Hawaii intra island cruise + land = 2 weeks total

[DCwom]

I've been told to plan a trip to Hawaii, so I'm thinking of 2 weeks, arriving midweek, NCL Pride of America (around the islands and returning midweek. 1 Week on a cruise and 2 partial weeks on land before & after. I'm sure someone has done this, so I'm looking for ideas, what worked, what didn't, etc. I've nixed the idea of cruising from the mainland, too many sea days!

Edited May 8, 2023 by DCwom
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[cruiseny4life]

I know this isn't what you asked for, so understand if you tell me to jump into the deep blue ocean.

 

Don't cruise Hawaii. Do a land-based trip. Select two to three islands and spend a couple hours to fly between the islands. It's affordable and doesn't take long. There aren't many things I'll say never to, but I believe cruising Hawaii is a huge waste of money that I will say never to. 

Watch, in five years I'll be on Pride of America now haha

[DCwom]

6 minutes ago, cruiseny4life said:

I know this isn't what you asked for, so understand if you tell me to jump into the deep blue ocean.

No, not in the ocean, you're too far away, how about the Erie canal? 🙂

 

Actually the attraction of the ship is it avoids island hopping, planes raise havoc with my ears, hence we're only considering a non-stop from NJ to Hawaii.

[JinxyB]

I also recommend picking 2-3 islands and spend your time there. Was booked on POA in 2021 but we all know what happened with that. We had 15 days and decided to still go and do a land tour-spent a week in Maui and 8 days in Oahu and LOVED our time there. I’ve now done another 2 week trip to Kauai/Oahu/BI and just recently a week trip to Maui- I love it that much! You really get a more in-depth feeling for each island and what it has to offer,

[cruiseny4life]

4 minutes ago, DCwom said:

No, not in the ocean, you're too far away, how about the Erie canal? 🙂

 

Actually the attraction of the ship is it avoids island hopping, planes raise havoc with my ears, hence we're only considering a non-stop from NJ to Hawaii.

Oh jeeze, you really want me swimming in pollution! That's almost as bad as the Gowanus, haha. 

 

If you do make it to the Big Island as part of your week, check out Volcano Village Lodge. It's the absolute best hotel (it's so much better than a hotel) I've ever stayed at! 

 

In Honolulu, check out Cafe Kaila (2nd best breakfast ever, after Snow City Cafe in Anchorage). 

[Epic_Bear]

We just did this is March/April.  It was great to have a few days to acclimate in Oahu pre-cruise (flew from Boston), explore the area, see Pearl Harbor, etc.  The cruise we saw and did a lot and decided which islands we'd like to spend more time on in the future, then a lot of beach time and North Shore time when we went back to Oahu before flying home.

[Ellis1138]

I'm coming from the other direction: I've been to Hawaii twice with my first husband, both for 2 weeks, in which we flew between islands and spent 3-4 days on each one. My current husband wants the PoA cruise and has not been to Hawaii before. He also only has 8 vacation days to use, so we're going in on Wednesday to see Oahu for 2.5 days, then get on the ship.

 

And yeah, while I'm doing mental gymnastics to try to get the most out of our 1-2 days of port time on Maui. Hawaii and Kauai, there is a big con to island hopping by plane.

 

Each time you take a flight, you lose several hours to the travel. Yeah, the flight itself is only 30-40 minutes, but each time, it means you pack stuff, check out of the hotel, get to the airport, TSA etc, wait at the gate, then the actual flight, then you get off (maybe have to wait for your checked bags), get to the new hotel and unpack. 

 

For a 2 week thing like you describe, I would suggest: Wed (travel and jet lag day), Thursday and Friday see Oahu and the things you most want to see, Saturday drop off the checked luggage with porters at 10:30am and go do something else on Oahu for a few more hours, then come back and get on the Pride of America.

Research the ports ahead of time and choose the things you can squeeze in there for Maui and Hawaii.

 

You might wish to ask if you can disembark when you get to Kauai and then spend the extra time there, rather than return to Oahu. Kauai has a lot to see. If NCL won't allow it, then take the plane to Kauai or spend 3 days at the Turtle Bay Resort on North Shore Oahu and the 3 pre-cruise days in Waikiki.

[SimplyAlbert]

We're coming from the east coast and flying to LA on a Wednesday, staying overnight and then on to Honolulu on Thursday morning.  We'll explore Oahu on Thursday afternoon, Friday and Saturday morning.  Board the cruise and see the highlights in each port.  When we disembark in Honolulu we're flying back to Kauai to spend 5 days there.  In looking over things to do we felt that Kauai was the best fit for the extra days.  We'll fly back to Honolulu on an early am flight, catch an early afternoon flight to LA, spend the night, and then back to the east coast the next morning.

[SimplyAlbert]

20 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

You might wish to ask if you can disembark when you get to Kauai and then spend the extra time there, rather than return to Oahu. Kauai has a lot to see. If NCL won't allow it, then take the plane to Kauai or spend 3 days at the Turtle Bay Resort on North Shore Oahu and the 3 pre-cruise days in Waikiki.

 

We asked since we're spending an extra 5 days in Kauai and we were told no.  They only allow early disembarkation in the event of an emergency and you need to provide proof.  While there would be nothing to stop someone from leaving with their belongings, we sail NCL frequently and didn't want to chance getting put on a "naughty" list and not being able to sail with them again.  Flights between Honolulu and Kauai are frequent and inexpensive, so not a big deal.

[DCwom]

29 minutes ago, SimplyAlbert said:

We're coming from the east coast and flying to LA on a Wednesday, staying overnight and then on to Honolulu on Thursday morning.  We'll explore Oahu on Thursday afternoon, Friday and Saturday morning.  Board the cruise and see the highlights in each port.  When we disembark in Honolulu we're flying back to Kauai to spend 5 days there.  In looking over things to do we felt that Kauai was the best fit for the extra days.  We'll fly back to Honolulu on an early am flight, catch an early afternoon flight to LA, spend the night, and then back to the east coast the next morning.

I always thought a stop over in LA made sense to ease the jet lag a bit and see some of the left coast, but I found the logistics a bit difficult, without it adding a lot of extra cost. Are you just doing an airport hotel stay in LAX?

[Ellis1138]

1 hour ago, SimplyAlbert said:

While there would be nothing to stop someone from leaving with their belongings, we sail NCL frequently and didn't want to chance getting put on a "naughty" list and not being able to sail with them again.  

Yeah, it's best not to risk it. My other, later thought was to choose the Big Island, due to there being more to see than we can do in the few hours allotted to us in Hilo and the fact that Kona might be skipped entirely if the captain deems it unsafe. Whereas, the 2 days and overnight in Kauai is just about a guarantee.

[Crazy planning mom]

We did 4 days pre-cruise in Oahu before boarding the Pride of America in 2017.  It was one of our best trips ever.   It was a great way to island hop.  The 4 days pre-cruise gave us time to go to Pearl Harbor, visit the North Shore, and get over our jetlag.   We stayed at the Outrigger Reef which was wonderful.

 

[Go2SeaTheWorld]

We did the POA last year just as it got going after quarantine so ship was only 60% capacity. We booked the 3 day pre-cruise package through NCL since it was our 1st ever trip to Hawaii. It was wonderful! Our hotel was right across the street from Waikiki, great location for shopping/restaurants after tours each day. The cruise suited us perfectly, being able to "stay in one place" while experiencing everything we wanted to see on each island.

Although we booked our excursions through NCL, noticed many others had booked privately. Don't know how much cheaper that might have been, but also observed a number of folks had Uber pick ups for whatever they had planned for the day. You could find more about that on the POA thread. I found that board VERY helpful in planning ahead. In any case, we loved our experience.  Aloha!

[SimplyAlbert]

16 hours ago, DCwom said:

I always thought a stop over in LA made sense to ease the jet lag a bit and see some of the left coast, but I found the logistics a bit difficult, without it adding a lot of extra cost. Are you just doing an airport hotel stay in LAX?

 Yes.  The shortest flight I could find to do it all on one day was a bit over 15 hours.  While DH and I are both in good shape, we're both over 60 and have found from past experience we do better breaking long flights up with an overnight stop.  We're at the point in our lives that a couple of extra hotel/meal nights is fine.  If we were younger and on a tight budget, we'd probably do it in one shot, but we've found this works better for us as we have the time and budget the extra costs as part of the trip.

[SimplyAlbert]

15 hours ago, Ellis1138 said:

Yeah, it's best not to risk it. My other, later thought was to choose the Big Island, due to there being more to see than we can do in the few hours allotted to us in Hilo and the fact that Kona might be skipped entirely if the captain deems it unsafe. Whereas, the 2 days and overnight in Kauai is just about a guarantee.

 I don't think you can go wrong in choosing to spend more time on any of the islands.  We looked at all of them and just decided that there was a lot more that we wanted to see/do on Kauai than we would be able to see/do in the two days that we're there.  We're hoping to go back in the future and do a land-based trip and spend more time exploring Maui and the Big Island.  

[DCwom]

Well I discovered that NCL offers a pre-cruise tour for 3 day in Honolulu, the pricing doesn't extend into 2024, so the cost is a bit fuzzy. Has anyone done the cruise tour that can give some feedback ? I assume you can probably do Wed-Sat on your own for less (or more) cost if you are inclined.

[SimplyAlbert]

46 minutes ago, DCwom said:

Well I discovered that NCL offers a pre-cruise tour for 3 day in Honolulu, the pricing doesn't extend into 2024, so the cost is a bit fuzzy. Has anyone done the cruise tour that can give some feedback ? I assume you can probably do Wed-Sat on your own for less (or more) cost if you are inclined.

 We're doing it on our own so I never checked into doing it through NCL.  There's a lot of good information in the shore excursion section of this site for Hawaii.  You might have good luck asking there.

[Go2SeaTheWorld]

4 hours ago, DCwom said:

Well I discovered that NCL offers a pre-cruise tour for 3 day in Honolulu, the pricing doesn't extend into 2024, so the cost is a bit fuzzy. Has anyone done the cruise tour that can give some feedback ? I assume you can probably do Wed-Sat on your own for less (or more) cost if you are inclined.

We did it last May. My husband does not like driving anywhere he doesn't know, so the pre-cruise with the daily bus tour was the best way for us to see Oahu. The hotel Hyatt Regency Waikiki Resort was across the street from the beach, tons of shopping/restaurants walkable. Our bus tour guide was INCREDIBLE. So much information, friendly, made everyone feel like family "Ohana".  We might have been able to book hotel,tours on our own for less than booking thru NCL,

but having the bus pick us up & drop off right at the hotel each day was so hassel-free, it was worth it to us. We had the transfer to port the next day, luggage picked up outside the room night before, was waiting for us upon arrival.

[www3traveler]

On 5/8/2023 at 9:56 AM, DCwom said:

I've been told to plan a trip to Hawaii, so I'm thinking of 2 weeks, arriving midweek, NCL Pride of America (around the islands and returning midweek. 1 Week on a cruise and 2 partial weeks on land before & after. I'm sure someone has done this, so I'm looking for ideas, what worked, what didn't, etc. I've nixed the idea of cruising from the mainland, too many sea days!

The Pride is a Saturday-Saturday sailing.

[Winderdawg]

On 5/10/2023 at 2:05 PM, DCwom said:

Well I discovered that NCL offers a pre-cruise tour for 3 day in Honolulu, the pricing doesn't extend into 2024, so the cost is a bit fuzzy. Has anyone done the cruise tour that can give some feedback ? I assume you can probably do Wed-Sat on your own for less (or more) cost if you are inclined.

We did the precruise extension in 2015. It’s really more like one day on your own. The first day, we arrived mid afternoon and went to dinner and bed. The third day had our transfer to the ship early enough we had to cancel our planned morning excursion.  We did a circle island tour with Pearl Harbor, but had very little time to do some of the other things we wanted to. If you’re wanting to see more of Oahu, I would extend post cruise or do your own pre cruise arrangements. 

[DCwom]

18 hours ago, Winderdawg said:

We did the precruise extension in 2015. It’s really more like one day on your own. The first day, we arrived mid afternoon and went to dinner and bed. The third day had our transfer to the ship early enough we had to cancel our planned morning excursion.  We did a circle island tour with Pearl Harbor, but had very little time to do some of the other things we wanted to. If you’re wanting to see more of Oahu, I would extend post cruise or do your own pre cruise arrangements. 

Thanks for sharing your experience, this is one of my concerns. Day 1, dinner & bed..., Day 2 jet lagged touring, Day 3, stressing over boarding.  I was thinking of a few days before & after about 2 weeks total, but now, maybe a longer after stay makes more sense.