pricess cruise to hawaii

[clodhopper1969]

hi all first time poster....cruised 2 times 1 princess and 1 carnival. heading out in jan on the hawaii cruise with princess. for those of you who have gone on this cruise what happens when you reach ensenada mexico. can you get of the ship are their shore excursions. when i called princess on rep said i had to stay on the ship. the second rep said i could buy a shore excursion on the ship only. so to those of you who have recently gone on the cruise which is it. thanks for you help.

[lois1112]

I assume you are talking about the 15 day RT to Hawaii.

I have done this trip once.......once we didn't even dock in Ensenda..a pilot boat came with the officals -they came on board..took about an hour

 

the next time we docked and were able to get off the ship.......

so I'm not really sure what the right answer is!

[Pam in CA]

I don't know what it depends on. Like Lois, I've done this cruise twice: the first time we anchored for an hour and left with no one getting off the ship. The second time, we docked for a couple of hours. It wasn't enough time to do anything other than get off the ship, go into the building there with stores, and re-board. The stores are overpriced and crowded. If there's more than one ship docked, fuggeddabowdit. You can't even get into the stores; it's a mess. This is a good place to skip.

[Bucky3]

On our April Hawaii Island cruise we stopped in Ensenada and tours were offered from the ship. They were not listed to book before boarding as in other ports. We took the wine tasting tour and enjoyed it and then shopped at the stores right there at the pier. We are going on the Diamond Hawaii cruise again in December and our port time has recently been changed to 1PM to 8PM rather than the shorter 5PM arrival, so we'll see what else they might offer. I imagine these times are all dependent on situations on the day of arrival there.

[Cruisin' Chick]

On our cruise, it was going to be a service stop. But because of high waves, we had to skip Kona, our last Hawaiian port. So we ended up with a full day in Ensenada and tours were offered. As with many of the other Southern Californians onboard, we've been to Ensenada too many times. In fact, I only heard one person actually happy about this as he found one excursion he wanted to do.

 

We got off the ship long enough to go into that Marketplace next to the pier (hubby wanted to buy a trinket for his mother), and then we returned to the ship and hung out by the pool.

[rdhead43]

hi all first time poster....cruised 2 times 1 princess and 1 carnival. heading out in jan on the hawaii cruise with princess. for those of you who have gone on this cruise what happens when you reach ensenada mexico. can you get of the ship are their shore excursions. when i called princess on rep said i had to stay on the ship. the second rep said i could buy a shore excursion on the ship only. so to those of you who have recently gone on the cruise which is it. thanks for you help.

I was on the Diamond Princess 15 day cruise to Hawaii a few weeks ago, and was able to get off the ship for about 3 hours. (We were there from 4-8 p.m.). Because I wasn't aware we were going to be there during the day (the brochure I read when I booked the cruise, stated we would be there for 2 hours, and then in the early morning hours, so I just forgot about it) I didn't book any excursions, but I was told that some were offered.

 

Enjoy your cruise.

 

rdhead43

 

Are they going to continue staying in Ensenada for 4 hours, or at the same time of day (4-8 p.m.) stops? I don't know. I do know this, the law states that cruise ships HAVE to make a stop outside of the U.S. .........so the stop is mandatory.

[spingal]

I have done the Hawaii cruise twice and both times we docked in Ensenada from 4-8pm. The first time we were there you could get off the ship but there weren't any ship sponsored excursions. On my last cruise (10/4/07) there was one Princess excursion for $18pp. It was a 2 hour tour of the city that included stopping to try local wines and seeing one of the big hotels. None of us did it.

 

I have been following the current sailing (10/19/07) and according to someone on board, they will be in Ensenada from 1pm-8pm. Their Hawaii port order was different so they were closer to the mainland when they began their return trip. So it will interesting to see if they offer them additional excursions. They return to LA on Saturday so maybe someone from that sailing will see this post.

 

Hope this helps! :)