cruisetd

Just wondering if the roads from Hilo to Kona open and safe to drive? We were hoping to rent a car in Hilo on our cruise in December and drive over to Kona. Just wondering if the roads will be an issue given the damage the volcano did to parts of the island.

 

Thanks in advance

Jennifer

Yes - very much open and perfectly fine. We drove from Hilo to Mauna Kea and not a problem at all. The same road goes straight to Kona as well.

Not sure if this has ever been posted but I sat down to start researching car rentals at the ports and found this website. It lists the different rental agencies, where they are and if they provide a shuttle, etc. HTH.

 

 

https://www.hawaiicarrentals.net/hawaii-cruise-ship-car-rentals.php

Some of the above is outdated information. Recommend you call the car rental agency at the airport directly for Maui and Kaui since I believe most of them do come pick and drop you from what I recollect from our visit last month. Sometimes they have different locations from near the ports where they pick up and so might be good to confirm with the rental car agencies.

For Kaui - I believe it was exactly outside the area once you walk out of the port

For Maui - 1-2 car rental agency had their buses plying out of the mall near the road from where the ship was docked while few car rental companies had their buses come all the way near the port

For Kona - there is no pickup/drop off since the airport is far away. Recommend you look for car rental places near Kailua Pier and I believe there are 1-2 a few 50-100 yards away - very convenient...

The address for Kona pier where the tender drops and picks up guests is Kailua Pier, Kaahumanu Pl, Kailua-Kona

In NCL, which we took recently, since we were in the early 50-60 folks standing in line, we could get out first but thereafter the folks who had excursions with NCL tours got priority over the other ones. Suggest you give at-least 1 - 1.5 hr max since the queue in the morning typically gets long as we heard from others later on during the day.

Are Uber or Lyft easy to get at these ports (i.e. Maui, Kona, Kauai)? Can anyone share your recent experience using these services in terms of wait time and pick locations. Thanks!

Maui/Kauai - If you already have rental car, most of them - Avis, Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, Payless - come pick and drop off from the ports. Please call them just to confirm. Didn't know about this on the first day in Maui and so used Lyft for going to the airport to pick up the rental car from the Maui port.

Kona - you may want to use the rental car agency walking distance from the place that the ship folks will tender you to. @Kona - there is no port and so you use a tender to get off the ship and to the nearest pier. We didn't know about this and so we used Lyft from pier to go to the Kona airport to pick up the car but got to know this from the rental car and so in-fact we also dropped the car near the pier during return rather than dropping it at the airport - saves money and $$...

Good Luck !!

They cancelled the stops for a few weeks, but are back to visiting both Kona and Hilo at the moment. Of course this is all about the activities of the volcano and could change again. We are booked in January and fingers crossed will make it to all the ports.

Thanks very much !!

I will be on the POA next week. Since we will now be sailing to Hilo and VNP is not an option, I have booked a helicopter tour. The tour is scheduled for 11:20 and lasts an hour. They will return us to the ship after the tour. That gives me 4 hours in port. What can I reasonably do in that time. Can I go into the downtown area? What should I visit and how should I do it? UBER or taxi?? Please help.

Hi Michelle

Did your June POA cruise take you to both Hilo and Kona or since there seems be a lot of confusion as to if or not POA is going to both or only one of these ports on the big island

Appreciate your feedback on this assuming you already did your POA cruise

Thanks much for your help

Tushar

Kindly let us know once you go in July unless you know already since I had the same question given we are taking the same cruise on Aug 11

Thanks in advance !!

We are scheduled to take the Aug 11 cruise and just recently after reading the cruisecritic boards and other external news - it seems they don't go to both Hilo and Kona on the big island. I called Norwegian and they seem to indicate they go to both ports - this is very confusing honestly

For folks who have taken the cruise recently in June with Norwegian, appreciate if you can chime in

Thanks very much for sharing the information

Tushar