[i]Pride of America[/i] Missed Port Today

[bobnsandi]

I watched from my office this morning as the Pride of America approached Kahului Harbor breakwall, then turned around and headed back to sea. We are experiencing a Kona storm with strong south/southwest winds today, which could make docking pretty dicey.

[goat rancher]

Say, does that happen often? (ship missing port like that)..

We are booked for Jan. next year and are a bit worried about missing some of the ports....

[suziehmkr]

Some ports more often than others... but always a possibility. We missed porting in Kona - which from what I understand is pretty rare. I have read issues with Maui & Kauai the most. Maui is a tender port (Lahaina side) and the port in Kauai is very small & can be hard to get into when winds are an issue.

[CruisinMK]

The seas look like a cauldron today on Oahu. Just wicked.

I think it is pretty rare to miss any of the ports in Hawaii.

Fanning island gets missed a lot though

[kapoho2]

It was wild today over here on the East side of the Big Island. The ocean was very rough and the wind was terrible. Branches, trees and wires down everywhere. We just got our power back...it was off most of the afternoon. Luckily, there was no ship scheduled to dock in Hilo today. These strange weather days do not happen very often...thank goodness!!

[CruisinMK]

Did you fellow locals notice my new location:

Ka'umanua.

I will miss my old hangout in Ainokea.

[mitsguy2001]

Sorry to hear about the missed port. Was the POA able to dock at Kauai yesterday, and was the POH able to dock at Honolulu? If not, did the people on the 1/22/07 POH cruise get an extra day, and the 1/29/07 cruise get cheated out of a day?

[mitsguy2001]

I read something a while ago that the NCLA ships used to very frequently fail to reach Kona in the winter, and for a while, they even dropped Kona as a port of call. I have not recently read anything about that. Is that true? Does the ship still frequently fail to reach Kona? If not, then why did they have a problem with it in years past, but don't have as much of a problem now? I have read that May 1 (the day my cruise is scheduled for Kona) is the first day of summer, and that April 30 is the last day of winter. How does that affect the ocean and the weather? It seems that Hawaii has very complex weather patterns.

 

Is there any way to find statistics for each time of year as to how often the ship fails to dock at a particular port?

[kapoho2]

I have never heard that NCL ships missed Kona frequently in years past. First of all, there is NO dock in Kona. The ship is anchored and the tenders run to shore. Possibly, there are days when it is too rough for the tenders to run. This is not uncommon for any cruise line. We have been on 2 Princess cruises...both scheduled to stop at their private island...and both times canceled because the seas were too rough for the tenders to run.

 

The weather here is pretty much the same year round. In the winter months there may be some windy days, rainy days and days with huge swells. But there have also been winters when none of this happened. It is very difficult to generalize the weather here. About the only thing we can count on is that the summer will tend to be a couple of degrees warmer than the winter...on average.

[bobnsandi]

The Pride of America docked at Kahului last evening (Monday) about seven and is in port today (Tuesday). It is still blowing pretty good, so it'll be interesting to see if she'll depart Kahalui on schedule this evening.

[Nancyquilts]

FWIW, Island Princess missed Kauai today because of the waves and the Force 7 winds. Nancy

[Budget Queen]

. The ship is anchored and the tenders run to shore.

 

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For clairfication- the ships do NOT anchor, they simply "park". Kept in place by the auto pilot computers. :)

[Kylie]

Not a good weather week to be cruising in Hawaii. The POAloha didn't dock at Kona today. Too rough to use the tender boats.

[CruisinMK]

12-15 foot ocean swells predicted late night the 3rd and day of the 4th.

More excitement for cruisers.

[Carolyn R]

I wish I were there. I miss the beach parties when the winter surf was up and the sound of the ocean putting me to sleep at night. The OTEC beach on the Big Island is a great spot when the waves are really big, they crash into the lava rock and spray skyward like a geyser. The power is so mesmorizing. I will get back someday.