Excursions

[vfb2girls]

We are in the very early process of trying to put together a trip to Hawaii which will consist of a cruise and maybe a few days to explore on our own. Has anyone just solely relied on the ship's shore excursions? I am leaning toward NCLA for our cruise and even though the excursions are on the pricey side, there are many that we would be interested in doing. We will not be renting a car, I had to give up driving due to medical problems and my husband does not want to have to do all of the driving, he says it is unfair since he has to pay attention to the road. I would like to hear from others who have gone with the ships excursions, at least I would get an idea of what others have done.

[CC Help Michell]

I prepared a post last weekend, at this link -- http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=560979. I think if you do a little research first (what are the ship excursions? what tour operators offer similar/better excursions, searching via google) you'll have a good feeling for your question. Basically, I think if you do nothing but book ship excursions you can have a grand time in Hawaii. If you want to do a few things not on the regular schedule of tour operators, or want to save some time (remember, ship excursions always have to wait for the last pax to get back on the bus) in order to do MORE than the offered excursions, ship excursions will drive you batty. :) Were I you, I'd search the boards (just read ten pages of posts!), look at the itinerary, then work on DH to drive at least a little bit. The ports where we are renting cars are Hilo and Kauai (plus Oahu pre-cruise). In Kona, and on Maui, we are doing excursions we found via extensive research and board reading. :)

 

Good luck making your choices!

[vfb2girls]

Thank you for the replies and suggestions. Like I said we are in the very early stages of planning our trip to Hawaii, I just like to get a head start on things. Once again, thank you.