Holiday cruise with ports on Xmas eve and Xmas day

[bajae]

I am thinking about doing the 16 day circle Hawaii holiday cruise in Dec 2024. The ship will be in Honolulu on Dec. 24 and Lahaina on Dec. 25. I am just wondering if anyone knows if HAL will still have excursions on these days? I know there will be less options but I would like to see something of Hawaii. Also, do you think there will be some sort of celebration on ship even though it is not a sea day? Thanks!

[Wayfairers]

We have cruised the Caribbean over the holidays - not Hawaii.  I don’t know if the ship offered excursions on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day or not.  We are cruising again this year, but are at sea those days.

 

I do know most of the towns were shut down the whole week between Christmas and New Years and I’ve checked on Curaçao for this year, Dec 26, and the bus service is limited and many places are closed.  I just checked the HAL website for that day, no excursions are available - but it is early.

 

You could check with private guides to see if anyone is willing to do a tour those days

[AFNavigator]

On 5/17/2023 at 10:11 AM, Wayfairers said:

We have cruised the Caribbean over the holidays - not Hawaii.  I don’t know if the ship offered excursions on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day or not.  We are cruising again this year, but are at sea those days.

 

I do know most of the towns were shut down the whole week between Christmas and New Years and I’ve checked on Curaçao for this year, Dec 26, and the bus service is limited and many places are closed.  I just checked the HAL website for that day, no excursions are available - but it is early.

 

You could check with private guides to see if anyone is willing to do a tour those days

We were in the Belize City port Christmas 2018 (on Carnival) and the port shops and restaurants were all open.  Excursions were offered but we didn't leave the port area (saw the State Dep't warnings about violent crime in the city) so I can't speak to any outside-port holiday limitations there. 

 

I assume you will still see many excursions being offered in Honolulu on the 24th, especially since it is such a big tourist city. You might want to lower your excursions expectations for the smaller island port on Christmas day though.