Honest opinion about sailing to Hawaii

[MsLMG]

We did our "Once in a Lifetime" Hawaiian cruise on POA in October 2014. 2 night in Oahu pre cruise followed by 7 days on POA. we LOVED it!! I think it helped that we had an upsell to a suite... But we have booked again for 2018. So I guess it's "Twice in a Lifetime"!! [emoji12]

 

 

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[thefamilycruisers]

I am a little late to the party but here is my opinion.

 

I have been to Hawaii several times - land based, POA and cruise from the west coast. My least favorite was POA. It was 10 years ago on one of the older ships and the ship was horrendous! I have looked at this cruise again more recently for comparison and it is very expensive.

 

Land based is great if you want a more in depth view of one or maybe two of the islands. It still won't be very in depth. And everything in Hawaii is so expensive.

 

We have cruised from San Diego to Hawaii. 5 day at sea and then 6 days around the islands. We really enjoyed it. The seas across the Pacific were calm like bath water and the weather was sunny and beautiful all the way to Hawaii. You won't get to see everything but you get a taste of the islands. You can then plan a land tour in the future to the places that interested you the most.

 

We are now planning to sail from Hawaii to Vancouver in May 2017. I need the sea days on the way home to recuperate from the island visits. Probably not as much good weather heading north to Vancouver.

[smslms]

We have cruised back and forth to Hawaii a number of times. On most occasions the weather was fine. On our last trip, last April, the seas were really rough the entire way from Vancouver to Hawaii. It was misty, rainy and cool the whole way back until we entered the Straits of Juan de Fuca, then it became warm and sunny. Waste of a balcony, thing is you just never know how the weather will be.

[Cruise Junky]

I'm not interested in spending 9 or 10 days at sea to spend 4 days in Hawaii, so round trip Hawaii cruises from California don't appeal to me. However, I've been interested in the one-way repo cruises between Honolulu and Vancouver for years, and will finally be on the 12-night Radiance of the Seas repo cruise in May 2017. It has a similar itinerary to NCL's Pride of America, with overnights in Maui and Kauai, plus Hilo and Kona. Then it spends 5 days at sea to get to Vancouver. Most of the Hawaii repo cruises are 10 or 11 nights, so I was very pleased with this 12-night itinerary.

 

I am well aware that you can't see it all in a day or two per port, but that's true of just about any cruise - except perhaps in the Caribbean.

 

I am very anti mainland return Hawaii cruises but do like the one ways. We did it on Solstice two years ago and have booked for next year too. We love our Hawaii land trips but every now again it's nice go see all the islands again.

[zdcatc12]

POA and cruise from the west coast. My least favorite was POA. It was 10 years ago on one of the older ships and the ship was horrendous! I have looked at this cruise again more recently for comparison and it is very expensive.

 

If it was on one of the older ship, then it wasn't on the POA. A lot is different 10 years later. There used to be 3 ships, now there is only one. It is expensive because the crew wages are higher, since they are all US citizens.

[punkincc]

I am a little late to the party but here is my opinion.

 

I have been to Hawaii several times - land based, POA and cruise from the west coast. My least favorite was POA. It was 10 years ago on one of the older ships and the ship was horrendous! I have looked at this cruise again more recently for comparison and it is very expensive.

.

 

I don't know if the POA was around 10 years ago or not, but service is now pretty standard compared to any other ship we have been on. We were on the ship in 2014, and it was in pretty good shape even then, and it has now undergone a complete upgrade in March 2016. We sailed her back to Hawaii from the San Francisco dry dock, our first trans Pacific. Not saying I'd never do another trans, but it certainly would not be something I'd actively seek out. Much preferable, if you have 14+ days, to fly straight there and then do that port intensive cruise with land stays before or after, or both. Best of both worlds. To me, it's about maximizing my time seeing Hawaii.

 

Because of the ship's US only ports, POA is the only cruise ship flagged in the USA and therefore sails under US rules and regulations, must meet all safety and training regs set out by USCG. Much cheaper for a ship to be flagged in the Bahamas, but which would you feel safer on? This contributes to the expense of the cruise, as does the fact that it is Hawaii, and it is the ONLY ship sailing r/t Honolulu with 7 days in port. It's like they say in real estate, location, location and location:p.

Edited June 16, 2016 by punkincc

[fendbass]

My wife and I decided to do a cruise on the Celebrity Infinity, and planned very carefully what we wanted to see, and where we wanted to go. I was pretty insistent on renting a car in each port, which sometimes was a challenge, especially in Kona. That being said, we saw nearly everything we wanted, helped by an overnite stop in Maui, including helicopter tours on Kauai and Hilo

We left Hilo to return to the West Coast in total exhaustion, and we really needed those sea days. We ended up disembarking in Ensenada, which was an absolutely terrible experience. However, overall, the trip was good.

Our next two trips were land trips, where we could spend a week or more on selected islands. We had to deal with flights in and out of Hawaii, as well as flights between islands (our luggage got lost for a day on one leg)

I think that overall, the cruise was a good experience in getting a flavor of 4 islands, and the land tour was more flexible and relaxing

We'll go there again in April, when we are both retired