun, though I must say that I was not as good as Molokini. If you have to choose one, do Molokini! The boat ride was about 45 minutes to the snorkel site, and we had about 2 hours there. The boat had plenty of crew to help out, noodles for flotation, paddle boards, view boards, a big slide, a high dive and all of the gear. NO free alcohol (and I forgot to mention that the Trilogy excursion had NO free alcohol). They serve breakfast and lunch, and the lunch on this one was better than Trilogy (burgers grilled on board, fruit, taro chips). We saw dolphins and lots of fish, but the visibility was not as good here as it was at Molokini. Still a fun day though and we were glad we did it. They have you back to the harbor at around 12:30-ish...I can't remember the exact time. We had plenty of time to walk around town and do a little shopping. Make sure you visit Donkey Balls (http://www.alohahawaiianstore.com/) for Kona coffee...delicious; super nice people, and we met the coffee grower who talked with us for a while. We also purchased a beautiful carved necklace from a local seller (https://www.makaunui.com/). He was so nice, and we special ordered an anklet for me which he made and sent before we even got home!

We also had a late lunch at the Fish Hopper right by the pier; great fish tacos! We went back to the ship at around 3:30pm and used the pool on board again. The line for the return tenders was quite long; I think we waited about 20 minutes.

I'll do Kauai and Oahu tomorrow (hopefully)... :)

Loving your review! Thank you.

Excellent review!!!

Looking forward to the rest.

Chuck

Thanks for taking the time to write a review, I'm reliving our cruise through you. :D

So glad you had a good time in Hawaii and enjoyed the POA! :)

Love your review! We're sailing this Saturday, this makes me even more excited for our cruise! :D

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

Your timing is excellent!

So great to get a new review just prior to our POA cruise!

Thanks much for sharing your experience :D

We stayed at the Outrigger Reef at the Beach, which we really enjoyed. We booked that several months in advance as well, and they upgraded us from a 'city view' to an 'ocean view' room, which was fantastic! I attached a photo of the view from our balcony. We were on the 9th floor. We ate lunch at Shorebird, which is inside the Outrigger Reef. We also watched the amazing sunset from the beach, watched the fireworks that Hilton Hawaiian Village does every Friday and visited the ABC store.

We stayed in that hotel way back in 2003 for our 25th anniversary. They also upgraded us to an ocean view and I took this picture. Looks like we were close to your room. :)

Awesome review, we are sailing in April.

Thanks so much for doing a review - I've enjoyed reading it so far! We are going in May, and I am just getting into the planning. Not obsessively (yet) - that will probably start in January! Looking forward to the rest :)

Your review is fantastic can't wait for your next installment!

Thanks everyone, for the comments! I'm happy to be able to share our experiences and please feel free to ask any questions. I found this forum to be of immense help when we were planning so it's fun to 'give back.' ;)

Days FIVE and SIX - Kauai

Our starboard facing cabin was on the east facing side when pulling into Nawilwili Harbor, so we got to see an amazing sunrise from our balcony. As we pulled in, it was raining lightly...and that proved to be the case for our entire time in Kauai. This was the port where none of what we planned to do came to fruition, but we had fun anyway. :) And yes, it's true what everyone says about the chickens in Kauai. They really ARE everywhere!

Once again, we waited a little bit before disembarking, and picked up the car rental shuttle right away on the pier. We went to the airport and picked up our rental car (again with Budget) and were on our way. This Budget office was our least favorite; not as personal and our car had an ant issue. Yes, insects. But it wasn't enough to make us want to go back and waste any precious time so we killed an ant or two once in a while. Weird!

We headed to the north shore, as we really wanted to see Ke'e Beach (which is the one at the end of the road) as well as Tunnels Beach and the Dry Caves there. We hoped to snorkel at either Ke'e or Tunnels. We did drive all the way to Ke'e, only to find it completely crowded with no parking to be found. The road getting out there is very narrow with several one lane bridges so it would have been difficult to try to wait. We did look for parking back down the road, but it was also raining and so we decided to head back to Tunnels beach. The drive is pretty, so we were glad we went all the way out.

Tunnels Beach was less crowded, and after we parked and got out of the car we saw why...orange flags all along the beach. BIG surf warning. And it was indeed BIG SURF. Wow...being from California, we have seen some big surf, but nothing like that. We walked down the beach for a bit and then crossed the street to visit the Dry Caves. Those are pretty neat, and worth the visit if you have time. You can park at Tunnels Beach and just run across the street (narrow road, no big deal to cross). Take a flashlight if you have one, and go all the way to the back.

Since snorkeling was obviously out for this area, we decided to go back to Kilauea Point Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge. $5/person. We got there around 11am, and stayed for maybe an hour and a half. Beautiful views of the lighthouse, lots of cool birds (I like birds) and we saw several Nene and one baby Nene. It started to rain again while we were there, but it was a short, passing storm. You can't go up in the lighthouse, but there were some park rangers there to answer questions. There's also a new blowhole out on the rocks at the end that they were showing us.

From here we drove back down south to Kapa'a. We visited Java Kai for coffee (yummy...and they had gluten free treats there too) and my husband bought a hat at Island Hemp Wear in Kapa'a. Cool little town to shop in. Again, we got rained on.

At this point, it was only about 2pm so we decided to just head south for Poipu to see the Spouting Horn. Our snorkeling options were out b/c of the weather, so we decided to just drive and see what we wanted to see. On the way down, we spotted Koloa Rum. If you like rum, stop here! They have free tasting (you have to sign up for a time slot) and their coconut rum is SO good!! (http://www.koloarum.com/). There are also a few other little shops around this area, and a restaurant.

After Koloa Rum, we ate our packed lunch in the parking lot and drove to Poipu. The Spouting Horn was indeed spouting, so we enjoyed watching that for a while. We also drove further around (toward the west) past the turnoff for Waimea Canyon to Salt Pond Beach. That was a nice looking beach, with picnic tables etc. Lots of locals there. We stayed there for a little bit, until it started to rain again. At that point it was about 5pm or so, and we opted to head back for the ship. We parked at Anchor Cove Shopping Center and paid the $20 to park overnight. I'm not sure how it works if you get back there so late that the businesses aren't open? Anyway, we took the shuttle back to the pier. I know the shuttle only runs to a certain hour (probably until the businesses close). It doesn't run 24 hours a day. If you got there late, you'd have to walk back to the ship. It isn't that far, we did it the next morning. We also had to hand over the rum we had purchased at Koloa, but we got it back on Friday night.

Day SIX

We got up early b/c we planned to head up to Waimea Canyon and wanted to give ourselves plenty of time. The Anchor Cove shuttle doesn't start up until 8am, so we had to walk back over to get our car. It was about a 10 minute walk; pretty easy. There are two roads that will take you up to the top lookout. We took the first road, Waimea Canyon Road (or 550). It's less crowded as many of the tour buses take the second route (Kokee Road). They meet up after a little while, so you all end up in the same place.

We were advised to go all the way to the top...don't stop at the bottom first! In hindsight, we wish we would have stopped at ONE of the lower lookout points along the way, because when we did finally get up to the top lookout (where the road ends) it was raining and cloudy and we never got to see any of it. If we had stopped at the lower lookouts on our way up, I think we could have seen some of the canyon. But, we actually waited at the top parking lot for about an hour, hoping that the rain would let up, but it never did. :(

As we were driving back down, the very first lookout was filled with tour buses, so we stopped to see if we could see anything. Thankfully we did get to see a little bit of the canyon from there, despite the rain. So, I guess we're just going to have to go back to Kauai so we can see Waimea Canyon. :)

We stopped at Kauai Coffee Company on our way back to drop off the rental car. They have tons of coffees that you can sample, plus a gift shop, a little snack bar and a self guided tour through their coffee field. But, guess what? It rained there too. We saw lots of rainbows in Kauai! ;) We bought gas at Costco, took the car back to the rental car office, caught the shuttle and went back to the ship. Traffic was rather thick around Costco, but we did all of that and made it back without any problem.

The ship pulled out of port right at 2pm, and headed north to do the Napali Coast sailby. It was really raining and stormy, so we weren't even sure that we would be able to see it. The seas were also looking pretty rough, and the ship pool was actually closed b/c the water was sloshing out of it due to the ship movement! We found a spot out on the 12th deck, along the railing (standing) and hoped for a glimpse. It was interesting to see how the ship's captain sailed the ship through and around storm clouds.

As we got around to the beautiful Napali Coast, it was as if God smiled down upon us...the clouds opened up, the sun shone through and a rainbow appeared. Magical. The Napali Coast is like nothing I have ever seen; words cannot describe how majestic and breathtaking it is. Pictures don't even do it justice. Anyway, since our cabin was on the starboard side, and it's the port side that faces the coast, we stayed outside the whole time to watch the sailby. Worth getting a little wet. :)

Day SEVEN - Disembarking in Honolu

We chose to carry off all of our luggage, which means that you can basically leave when you want to (as long as it's by 9am). We left at about 8:30am, after personally tipping and thanking Karl (our room steward, who was awesome). POA doesn't provide you with envelopes to give extra tips to those that you may want to, which while it's nice to not have the pressure to give more (or not), it's sort of awkward to know what to do if you DO want to give your room steward a cash gratuity. Thankfully we saw him in the hallway and just handed it to him and thanked him in person, which was nice.

We walked off the ship, and there were taxis out front, all over the place. There were also NCL employees helping with getting people into taxis, so we were in a taxi basically immediately after we walked out. Our taxi driver took us to the Thrifty office near the Honolulu airport, as we got to spend a second entire week on Oahu after the cruise. More on that later!

Some things that we were so glad we took with us:

-those clip/hooks that I mentioned back at the beginning were invaluable. We used them every single day on our balcony. It's so humid there that it helped to just leave our wet swimsuits out in the wind at night to dry.

-bug spray...if you are prone to bug bites, which I am, take it. I still got bites.

-benedryl and hydrocortisone cream, for when the bug spray fails

-small binoculars...we used ours a lot, especially at Volcanoes National Park, Diamond Head, at the Lighthouse and more. We bought these on a recommendation from someone here on CC, and they are great: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002SCT2K2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

-suncreen of course! Our goal was to never get a sunburn, and we were faithful to use our sunscreen (my husband used spf50 and I used spf30). No sunburn! Just a nice tan!

-UV/rash guard shirts. We wore these while snorkeling. Very helpful to avoid burning the back AND for extra warmth in the water.

-Ginger Lozenges - these work really well when you get a mouth full of salt water while snorkeling (and yes I did have that happen...felt like I was going to throw up and these helped immensely). We got these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004BH15K2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

-a light sweater for the ship; very cool in the public areas (like the dining rooms and the Hollywood Theater). I also used it in Kauai.

-plastic rain ponchos (the emergency, throwaway type)

-mini hand sanitizer bottles

-my tiny Bagallini crossbody purse; perfect for carrying ID, ship card, cash and phone!

A few other last thoughts on the ship:

You CAN take the beach towels off the ship to use in port. However, if you lose it, they'll charge you $25.

They will take any alcohol that you purchase in port and give it back to you at the end of the cruise. You CAN take wine on the ship, but they will charge you $15 corkage fee per bottle, even if you drink it in your room.

There is a small coffee maker in the room, with single serve packets that you can make (also mugs, half and half and sweetners). The coffee in the room was better than the coffee in the dining room. We asked Karl for extra coffee packets, and he always remembered to leave us extras each day.

For the Newlywed or NOT Game, they are going to pick the couple that's been married the longest from the audience. So, if you have been married 60 years, and you DON'T want to play, stay quiet when they start asking the audience for all those married longer than 50 years! :)

They also picked people from the audience during the Magician's show (if he's a regular).

You can make a reservation for the dining room and yes you CAN ask for a window table for two. We did that every night that we ate in the dining rooms.

The safe in the cabin is quite small. Don't expect to put a ton of stuff in it. we left cameras in our room, just in a drawer and they were fine.

The seas were rough on the first night of the cruise and the last night. If you are prone to sea sickness, we heard that the last night is often rough.

I'll write more on Oahu later...thanks for reading! I'm enjoying re-living our trip this way!

Thanks for taking the time to write a review, I'm reliving our cruise through you. :D

 

So glad you had a good time in Hawaii and enjoyed the POA! :)

Greatlakesgirl...it was YOUR review that encouraged us to go to that black sand beach, and you are right! It was totally worth the time! Thank you for your review, that helped me so much while we were planning!

I have loved cruise critic...so much fun to read other people's cruise stories! :D

We stayed in that hotel way back in 2003 for our 25th anniversary. They also upgraded us to an ocean view and I took this picture. Looks like we were close to your room. :)

Yep, sure looks similar! We enjoyed our short stay there, and would totally stay there again!

Greatlakesgirl...it was YOUR review that encouraged us to go to that black sand beach, and you are right! It was totally worth the time! Thank you for your review, that helped me so much while we were planning!

 

I have loved cruise critic...so much fun to read other people's cruise stories! :D

Aw, that makes me very happy to hear. Truly. :)

Make sure you visit Donkey Balls (http://www.alohahawaiianstore.com/) for Kona coffee

Just realized I put the wrong link for Donkey Balls in Kona. Should be THIS ONE: http://www.donkeyballskona.com/

Thank you for the excellent review. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. :)

Great tips and detail. Loved the links. Thanks for a great review.

Sent from my KFTT using Tapatalk

Week two - OAHU

We spent a second week on Oahu. I won't go day by day, but instead list some of the things we did and places we visited.

We rented our car through DHCR and Thrifty. They were fine, we were in our car quickly and on our way. When we dropped off a week later, they were quick to check us in. They have shuttles that run to and from the airport very 15/20 minutes. Most of the car rental places do NOT have shuttles to the cruise pier from the airport in Honolulu.

Costco - buy your Mac nut gifts there AND your gas! Best prices.

We stayed on the windward side in a VRBO rental in a little town called Ka'a'awa. http://www.vrbo.com/426950#ownerprofile It was awesome and private; away from the busy-ness of Waikiki, which is just what we wanted.

We visited Pearl Harbor and saw the USS Arizona, USS Bowfin and USS Missouri. My husband was in the Navy, so he especially enjoyed our day here. We spent the extra $25/person to do the "Heart of the Missouri" tour, which was totally worth the money. They only take up to 8 or 10 people on that tour, and it just happened that we were the only ones in our time slot. We had a private tour, and it truly was worth it. We also briefly visited the Pacific Aviation Museum, but weren't super impressed by it. It's pretty small. However it was neat to see the bullet holes in the glass of the hangar that are from Japanese planes on December 7, 1941! Pearl Harbor can be a short day, if you choose to only do the Arizona Memorial. OR you can spend all day there, like we did, and see everything.

We also spent a whole day at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We did the day pass, plus the Ali'i Luau and the HA show. All were very good; the Luau was fun; you sit with 6 other people (8 people per table) and it's served as a buffet. The evening show was fabulous!

We hiked Diamond Head on our first day there (see the first post) and we also did the Makapu'u Lighthouse Hike, which is on the southeastern side of the island. That was all uphill to the lighthouse lookout, but a fantastic view. Go early and wear a hat/sunscreen b/c you are in full sun most of the hike. On the way back, it's mostly all downhill.

Waimea Valley Botanical Garden and Waterfall - north shore, beautiful gardens. $15/person for a self guided hike, well marked trails. There's a waterfall that you can walk to (also of Lost fame) and you can also swim in it when the conditions are right. They'll tell you at the entrance if you can swim that day or not. You must wear a life jacket to swim in the pond/under the falls.

Haleiwa - cute little town on the north shore, Matsumoto's Shave Ice is here. Shopping and quirky fun.

Aloha Stadium Swap Meet - $1/person to get in, all sorts of souvenirs, clothing, crafts, jewelry, luggage etc. Fun!

Farmer's Market at Windward Mall - Sunday and Wednesday - great produce!

We ate at Giovanni's Shrimp Truck and yes it IS that good. Highly recommended!

We also ate at Uncle Bobo's in Ka'a'awa, also very good BBQ.

We visited the following beaches:

1. Lanikai Beach - beautiful beach with a narrow band of sand. Parking is in a neighborhood. Not great for snorkeling, but pretty to sit and enjoy the view and swim. No lifeguard there and no bathrooms that we saw.

2. Kuilima Cove - to the right of Turtle Bay Resort. Small, protected cove with a nice beach. You can park to the right of the resort for free. Not super crowded, and fairly good snorkeling. You can rent lounge chairs there as well. There is a small restaurant outside, and bathrooms.

3. Sunset Beach - very crowded, north shore beach. There was a surf competition going on, so no swimming. Parking is along the road if you can find it.

4. Mokuleia Beach Park (of Lost fame) - north shore, almost all the way to the end of the road. Parking and bathrooms. Also, if you are a Lost fan, a little bit further down the road you can see the "Others" Camp on the Mauka (mountain) side of the road. It's really a YMCA camp, but the yellow cottages are what were in the TV show Lost. We thought it was cool to see! :)

5. Another beach, that I think is part of Mokuleia, but it's further west along Farrington Hwy, past Mokuleia's parking. We just parked along the road, and stepped into the sand. Really nice, totally empty beach. No lifeguards or facilities, but there was another couple there and they said the snorkeling was pretty good. We unfortunately did not have our Snorkel Gear with us that day. We wanted to go back, but never had time.

6. Ka'a'awa Beach Park - right by our rental, super quiet nice beach. Bathrooms...lots of locals hang out there. It's right off the road, so parking is an issue.

We used the Hawaii Revealed books for all of the islands, and the Franko Maps. Tons of info there.

I can't think of anything else right now. We had a fabulous vacation and can't wait to go back. Please feel free to ask any questions.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this review!!