DCwom

Thanks for the mention of potential motion sickness, I too am a little concerned about the ride. I've got my prescription for motion sickness patches anyway, so I'll just keep wearing it for the tubing.

I agree, I'd expect the Bluetooth to pair with the car audio, that's a phone function, not really an app function. We'll be using the app in about 3 weeks on all 4 island and I have a question for those who have used it, how far away does it suggest sights, places, etc.? For example, if you're halfway up the coast of Oahu how do you decide where you might want to turn-around? Do I need to map out a potential end point ahead of time, and then just use the app for the drive, or does it suggest to keep going further and further?

Some folks have raved about Leonard's bakery and their Malasadas so I figured I'd add a favorite in Google maps for our upcoming trip in May. Well I noticed that their website says they are closed for construction from now (April 15th until early May), hopefully they will reopen before our trip. I know they aren't the only makers of Malasads, but they are the only one whose name I remember. They do say their 4 MalsadaMobiles are still operating.

We found the mid-week slots (Thur to Thur) gave us the best fares, we are on United booked directly through their website. You didn't say where you're flying from, but check alternate airports if they are viable. For our trip the airfare is about 25% of the total trip cost.

We are on a May sailing and yes more excursion are available now than a year ago. Use NCL's sparse offerings like we did, to start researching (use the Hawaii port of call forum), we ended up only booking a single NCL excursion, the rest we have figured out on our own.

We're also flying in to HNL from the east coast, before our May cruise, have you considered that you will be jet lagged and might be up at 2AM? We're thinking since we'll be awake maybe we'll climb Diamond head 1st thing. There are a lot of things we might do which are reachable by Uber from Waikiki, I'm not sure just yet. There is also the Trolley, which gets you around and might be enough for your limited time. Also remember that you'll have luggage to deal with after check out of your hotel, so you'll need to stow it and retrieve it before you head to the pier.

We usually get some water bottles for excursions, and yes we also have reusable water bottles, but sometime you want to just travel light. We're on the POA in May with ports everyday, so we can probably buy water in the ports from time to time, does anyone know if they give you grief for returning with multiple water bottles from off-ship?

We are dedicating a day to drive the whole island in a rental car, so a 1/2 or more at Pearl is ok. The Missouri is a must, since I've seen the New Jersey & Wisconsin, someday I'll make it to LA for the Iowa.

Post cruise we're staying in Waikiki for a few days, its Memorial day weekend. We've got plans nailed down for all but Sunday and its a choice of whats less painful. We can rent a car and drive the south/north shore or do Pearl harbor, what we don't do on Sunday we will do on Tuesday which ought to be less busy. My 1st thought was get out of Waikiki on Sunday, but maybe a bus ride to Pearl and spending the day there would be better than driving the single lane road up the coast. Thoughts?

Could be Nāwiliwili Park on Google maps? Looks like parking along the water also?

We're on the POA, and yes I heard it may not be the best NCL ship. We've cruised other lines and I'm usually right on it for reservations, etc, but not for the POA, I've been spending time planning the land portion and have neglected ship planning. It looks like a number of venues, including Cagneys are booked out already.☹️

1st NCL cruise and we have a "2 meal dining package". What does this mean in context to the "Cover Charge Applies" and "A la carte" restaurants? Also this might sound dumb but does 2 meals mean 1 mean for 2 people or 2 people for 2 meals?

We're in the same situation we have a 5:15 flight and don't to waste a day sitting & waiting, particularly if the weather isn't nice. There is the palace and HOMA museum downtown, and maybe ride around on a trolley, we don't know yet, it might depend if we see those earlier (we're staying 3 days post POA cruise). I don't see the allure of shopping while on vacation, but there is supposed to be "good" shopping in Al Mona? We're looking for ideas as well.

I just received an email that the NCL Volcano National Park excursion will no longer stop at the Jagger Overlook. No explanation why, could this be a closure by the NPS? I found something about the demolition of the Jagger museum being demolished in early 2024 due to the last eruption in 2018.

We are staying a few days post cruise and we're planning our disembarkation day. My question is if its different than international cruises, i.e. no customs, etc. Do they still take all your luggage into a big room and you pick it up? I assume self-disembarkation is an option, but were not in that much of a hurry for that hassle. I'm thinking we ought to be off ship mid morning worse case, say 10-ish? Travel to hotel, stow our luggage and be on our own by noon? Is this reasonable, too much or too little time? What we do for the afternoon is TBD pending how much time we have.

We're in the planning stage for a May POA cruise with pre & post cruise stay for a few days. There seems to be a lot of car rental places in Waikiki, but their hours are 8:00-12:00, 9:00-4:00, etc. I'm thinking this mainly is for pick up with after hours drop-off, but I've never rented a car anywhere besides an airport, so I'm unfamiliar with how this works from a hotel.

I agree, valid points that one should consider, myself I hate just sitting on a beach, while others love it. Personally I find the the history & engineering of the ditch/tunnels interesting and unique to Kauai, we also did cave tubing on Belize in the Caribbean, which was pretty fun. There are a lot of pictures on the Kauaibackcountry website that might give a feel.

Has anyone done the Mountain tubing on Kauai? It sounds interesting and unique. I've read that its a 4WD trip to the ditch on unpaved "bumpy" roads. I tend to get motion sickness, so I'm a little concerned about the ride. Also its looks pretty close to the pier, so I suspect an Uber would get you back & forth pretty easily.

Found this old thread and cannot see where there is street parking that the poster mentioned. Nawiliwilli road is HWY 58 with white lines and shoulders, no parking spaces? The ABC store that was mentioned has these signs in Google streetview from 2011 that offered parking with a shuttle to ship, but that's about it. Does anyone know where there is a legit place to overnight park a rental near the pier?

We are doing our own version "Land & Sea" on the POA, and what I can tell you is that the Luau runs into the night and your tour may include transportation to the PRR which might complicate things if it is only for the "day time" activities. We're looking to schedule the bus transportation package with hotel pick up in the morning which does a circle tour of the island and gets you to you the PRR at about 12:30. The PRR isn't that close to Waikiki so transport after might be an issue.

What are the current conditions? We're looking at a May time-frame.

We're considering renting a car on some of the islands for our POA cruise, and am wondering about the tour apps for the islands. They sound like a reasonable way to navigate rather than using a tour book, maps, etc. Are they better for one island verses another? The road to Hana sounds like a good candidate, and maybe Waimea Canyon but I'm not sure about the other islands tour apps. Thoughts, experiences?

Is it best to drive straight to Hana (from the port), then make stops on the way back, or just stop as you go?

I suspect that United doesn't have a choice due to equipment availability, when these extended range planes break, they don't have spares just sitting around. If you look at the EWR-HNL schedule you can see that the same plane flies back & forth everyday with an hour or so on the ground at each end, so basically the aircraft flies about 21+ hours a day 7 days a week. After a bunch of hours they will swap out the plane to do maintenance (some times for weeks). They adjust schedules so that maintenance cycles roll across the fleet.

We're going mid May 2024, I did some poking around and they are still bookable until mid April, then they disappear. I will say that I had a most surprising customer support experience when I called United. My call was immediately picked up by a human, there was no press 1, etc. The agent was very friendly and booked us on a direct flight from Ohare, which has the "purple" seats of the premium economy class we had on the Newark flight. At least we'll have the wider more comfortable seats for 9-10 hours of the flight, the downside, a 6:00AM flight out of Newark to Chicago 😴, a very early start to a very long day. I did read that a United 767-300R was badly damage by a hard landing at Houston in August (no injuries) and since the 767s are scheduled to be retired in 7 years they may decline to repair it (https://simpleflying.com/united-airlines-boeing-767-fuselage-damaged-hard-landing/). The Newark to Hawaii run uses 767s and my flight change was blamed on equipment changes.