hawaii??

[maofthree]

What is the best cruise line for Hawaii?

[CruiserBruce]

If you ask 100 people, you will probably get 100 different answers for 100 different reasons. What does "best" mean to you? What are your criteria?

[flamomo]

If you are thinking of doing a round trip LA of SF to Hawaii, Princess does an excellent job. I have done this 5 times so far, all with Princess, and will probably do it again in another year or so.

[Happy ks]

I've cruised Hawaii a couple of times. Once on the old American Hawaiian Independence and once on NCL. Independence is no longer around, I wouldn't recommend NCL all that highly. I've also done land trips to Hawaii.

So, your options are round trip from LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Vancouver, whoever happens to have a ship going there. As far as I know, Princess is the most constant.

The only problem is that you only get a little taste of Hawaii with a whole bunch of sea days. If you can stand the long flight over there, Hawaii is a place I believe should be savored and time spent to just enjoy. I would recommend a land trip over a cruise any day. You won't get to see as many islands, but the ones you do you really get to appreciate.

[maofthree]

Looks like you r a princess lover.... which ship do you like the best that goes out of cal. to hawaii

[xxoocruiser]

Originally Posted by Happy ks

I've cruised Hawaii a couple of times. Once on the old American Hawaiian Independence and once on NCL. Independence is no longer around, I wouldn't recommend NCL all that highly. I've also done land trips to Hawaii.

So, your options are round trip from LA, San Francisco, San Diego, Vancouver, whoever happens to have a ship going there. As far as I know, Princess is the most constant.

.

Though you're personal choice is not to recommend NCL, it's still an option for the OP . NCL's Pride of America is permanently based in Hawaii at the Port of Oahu and does year round cruises so that makes it the most constact cruise line. I've known many of people who regularly travel HAL and Princess that have taken the NCL Hawaii cruise. They've all enjoyed it as it offers less sea days, saw more of Hawaii and they did have to do the ocean crossing on ship to get to or from asHawaii at NCL's embarkation port is Oahu.

[Happy ks]

Originally Posted by xxoocruiser

The Ports you listed are not the OP's only options. Actaully NCL's Pride of America is permanently based in Hawaii at the Port of Oahu and does year round cruises So that makes NCL's Pride of America the most constant cruise.

I did mention NCL and stated I didn't recommend them. Expensive and not all that impressive. The only thing I didn't mention is that it cruises 7 night round trip out of Honolulu.

My sister and her husband are on NCL round trip Honolulu next year and they invited us to go with them, we bowed out because of the cost and our personal perceived value as we have cruised NCL twice. Once out of Honolulu and once out of LA. We are opting to go in the other direction next year since I haven't yet cruised Caribbean. We are going on our cruise at a cost of less than half of what NCL charges for the round trip Honolulu cruise. Airfare is less than half. We tried to talk them out of the trip, but they are going with their daughter and son in law, who really want to go to Hawaii. I even suggested a land trip to them as well and I absolutely love cruising, I think I've been on 23-24 cruises so far.

But...Hawaii is a wonderful place to visit and we love it there. It would be lovely to cruise Hawaii again, but I'd want more than 5/6 short port days and I'd want extra days pre and post cruise like we'd done before.

[momofmeg]

I think a one way re-positioning cruise may would be best unless you like a lot of sea days. NCL has an all american crew(-the law because it stays in Hawaii, does not go to a country outside US-)and they as a whole do not do as good a job as non american crews.

Princess, Celebrity, and HAL all offer round trip California to Hawaii cruises-but you have 4 sea days both coming and returning.

I think Celebrity and RCI both offer a one way twice a year when the ships re-position to and from Alaska.

[Talisker92]

I agree with HappyKs about doing a land trip in Hawaii. We have been there 3 times in the past 2 years, and what you can do is fly into Oahu, then fly to Maui or the Big Island, then fly home.
Look at the trip stories on our website. If you are going to Kauai, we loved the condo we stayed at on Poipu.
We are happy to answer any questions.

[Keith1010]

Another cruise line that sails R/T from the West Coast is Celebrity. Be sure to check them out. I think Princess does a nice job but I do rate Celebrity higher.

Other option is to fly to Honolulu and take a seven day cruise on NCL.

If you have the time I prefer Celebrity and Princess and like the longer cruise with sea days on the front and back ends of the cruise.

Keith

[momofmeg]

Originally Posted by Talisker92

I agree with HappyKs about doing a land trip in Hawaii. We have been there 3 times in the past 2 years, and what you can do is fly into Oahu, then fly to Maui or the Big Island, then fly home.
Look at the trip stories on our website. If you are going to Kauai, we loved the condo we stayed at on Poipu.
We are happy to answer any questions.

Once we had planned to cruise to Hawaii, but after our friends moved to Saipan, we decided we would stop off In Hawaii a few days before and after visiting them to break up the flight. I think that is the only way I could do that long of a flight.

[tazboyles]

We recently did the RCL Hawaii cruise. I was looking for more time in Hawaii and less time at sea. We flew to Honolulu (after spending a day in SD) and boarded the ship the next day. Then 7 days in Hawaii (excellent but expensive excursions) and 5 days at sea (cool and windy the last 4). Stayed over in Vancouver 1 day. Another version sails first and then does the islands. Feel free to ask questions

[fleckle]

Originally Posted by Happy ks

..........But...Hawaii is a wonderful place to visit and we love it there. It would be lovely to cruise Hawaii again, but I'd want more than 5/6 short port days and I'd want extra days pre and post cruise like we'd done before.

We feel exactly the same way. That is why we avoid those round trip cruises where you spend most of the time cruising around out in the open ocean. They barely give you a brief taste of Hawaii when the ship turns around and leaves, heading right back out to sea again.

We greatly prefer the one-way cruises to Hawaii because they give you the days at sea plus the usual few days of touring around from island to island on the ship.
But then instead of just heading back out to sea, you get off the ship to enjoy a real Hawaii vacation on the island/s of your own choosing, and best of all, you can stay for as long as you like on your own schedule.

If we didn't want any days at sea but wanted to spend our entire vacation time in Hawaii, then we would choose Pride of America, using the ship as a floating hotel and spending most of our vacation time on the islands before and/or after the cruise.

[spunkyhungry]

I did the NCL Hawaii cruise, and I loved it! My whole family had a great time. With this trip, you can cruise Hawaii in 1 week, whereas if you leave from the West Coast you have to do a 2 week trip. Don't let other posters scare you away from the NCL cruise to Hawaii.

[momofmeg]

Originally Posted by spunkyhungry

I did the NCL Hawaii cruise, and I loved it! My whole family had a great time. With this trip, you can cruise Hawaii in 1 week, whereas if you leave from the West Coast you have to do a 2 week trip. Don't let other posters scare you away from the NCL cruise to Hawaii.

I think what they are saying is since you fly to Hawaii why not just do a land trip. However, I know we chose a Med cruise over a land vacation to Italy because $$$ wise over all the cruise was less-for me that is what it would come down to- which I picked-I would just go with the mind set that this cruise was more equivalent to staying at a Day's Inn than the Hyatt.

[spunkyhungry]

Originally Posted by momofmeg

I think what they are saying is since you fly to Hawaii why not just do a land trip. However, I know we chose a Med cruise over a land vacation to Italy because $$$ wise over all the cruise was less-for me that is what it would come down to- which I picked-I would just go with the mind set that this cruise was more equivalent to staying at a Day's Inn than the Hyatt.

If you do a land trip in Hawaii than you only see one island, unless you arrange for boats to take you to all the other islands. That sounds like a lot of research to plan transportation and multiple hotels. With the NCL cruise you can see all the islands without doing any of that work.

[momofmeg]

Originally Posted by spunkyhungry

If you do a land trip in Hawaii than you only see one island, unless you arrange for boats to take you to all the other islands. That sounds like a lot of research to plan transportation and multiple hotels. With the NCL cruise you can see all the islands without doing any of that work.

Besides hassle- all that costs $$$-which would make the cruise more economical-my point in my previous post-which would be the reason for booking NCL- you are preaching to the choir. As I said- we picked a Med cruise when we saw it would be a bit of a hassle to travel to the areas in Italy we wanted-Rome, Florence, and Venice-by land-unless we booked a land tour which was 3 times the cost of our cruise and only 7 days versus the cruise was 12 days and we saw other areas such as Tulon, Kotor, Split, and Barcelona.

However as I also mentioned-so many bad reports are made about service on that ship that people need to think of this as not as a cruise but ferry service between islands-or as I said Days Inn versus the Hyatt.

[Cruisin' Chick]

We've done the RT twice on Princess and would love to do it again. Our cruise on the Golden Princess ranks as one of my favorite vacations ever. On other cruises we've been on, you could be blindfolded and tossed onboard (without knowing the ship, etc) and not get what the itinerary was unless you go to the port talks. On the Golden Princess, it'll be hard not to know you're going to Hawaii -- the many Hawaiian activities (some led/taught by Leialoha and Dave of Elua), the seminars, the music (again provided by Elua), some of the items on the menus (marked with a pineapple to indicate it's Hawaiian inspired). To me, the time spent in Hawaii is an extra bonus.

Now if we want more time in Hawaii, the only alternative we would consider is to fly there (and I hate flying) and stay in a hotel, fly or take a ferry (if that's still around) to another island for a few more days. That's what we did on our honeymoon (we both have been there before meeting), renting a car for Kauai, walking in Honolulu. I can't just see using a ship (especially one that some friends didn't care for) just for going from one place to another. To us, the ship is important too.

To me, I would only not recommend using Princess to get to Hawaii if you have massive motion sickness issues (I tend to get motion sickness but I take tons of ginger), really, really can't stand sea days (my family LOVES sea days -- and there's tons to do on the Golden), new to cruising (and doesn't yet know how they'll take to cruising).

[fleckle]

Originally Posted by momofmeg

I think what they are saying is since you fly to Hawaii why not just do a land trip........

I think I can answer this one, since we have visited Hawaii different ways through the years.

A land trip is great and really lets you make the most of your Hawaii vacation time if you want to spend all of your vacation on one or two favorite islands.

Some even prefer to spend their vacation time on Hawaiian islands where the cruise ships do not go.

But when you want to visit 3 or more islands, it can get to be a pain doing it that way because you need to do the following each time:

Pack up all your belongings, check out of your hotel, and take ground transportation to the airport.

Check in for your flight, go through security, board the plane, fly to the next island, go to baggage claim to pick up your checked luggage.

Take ground transportation to your next hotel, check in, then unpack and put everything away again

Repeat the entire procedure for each island that follows.

This is why people choose Pride of America when they don't want the hassles of packing and unpacking to fly from island to island, but don't want to spend all those days cruising out in the ocean either.

Many working people who have only a limited number of vacation days want to spend as many of them as possible in Hawaii, not traveling on a ship to get there and back.

It is nice that there are the different options to suit our different preferences.

[Gordo]

We really wanted to see the Hawaiian Islands and so decided to sail on NCLs Pride of America. We had a wonderful vacation.

They give you the option of seeing the main islands in seven nights (with two overnights, at least that is what is was when we sailed) and because of timing we were a able to fly in early and stay on Oahu pre-cruise.

We enjoyed the unique experiences each island had to offer. The view of the NaPali coastline from our balcony was amazing. We didn't get to see the volcano on The big island because of bad weather but heard it is wonderful to view from the ocean as well.

Cruising gives you an excellent way to see multiple islands and then decide where you would like to go back to visit. We have gone back to Oahu and stayed on the North Shore (fabulous, especially with the surfers on the big waves in winter) and are headed to Kona for Thanksgiving this year.

I don't know that NCL would be our first choice for cruising, but have to say there was no major flaw in their product (just a small problem with bad escargot). Since they are the only gig in town, we would have to say they are the best thing going.

Recommendation - we had a balcony on the port side near the bow - our balcony was huge and is worth reserving for the space alone.