Pride of America off ship trips

[Roziewear]

Hi

Brand new here! A bit stressed! all I read is DONT book excursions too expensive do on your own, rent a car , etc! Can you all help me out? Who do you use for car rental and do they drop off at ship? Getting around islands? Are there things they advise u to see and then just plug in Gps? I am pretty savy as long as I get started!!! Lol! Some contact info here for tours, renting a car advise, must beach, etc. We have been to Maui and have done all the biggies but other places no. Thank uuuu all so much in advance!! Maybe u all can calm me down. I need a plan and don't want to get in a tourist trap tour thing with cruise line.

 

Roziewear

[Susan-M]

Hi Roziewear,

 

Welcome to the forum :)

 

Hopefully you have some time to plan your excursions ... when is your cruise?

 

Renting a car is a good idea on all of the islands - although some people prefer not to on Oahu because of the traffic in Honolulu. Discount Hawaii Car Rental is a reputable agency in Hawaii - they list the shuttle arrangements at each port.

 

Suggest having a plan for each island rather than trying to figure it out when you pick up the car. The rental agencies provide a guide drive for each island, but not sure if there are GPS co-ordinates included. You can see the on-line versions here.

 

Please take some time to scroll through the threads here, where you'll find a lot of helpful info.

 

Even if you don't want to do the ship's excursions, have a look at what they are offering to get ideas on sightseeing & activities that might be of interest to you - the excursions cover the highlights on each island and it's a good way to know what you can accomplish in a day.

 

Join the roll call for your cruise here on Cruise Critic - that's where you'll meet others who will be on your cruise - they will be discussing their plans, and you might find some who are looking for people to join private tours. Here's the link to the POA roll calls ... scroll down to find the date of your cruise.

 

Good luck! :)

[Susan-M]

Not sure if my post from this morning calmed you down at all ... but I see that you've gone on to post on two different roll calls asking for more information.

 

Just a note that when you join a roll call thread, others appreciate it if you introduce yourself and let them know that you'll be on the cruise with them, if in fact that's the case. They're usually more willing to engage in dialogue with you, knowing that you'll be on the cruise with them. But if that's not the case, you could let them know that you're just gathering information for a POA cruise on a different date.

 

If you're just searching for info from various roll calls (which it seems that you're doing by posting questions on two different roll calls), IMO you're better off sticking with this forum.

[Cruisin' Chick]

Just remember not to give personal info that would identify you too much (that's a major reason I didn't join a facebook roll call for a cruise I was going on back in 2010 -- the cruise line made it too easy for non roll callers to go on and then they would have your real name, etc.).

 

My family is a bit different -- most of the time, I do the research for ports for my family and bring them my ideas. I'll also check the ship's excursions to see what's available through them (and as someone suggested above, often you can get ideas for places to tour on your own). But my hubby's number one rule for him is no renting cars for cruises. Driving in port isn't his idea of relaxing. And after a couple of so so private excursions, he doesn't mind going with ones through the cruise line.

 

The ship's excursions we have done have not been an enormous difference between those and privately contracted and we haven't felt we've been in an overly large size group (we've even been on tours with less than ten other passengers). Maybe it's the ones I've selected. One of my family's favorite excursions of all of our cruises was on our last cruise -- the Waterfalls and Movies excursion on Kauai that we booked through Princess. Even my 15-year-old loved it (she picked the excursion we did in Honolulu and hubby had his input). I even found a place that would be opened on Christmas day on our Lahaina stop, which we did on our own.

 

The big thing on CC is that posters will give you absolute pieces of advice, but it might not be the best for you. My one advice that I am certain of is never fly in on the day of one's cruise. I think that would be stressful.

 

Hubby and I honeymooned in Hawaii before we took our first of three Hawaiian cruises and did rent a car on Kauai and went all over. My time there previously had been on one of those three islands in nine days so I have managed to see many of the touristy stops.

 

Before a cruise, I'll borrow a guide book or two from the public library. I also google each port and copy and paste many ideas into a word doc. We also have fun going on google maps and seeing what's near to our dock.

 

It's really not something to stress out over unless you've booked a cruise for the next week and trying to plan your trip in just days. Right now, I'm planning our trip to take our girl to her college dorm...and trying not to stress out over the maps, auto club guide books, etc. Going on a cruise is child's play compared to this.

[azappraiser]

Hi

Brand new here! A bit stressed! all I read is DONT book excursions too expensive do on your own, rent a car , etc! Can you all help me out? Who do you use for car rental and do they drop off at ship? Getting around islands? Are there things they advise u to see and then just plug in Gps? I am pretty savy as long as I get started!!! Lol! Some contact info here for tours, renting a car advise, must beach, etc. We have been to Maui and have done all the biggies but other places no. Thank uuuu all so much in advance!! Maybe u all can calm me down. I need a plan and don't want to get in a tourist trap tour thing with cruise line.

 

Roziewear

 

We used several options for sightseeing during our POA cruise and pre-cruise stay on Oahu. As Susan-M posted, we also made our rental car reservations through Discount Hawaii Car Rental... they secured the lowest rates for each of our rentals on Oahu, Maui & Kauai. Driving guides were provided by each of the companies, although I had already done my research & brought my own Garmin GPS, which came in very handy in Honolulu.

 

We also arranged tours through a few tour operators... Enoa Tours for our Pearl Harbor tour, Ricky's Tours in Hilo and Wings Over Kauai in... you guessed it... Kauai.

 

We booked two tours through the excursion desk on board the ship... the Seahorse Farm in Kona and a late-morning trip to the top of Haleakala on our second day on Maui. The Haleakala trip was actually unplanned. Our rental car broke down the previous day after crossing the first bridge on the Hana Highway. DW & I revised our plans while waiting for the rental car company to bring us a replacement car... which took a little more than 2 1/2 hours.

 

You didn't say when you were headed to Hawaii or if you're an "experienced" cruiser... I suggest you keep this in mind; the ports in Hawaii are not like the Caribbean, you'll need to plan ahead. On Maui, Hilo & Kauai, the ship docks in industrial areas and there are few (if any) tour vendors waiting for passengers that have not already made arrangements for their tours ahead of time.

 

Order some free guides here... they can help with your planning.

Edited July 5, 2015 by azappraiser

[cb at sea]

A guidebook is the 1st thing you need to read...find out what interests you, and THEN you can decide HOW to do it!

 

Hawaii is easy to drive and get around. Rental cars make up about 85% of the vehicles on the road! A guidebook will help with that, too!

 

If you want to use a ship's excursion, that's fine, too...they are super-easy, and fun. Yeah, you do pay a bit more, but it's totally fool-proof....all you do is have the fun, with none of the planning or stress.

 

Sounds like you need to figure out WHAT to do....after you do that...it will take a lot of pressure off you! Read a guidebook!

Edited July 5, 2015 by cb at sea

[Lucky2326]

We do both excursions from ship and private. It all depends on what each offer on each island. We are renting cars in Maui, Kauai. And Oahu prior to cruise. i agree if possible don't fly in the day of cruise. We are coming in 3 days before so we can get to do some things in Oahu. Also while still home if we choose different places we want to drive to, we use map quest just in case. So we can look at maps and directions prior to trip. We have great guide books also. We use the Revealed books. We went on a land based trip to Hawaii 6 yrs ago and they were fantastic. Good luck planning!

[greatlakesgirl]

Hi Roziewear! We also used Discount Hawaii Car Rentals. Can't recommend them highly enough! We also did one ship excursion, and that was on Maui. We did the Molokini Snorkel excursion. It was so much fun! As our cruise was in February, we saw so many whales! It was like a snorkel trip and whale watch all in one; truly a "two-fer". lol