1st time on Princess - Mini review of Emerald r/t Hawaii Dec 2018

[nf5894]

We were on the Dec 4th - Dec 19th Hawaii cruise out of LA. First timers on Princess and first time in Hawaii too.

 

Coming from the Vegas area, we drove 3 hours on the night before the cruise and stopped in a hotel. Drove the last hour or so, the next morning and parked at the port. It was pretty easy to find and parking was no problem. Did have people on board tell us about a hotel in San Pedro where you can stay for 1 night and leave your car for the duration of your cruise and get shuttles to and from the port. Will probably look into that next time as parking at the port for the cruise was just under $300. We arrived at the port at approx 1pm and after the kids had a look at the USS Iowa we parked and began the check-in process. It was pretty straight forward and quick, we were inside our cabin within about 30-40 mins.

 

We had a balcony cabin on Deck 12, starboard and close to the aft elevators. Cabin steward was great, room was always clean and didn't hear any noise from above or below, or from the elevators. Cabin was a little small for us, 2 adults and 2 kids, but for 15 days it was ok. Any longer and I think we'd need something bigger.

 

We all enjoyed the ship. Entertainment staff were great - Kaylee the cruise director, Ruby, Mark, Laura, Kimberly, Romeo etc. They were all approacable and very friendly. We did a lot of the trivia contests and gameshows so got to meet a lot of the staff. Our kids are 13 and 10 and although there wasn't a huge number of kids on board, there were enough for Princess to run the kids programs. Our boys went to the kids club sometimes and other times came with us to the various gameshows and contests around the ship. My youngest volunteers for everything while the older one is happy watching. He got picked for some gameshows and even went up to sing Karaoke in Club Fusion! He'd never even mentioned that before so it was a surprise when he asked to do it, but he did pretty well! There was also an escape room that we did which was quite good. Plus we saw 2 comedians, a magician and a ventriloquist who were good too. There was always something to do - wife did hulu dancing lessons and lei making and if there was any down time in between events then I just went to the gym. 

 

Overall we thought the food was good, nothing spectacular but it was fine. We prefer the buffet to the MDR but we did try it once. It was ok, service was good but food was no better than the buffet. The only problem with the buffet was that it was usually hard to find a table. We liked the burger place by the pool too and the kids liked the ice cream bar.

 

As it was our first time in Hawaii we did all Princess excursions. Next time we'll probably try some things on our own! In Oahu we did the VIP Waikiki Beach break (very expensive for what it was).  In Kauai, the beach snorkel (Very good). In Maui,  Whale watching (good) and in Hawaii we did the 'Land of Frozen fire tour' (ok but not quite what we were expecting). We didn't do any excursions in Ensenada, just went into town on the shuttle.

 

Disembarking was very straightforward too, no problems at all and took maybe half an hour.  Overall we all had a good experience and would choose Princess again - plus would do the 15 day Hawaii r/t again, although would probably do our own excursions next time.

 

If anyone has an Hawaiian Cruise coming soon and has any questions about the ship, Hawaii or wants more details about the excursions we did - please ask. Also check out our youtube video if you'd like to see some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

[JF - retired RRT]

Very nice review and pictures.

Glad you liked Kauai...we 💝 it

[nf5894]

1 hour ago, JF - retired RRT said:

Very nice review and pictures.

Glad you liked Kauai...we 💝 it

 

Kauai was great. I believe it was Lawai Beach where we went for the snorkelling. It was the only island that we saw any rain, not that it matters much when you're under the water anyway. Definitely looking forward to going back there!

[JF - retired RRT]

We've had rain almost every day this month.

Lots of other beaches. Next time rent a car and hit a couple. Look up Lydgate Park...your boys will love it.

[nf5894]

1 minute ago, JF - retired RRT said:

We've had rain almost every day this month.

Lots of other beaches. Next time rent a car and hit a couple. Look up Lydgate Park...your boys will love it.

 

Will do, thanks.

[mthomp5]

Thank you for your review and sharing your video.  Love seeing pics of Hawaii...it is near and dear to my heart.  Your son did a wonderful job at karaoke.  They both looked to have a great time on the cruise!

[suzyed]

2 hours ago, nf5894 said:

We were on the Dec 4th - Dec 19th Hawaii cruise out of LA. First timers on Princess and first time in Hawaii too.

 

Coming from the Vegas area, we drove 3 hours on the night before the cruise and stopped in a hotel. Drove the last hour or so, the next morning and parked at the port. It was pretty easy to find and parking was no problem. Did have people on board tell us about a hotel in San Pedro where you can stay for 1 night and leave your car for the duration of your cruise and get shuttles to and from the port. Will probably look into that next time as parking at the port for the cruise was just under $300. We arrived at the port at approx 1pm and after the kids had a look at the USS Iowa we parked and began the check-in process. It was pretty straight forward and quick, we were inside our cabin within about 30-40 mins.

 

We had a balcony cabin on Deck 12, starboard and close to the aft elevators. Cabin steward was great, room was always clean and didn't hear any noise from above or below, or from the elevators. Cabin was a little small for us, 2 adults and 2 kids, but for 15 days it was ok. Any longer and I think we'd need something bigger.

 

We all enjoyed the ship. Entertainment staff were great - Kaylee the cruise director, Ruby, Mark, Laura, Kimberly, Romeo etc. They were all approacable and very friendly. We did a lot of the trivia contests and gameshows so got to meet a lot of the staff. Our kids are 13 and 10 and although there wasn't a huge number of kids on board, there were enough for Princess to run the kids programs. Our boys went to the kids club sometimes and other times came with us to the various gameshows and contests around the ship. My youngest volunteers for everything while the older one is happy watching. He got picked for some gameshows and even went up to sing Karaoke in Club Fusion! He'd never even mentioned that before so it was a surprise when he asked to do it, but he did pretty well! There was also an escape room that we did which was quite good. Plus we saw 2 comedians, a magician and a ventriloquist who were good too. There was always something to do - wife did hulu dancing lessons and lei making and if there was any down time in between events then I just went to the gym. 

 

Overall we thought the food was good, nothing spectacular but it was fine. We prefer the buffet to the MDR but we did try it once. It was ok, service was good but food was no better than the buffet. The only problem with the buffet was that it was usually hard to find a table. We liked the burger place by the pool too and the kids liked the ice cream bar.

 

As it was our first time in Hawaii we did all Princess excursions. Next time we'll probably try some things on our own! In Oahu we did the VIP Waikiki Beach break (very expensive for what it was).  In Kauai, the beach snorkel (Very good). In Maui,  Whale watching (good) and in Hawaii we did the 'Land of Frozen fire tour' (ok but not quite what we were expecting). We didn't do any excursions in Ensenada, just went into town on the shuttle.

 

Disembarking was very straightforward too, no problems at all and took maybe half an hour.  Overall we all had a good experience and would choose Princess again - plus would do the 15 day Hawaii r/t again, although would probably do our own excursions next time.

 

If anyone has an Hawaiian Cruise coming soon and has any questions about the ship, Hawaii or wants more details about the excursions we did - please ask. Also check out our youtube video if you'd like to see some pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

Great video!  Love that Ethan got involved in EVERYTHING!  GREAT!

 

[Colo Cruiser]

Wonderful! Looks like the kids had an awesome time!  

[Lucky TGO]

I love it !! Great photos and the boys looked like they really enjoyed the trip.

Thanks for sharing.

Tony

[EightFurryPaws]

Thanks for your review.  A few questions:

 

Is there any changing room at Waikiki Beach after swimming?  or need to stay in

wet bathing suit for the rest of the day?

 

Great pictures on the whale watching tour which we have planned.  What time did

you go out?  We are sticking with a Princess excursion on this one.  I noticed it is offered

early morning, late morning and afternoon.  I choose the late morning due to the tendering issue, then would still have time after to walk around the town.

 

We have the same cabin on the Emerald which we did last year to the South Pacific, 

and we are anxious to go.

 

Thank you for the information.

 

 

 

[nf5894]

1 hour ago, EightFurryPaws said:

Thanks for your review.  A few questions:

 

Is there any changing room at Waikiki Beach after swimming?  or need to stay in

wet bathing suit for the rest of the day?

 

Great pictures on the whale watching tour which we have planned.  What time did

you go out?  We are sticking with a Princess excursion on this one.  I noticed it is offered

early morning, late morning and afternoon.  I choose the late morning due to the tendering issue, then would still have time after to walk around the town.

 

We have the same cabin on the Emerald which we did last year to the South Pacific, 

and we are anxious to go.

 

Thank you for the information.

 

 

 

 

I don't remember seeing any proper changing rooms but there were outside showers and a restroom nearby the rental kiosk at the end of the beach where we were. If we did that again we wouldn't do the VIP trip though as it wasn't anything special. The write-up made it sound like it was a private part of the beach, but it wasn't! Apparantly all the VIP part meant was we got a lounger and umbrella! Trip cost us $400 and we could have got a taxi there and back, and hired the same lounger and umbrella for probably less than a hundred! 

 

Our whale watching trip was supposed to be 9.45am and when we got the tickets it stated that the whale watching boat would pick us up directly from the ship. That didn't happen, we were just taken to shore on a normal tender and transferred to the whale watching boat. The trip was running late and it was probably about 10.30 that we started. When it finished the boat dropped us off back at the dock - which was good as we wanted to have a look around the shops in town. We thought that the boat would take us directly back to ship (as stated on the tickets) and we'd have to wait in line for a tender to go ashore again! So it worked out quite well!

[EightFurryPaws]

Thank you for responding so quickly.  Just so you know, there also is a bus

that picks up on the main street by the port.  I think an all day pass is $5.00pp.

You can also stop at the huge mall on the way back to the ship with the same

pass.

 

[peanutter]

Thank you so much for posting!  I love the video. 

 

We are doing this cruise in February and I would like to ask a few questions:

 

1-What was it about the "Land of Frozen Fire" tour in Hawaii that you didn't like?  We were thinking of booking that one.

 

2-Which whale watching tour did you book in Maui?  I'm seeing two listed - one is titled "Whale Watching" and the other is "Deluxe Whale Watching."  There is also one that is on a Zodiac, but I'm not thinking that is what you were on.  Speaking of whales, were you able to see many/any from the ship?  I understand the waters are filled with them around Maui during the winter and they are easily spotted but not sure how prevalent they really are.

 

Thanks in advance for any info you can share.

[emmak8]

Thank you for posting. Great pictures!!

[nf5894]

3 hours ago, peanutter said:

Thank you so much for posting!  I love the video. 

 

We are doing this cruise in February and I would like to ask a few questions:

 

1-What was it about the "Land of Frozen Fire" tour in Hawaii that you didn't like?  We were thinking of booking that one.

 

2-Which whale watching tour did you book in Maui?  I'm seeing two listed - one is titled "Whale Watching" and the other is "Deluxe Whale Watching."  There is also one that is on a Zodiac, but I'm not thinking that is what you were on.  Speaking of whales, were you able to see many/any from the ship?  I understand the waters are filled with them around Maui during the winter and they are easily spotted but not sure how prevalent they really are.

 

Thanks in advance for any info you can share.

 

Land of Frozen Fire tour was good, don't get me wrong. It was probably my mistake in taking the wording wrong as I'd never been to Hawaii before and didn't really know what to expect. I just got the impression from the wording that they would take you to the best location on the island at the time of your trip, so you could view current lava flows. We saw old lava flows which was cool and apparrantly there were no active flows at the time we were there anyway! The driver did say though that even if there were any current flows then that tour wouldn't take you there. Also it said the tour took you up to 7000ft to a point in between the 2 main volcanoes that had year round snow on their peaks! There was no snow when we were there - perhaps the wording should be the potential for year round snow. Pretty minor things and like I say, probably my fault for misunderstanding the wording. The tour did take us to some gardens, the waterfall, some lava flows, the 7000ft stop in between the volcanoes and to the macadamia nut factory. Also the driver took us to see the black sand beach which wasn't supposed to be on that trip. 

 

Ours was just the standard whale watching, definitely not on a zodiac. We saw a few whales on our trip and got some good shots but we didn't see any from the ship. Where the ship was stopped was quite a distance from the channel where the whale expert said the whales tend to be. Although in Februrary there should be many more whales there, than there were for us so you may get lucky and see them from the ship. We did see a pod of dolphins from our balcony but that was on the 2nd day out from LA.

 

Hope you have a good trip

 

[Bengant]

Thanks for the info.

 

We are doing this trip in late January and have a few of questions if you don't mind?

 

- Did you by-chance use the wifi and if so how good is it in the open ocean?  

 

- Did you feel you had enough time each of the islands visited?  

 

- Was it warm while travelling to and from Hawaii?

 

Thanks

[nf5894]

2 minutes ago, Bengant said:

Thanks for the info.

 

We are doing this trip in late January and have a few of questions if you don't mind?

 

- Did you by-chance use the wifi and if so how good is it in the open ocean?  

 

- Did you feel you had enough time each of the islands visited?  

 

- Was it warm while travelling to and from Hawaii?

 

Thanks

 

I didn't use the internet but spoke to several people who did and they all said it was awful! One guy had bought a $200 package and said it was so bad he got a refund!

 

We did 1 excursion on each island and it was ok. Such interesting places though that if we'd have stopped on each island for 3 days it still probably wouldn't have been enough. Just means we'll have to do it again next year 😉

 

First 2/3 days out of LA it was a little cooler but not terrible, maybe low 60's average daytime temp, but after that it was probably mid 70's average. Then the last couple of days before we got back it dropped down again to probably mid 60's. I would imagine the weather would be quite similar in late January but obviously you never know for sure! Overall we thought it was nice as we've only ever done cold weather cruises before.

 

[Bengant]

Thanks for such a quick reply.  Will give the wi-fi a miss then.  😉

[nf5894]

8 minutes ago, Bengant said:

Thanks for such a quick reply.  Will give the wi-fi a miss then.  😉

 

No problem. Hey I'm only commenting about the internet from what I heard on our cruise. It could have just been a problem at that time and they may have got it fixed! If I was you I'd try and find out some info from people on the same cruise now and even the ones before you in January and see if they had the same problem.

 

Also I just noticed you're from Birmingham UK. I live in the Vegas area now but grew up just outside of Birmingham so know what the weathers like there in January! You'll get much nicer weather on the ship than you would at home 😉 

[gwhitti]

9 minutes ago, nf5894 said:

"Did you by-chance use the wifi and if so how good is it in the open ocean? "

No problem. Hey I'm only commenting about the internet from what I heard on our cruise. It could have just been a problem at that time and they may have got it fixed! If I was you I'd try and find out some info from people on the same cruise now and even the ones before you in January and see if they had the same problem.

 

Our 28 day South Pacific cruise on the Emerald Oct.-Nov. 2018 had awful wifi also. Almost unusable. The one real negative on our cruise.

[cheezenip]

On 12/28/2018 at 2:36 PM, nf5894 said:

Overall we thought the food was good, nothing spectacular but it was fine. We prefer the buffet to the MDR but we did try it once. It was ok, service was good but food was no better than the buffet

We will be on the Grand the 1st week of Jan. traveling to Mexico. Do you recall is they rotated the salad dressings with different selections at the buffet or were they always the standard fare (ranch, french, italian).

 

Also, do you recall the movies offered on your cruise?

 

[nf5894]

8 hours ago, cheezenip said:

We will be on the Grand the 1st week of Jan. traveling to Mexico. Do you recall is they rotated the salad dressings with different selections at the buffet or were they always the standard fare (ranch, french, italian).

 

Also, do you recall the movies offered on your cruise?

 

 

I don't think they rotated salad dressings, pretty sure it was the same everyday but I'm not 100% on that.

 

There did seem to be quite a few movies on offer but we were so busy we didn't have much time for them. I do remember that they showed Cars 3 and the new Mission Impossible movie though. If I think of any others they showed, I'll let you know.

[peanutter]

On ‎12‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 9:02 PM, nf5894 said:

 

Land of Frozen Fire tour was good, don't get me wrong. It was probably my mistake in taking the wording wrong as I'd never been to Hawaii before and didn't really know what to expect. I just got the impression from the wording that they would take you to the best location on the island at the time of your trip, so you could view current lava flows. We saw old lava flows which was cool and apparrantly there were no active flows at the time we were there anyway! The driver did say though that even if there were any current flows then that tour wouldn't take you there. Also it said the tour took you up to 7000ft to a point in between the 2 main volcanoes that had year round snow on their peaks! There was no snow when we were there - perhaps the wording should be the potential for year round snow. Pretty minor things and like I say, probably my fault for misunderstanding the wording. The tour did take us to some gardens, the waterfall, some lava flows, the 7000ft stop in between the volcanoes and to the macadamia nut factory. Also the driver took us to see the black sand beach which wasn't supposed to be on that trip. 

 

Ours was just the standard whale watching, definitely not on a zodiac. We saw a few whales on our trip and got some good shots but we didn't see any from the ship. Where the ship was stopped was quite a distance from the channel where the whale expert said the whales tend to be. Although in Februrary there should be many more whales there, than there were for us so you may get lucky and see them from the ship. We did see a pod of dolphins from our balcony but that was on the 2nd day out from LA.

 

Hope you have a good trip

 

 

nf5894, thank you so much for the detailed explanation.  The frozen fire tour looked interesting as it is listed as an "off the beaten path" tour.  We have visited before and been to the Volcanoes NP and the other usual sites and thought this might be a good alternative.  I will definitely keep your comments in mind when weighing the options.

 

Your info is really helpful, especially concerning the whales.  Whale watching is high on my list as we have never been to HI during the winter when they are active (and not going to Alaska).  I will book a tour so as not to miss them, or at least have a better shot at seeing them.

 

Thanks again for your help and happy travels to you! 

[elycelynne]

Thanks for the review and video.  I'm doing this cruise on January 18th and am booked on the Land of Frozen Fire tour and the Maui whale watching tour in the morning.  How did you spend the rest of your day in Maui?  The Princess excursions all leave before the return from whale watching.

[armymom101]

Great Video. We are also from Las Vegas and are Sailing on February 2.  Thank you for sharing your experience with us