Flowers and fruits

Can you bring the gorgeous flowers and yummy fruits on board the ship if purchased while in port? Also can you bring flowers on to the airline flight home? Any help to any of theses is appreciated.

POA 12/6/2014:)

In a word-- NO

Cheers

Len

Thanks for the "bummer" answer. I was hoping there was a way.

Aloha

This answer is only if you are going on the POA:

You can bring flowers that were purchased in port on board--I still think they sell flowers in the Hilo terminal. You pick out what you want, pay for it, and it is delivered to your cabin. Not sure about fruit but you can ask at security when you get off at a port.

No to airplanes for both flowers and fruit. If you want pineapple, you have to get them from somewhere that has them packaged for travel and they have to have the agriculture stamp on them. Lots of places--Dole Plantation in Oahu or many places at the airport.

Unless things have changed since October 2011, I was able to wear my lei home on the airplane, and nobody said anything about it. I don't know about a bouquet of flowers, as I didn't have that.

And fruit was sold at the airport all pre-packed in a box with a handle ready to carry-on the airplane.

I was on a land vacation, so can only talk to the flights home. I wasn't on a cruise so wasn't taking flowers or fruit to the ship.

People bought flower leis @ some of the ports in Hawaii & walked back on the Princess ships with them. I'm not sure about taking them home:confused:

I would not give it a blanket 'no'. On Royal Caribbean We received flower lei at the Old Lahaina Luau which we wore back to the ship.

HAL allowed us and many others to bring fresh flowers back on the ship with us in Guadeloupe.

Seems it would be allowed in Hawaii as well. :confused:

LuLu

You certainly CAN bring it onto the ship...you just might not be allowed to take if off again, in a different port.

I believe the problem is taking flowers and fruits INTO Hawaii, not taking them out. I have bought leis and taken them on the plane to give to friends on the mainland many times. No problem.

As for fruit, you will probably not be allowed to bring into many places (such as into California) on the mainland. The exception was noted above when you get specially packed pineapple or other fruit that is packaged by a company for shipping.

We brought flowers and fruit back from the farmer's market on Hilo back to our ship but we could not disembark with them.

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Unless things have changed since October 2011, I was able to wear my lei home on the airplane, and nobody said anything about it. I don't know about a bouquet of flowers, as I didn't have that.

 

And fruit was sold at the airport all pre-packed in a box with a handle ready to carry-on the airplane.

 

I was on a land vacation, so can only talk to the flights home. I wasn't on a cruise so wasn't taking flowers or fruit to the ship.

I was wondering about a Lei.We will be flying into Honolulu in April and I was going to have a Lei greeting for my wife.we will end up on the Soltice and then fly home from Vancouver.Surely she would be able to take her Lei on the ship and the airplane:)

In my one word answer, NO, I really wasn't thinking about lei's, more of fresh flowers from outside sources.

Just our experience, we rented cars in every port. While driving somewhere (doesn't really matter where) we passed by a small booth selling fresh flowers, with a big sign $3.00 a bunch. I was only with my DW and we stopped, no one there, but a small bucket for the money. Bought her a couple of bunches and she enjoyed them while driving around. But she was stopped on going back to the ship and told she could not bring anything like that, that wasn't inspected or something like that, onto the ship. They had no idea who handles the flowers, where they were picked from etc. and we were told they could be a danger to other passengers in certain circumstances. So she left them, but for $6.00 she got to enjoy them for the day.

If things have changed since we were there, good to know it.

Cheers

Len

I believe the problem is taking flowers and fruits INTO Hawaii, not taking them out. I have bought leis and taken them on the plane to give to friends on the mainland many times. No problem.

You can buy leis inside the airport terminal, AFTER you go through security. Those may be able to be carried on the plane. I did see people having to surrender fruits and flowers at the security check though (even apples and bananas).

Hawaii is VERY stringent about this topic.

You can not move these items in or out of Hawaii.

They do not want bugs and plant diseases spread around.

The Dept of Agriculture inspects EVERY piece of luggage leaving Hawaii.

This includes a very gummy hard to get off your luggage pink sticker.

The exception is the pineapple packaged at Dole, airport or other for transit.

We got around this by A) sending a case of pineapple direct to our home, so worth it, the Dole we had was the sweetest pineapple EVER!

B) at Akatsura Orchid Gardens we had orchids also sent directly home. Their only exception was no shipments to Arizona, another stringent Agri state.

A little off topic but we found it interesting that there has never been a case of rabies on the islands so there is a 21 day quarantine on bringing pets in.

LOVE that there are NO snakes in Hawaii too :p

We got married in Maui when we tendered and had no problems bringing our bouquet and boutonnière off the ship (we think they were made with Hawaiian flowers). We also had leis made for all guests in Maui who brought them on the ship. These were leis were not arranged through the cruise ship.

We were also permitted to bring our leis off in LA when we disembarked. This was in Dec 2005. Things may have changed.

What they are most strict against is bringing things to the islands.

As for pets, it can be up to 120 days quarentine if you do not meet the requirements listed in the link below.

http://hdoa.hawaii.gov/ai/files/2013/01/aqs-checklist-5DOL.pdf

We got leis in several Hawaiian ports while sailing on the Celebrity Solstice. I hung them in our cabin for the wonderful smell they gave lasted most of our cruise. I did not take them off the ship as they were very wilted by then.

We sail Solstice again next year and I will be enjoying flowers in my cabin again from Hawaii!

Bev

From the government "horse's mouth":

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/plant_health/2012/HI_inspection_notice.pdf

Now, I haven't done a cruise that started on the Mainland/Canada and stopped in Hawaii, so I cannot comment on APHIS procedures for passengers once they leave Hawaii on the ship. This seems to be the big question for someone to answer…

A little side note for those who take their golf clubs to Hawaii: on more than one occasion, the inspectors have looked at my clubs to see if I had dirt on them. If they deemed I had "too much" dirt, I had to take my clubs into the ladies' room and clean them up...

On many occasions when flying from Hawaii to the mainland I have carried a box of leis for my friends with no problem. Fruit is a different story and is a definite no-no unless inspected and stamped by agriculture. Even transporting fruits between islands may be prohibited. I remember hearing about the banana-bunch disease that was jeopardizing the banana crops on some of the islands and they were trying to keep it from spreading between islands.

As the OP is talking about the Pride of America, this changes things somewhat. Flowers can be brought onto and off the ship with no problem, since the ship never leaves Hawaii. Fruits may be a problem, I can't remember, given USDA (as opposed to USPH for foreign ships) regulations regarding food onboard.

Taking leis home is generally not a problem, but living plants may be.

Fruits, cannot be brought into or out of the state. The cute little beagles roaming the airport departure gates will sniff out your banana in your purse in a heartbeat. Specially packaged and inspected pineapples are allowed. Every piece of luggage is inspected at the airport by Agriculture before you even check in.

Someone mentioned dirt on golf clubs. This is similar to other Dept. of Agriculture rules where vehicles that have run on roads outside the US have to be washed before re-entering the US. The dirt has microbes.

I hadn't heard about the inter-island quarantine, but that was one of the arguments used against the Super Ferry, that cars would bring species between islands.

And, there are snakes in Hawaii. The green tree snake has been made its way from Guam to Hawaii, and is threatening the island bird population (they eat eggs). More beagles have been trained to sniff out all planes coming from Guam, and have found several snakes over the last few years.