Having trouble deciding which cruise to take

[6foot8]

First, I apologize for the length. I thought a clear picture would help.

 

my family has a dilemma. We don't know which cruise to take.

 

We are in Orange County, CA, near Disneyland. My wife and I are both 34 now, and have a 6 year old daughter. We are looking to do something in either June or July only.

 

A couple years back, we took the Disney Wonder cruise to the Eastern Carribean, and frankly, it was the best vacation I ever had. Everything about it was perfect for me. My wife was slightly less impressed, but she has had more cruising experience than I have (14 day to Alaska, etc) so although she had a wonderful time, she has more of a comparison allowance. Don't get me wrong, she had a great time, but she's a little more passive in the things she likes, I'm a little more active. I liked the clubs and the music and the activities, she likes bingo and the movie theater and shopping. Our 5 year old thought it was the greatest thing ever invented ever, of course.

 

This year, we started this discussion by both recognizing neither of us had ever been to Hawaii, and would like to go, but since we have never been, and know there are substantial differences in the individual island experiences, we thought a cruise to the islands would be a great way to go, since we both agree that the cruising thing is our preference. A little research found that summer doesn't seem to be a popular time to go from the west coast to Hawaii, so we started to look at the "fly to Hawaii and cruise around the islands, then fly home" scenario.

 

Herein lies our concerns. I've talked to a couple people who have taken both of the Hawaii itineraries (Fanning Islands vs. Hawaii only) crusies, and read a ton on the message boards from recent travelers, and I'm getting a relatively consistent picture of the NCL ships. Although there were a few positive remarks, most were negative, complaing of sub-par food, poor service and overtly expensive shore excursions. (blamed mostly on the failure of the Freestyle dining, and the automatic tipping keeping the overwhelmingly American crew from feeling the need to over-serve). However, everyone agrees that the destinations (outside of the Fanning Islands stop) are breathtaking, and make up for a lowered ship experience.

 

This info in hand, I started researching other cruise lines and destinations, just to see what is available within our time period. We don't want to do a carribean thing again, eastern or western, and anything in Europe or through the panama canal isn't our thing either. My wife's already done the Alaska thing, so we're not interested in that, and the Bermuda trip is just not appealing enough. We thought about the New England one and the Tahiti one, but circumstances don't work for us, which leaves our first choice, Hawaii, and then the Mexican Riviera. That's when I saw the Disney Magic was out here making that run. That sparked another conversation.

 

This sounded perfect to me. I loved the Disney experience, my daughter did as well, but my wife is slightly more skeptical. Couple this with the destinations on that Mexican Riviera cruise, and my wife has doubts. Plus, she makes a good point that we enjoyed our Disney experience last time, but the ship experience wouldn't be new to us, even though it's a different ship. We would know what to expect, and the suprise factor of cruising on a new cruise line is attractive. Plus, the Disney cruise, for the 3 of us, was in the $4200 range, considerably more that the $3000 range of the Hawaii 7 day, and the $2000 range of the Hawaii 10 day. We even started looking at the Carnival offering to the Mexican Riviera just to have a 3rd option. The boards were overwhelmingly positive on the Carnival experience, especially with kids, so that was a plus.

 

Here's our summarized dilemma: We want the Carnival or Disney ship experience, but with the Hawaii destination. I'm worried about the ship experience on either of the NCL scenarios, but my wife is a little more optimistic, characterizing the ship as simply a "floating hotel we'll rarely be in" (although the Fanning Island scenario has 4 days at sea). She's also skeptical that we will find ample things to do on the Mexican Riviera port stops. We're not beach people, although my daughter might disagree. My wife likes to sight-see, and she's not a snorkle/scuba type of person. I am, but she's not. I like to golf, and that might be fun for me once or twice on the trip, but we're really looking for things the 3 of us can do together, and not feel like we're settling for an activity simply because of lack of options.

 

Any recommendations?

[beeboopdeboop]

Hi there -- it seems from your email that you really would prefer Hawaii but can't find the right cruise. Thought I would bring to your attention that NCL is launching a new ship this summer in July called Pride of America. Its repositioning cruise (July 12th) sails from San Francisco (a short hop from LA), sails for 5 days across the Pacific and stops in 5 different ports in Hawaii -- no Fanning Island experience. It is a new brand new ship and its freestyle cruising like the rest of NCL's fleet but my experience has been that freestyle cruising actually seems to work for younger people -- more casual, dinner when you want and tipping already taken care of. That would be my choice. Good luck.:)

[spleen93]

If you're looking for a "floating hotel" experience where you won't be planning on spending much time on the ship itself, then the NCL America ships (PO Aloha/America) would seem to be the best choices at this time since they spend a lot of time in port. If you're prepared for possible problems with service and food, then you really can't go wrong. I agree that cruising is a nice way to do a sampler of the Hawaiian islands. Given your other restrictions, this would seem to be the best choice for you, IMHO.

 

Spleen

[seajay829]

I read your post and am in the same decision making mode. I noticed that the Carnival Spirit has a 12 day from Ensenada to Hawaii in April. Does anyone have experience with this itenerary? I am a 40 something woman travelling with my 7 year old daughter. We are just outside of Porltand so the Hawaii sailing in September out of Vancouver would be an option as well. Any feedback from someone travelling with kids on a twelve day cruise would be helpful as well.

 

Cindy

[beeboopdeboop]

In re your question about cruising with young children, I took my 5yr old on a 7 day cruise 4 years ago and he loved it. In fact he was the youngest child in our group by far and I think he enjoyed it the most. So much so that he still talks about it and is over-the-top excited about the cruise we have booked for this summer. Sorry I can't respond to your other questions (no experience with those cruise lines) but I think from everything I've heard that all the cruise lines do an excellent job with kid programs and entertainment.:p

[orcatek]

I've done disney with my kids when they were younger, both the Magic and the Wonder. Great times - very kid oriented.

 

I've done both Hawaii tours via NCL with my kids. The POA (non-fanning) was better for seeing hawaii on a 7-day plan. Port times are so important in Hawaii.

 

The kids programs on NCL are OK, but nowhere near Disney. My girls were old enough to enjoy the activites in Hawaii and actually never went to the club once they saw what it was. They found the adult activities like Lei making and hula lessons more fun.

 

Our POA trip was good - check out my review for details.

[FLbeachbaby]

we've also done the disney cruises, both majic and wonder. have to agree it was the best vacation ever, hands down. done princess, done ncl.

we're doing the 10 night hawaii on the wind in the summer. while i read all the horrendous posts before going on my previous ncl spirit caribbean cruise, none of them were valid once we sailed. disney is definitely better, but you pay for that. we were very pleasantly surprised with the ncl ship. but,we are casual people who live on the beach and enjoyed the freedom of freestyle. there is no better $$ deal to hawaii that i can find other than ncl. all other comparisions were double the money.