? -too many days @ sea for hi. Cruise?

[rpinphx1]

Hi,

I need your help. I am planning surprise 30th anniversary for us, were active, healthy in our mid 50's. Cruise from San Diego for Jan/Feb 2010. I don't have/know TA or anyone whose gone to HI etc. We've cruise 12 x in total on Holland, Princess, Carnival, Celebrity.

Max cruise was 9 nights, Canada

 

Are there enough activities on board for the sea days?

 

What line do you suggest to see the most ports. Husband would want to see the Arizona.

 

What line would you NOT go on again to HI.

 

Thanks,

Robyn in Phoenix

[karatemom2]

We love the roundtrip cruises and really enjoy Princess. We have done the trip twice and are planning our third at the end of this year. The Golden Princess goes to Honolulu, Lahaina, Hilo and Kauai. If your husband wants to see the Arizona the Golden offers a nice long day in Honolulu with a port time from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. so you have time to go to Pearl Harbor and still do some other touring as well.

 

For us the sea days are what make this cruise so special. We love all the fun activities onboard. I can't imagine ever getting bored as there is so much going on you have to pick and choose because you just can't do everything. I love meeting the wonderful friends we spend time with onboard. The sea days allow you to really get to know some of your fellow cruisers and we have made many friends. But best of all they are relaxing. We are very active in the ports, so it's so nice to have the wonderful relaxing days heading over and coming back. I actually come home and feel as if I have had a vacation!

[Beach4me]

I've only done this trip on Princess but unlike the previous poster, I would not recommend them. I didn't think they did enough to make it a Hawaiian cruise. Other than a couple ukelele lessons, it could have been a Caribbean cruise - right down to the steel drum bands that played a couple times. I had expected there to be some sort of "Hawaiiana" on the voyage. Also, I don't think that Princess offers optimal port times.

 

Jan/Feb is a great time of the year because of the whales.

 

I have always been fond of sea days but I'll be honest with you, I did find there to be too many days at sea on this trip. It is definitely a "sea cruise" with Hawaii thrown in as opposed to a Hawaii cruise as you spend 2/3 of the trip at sea and 1/3 of the trip on the islands.

 

If I was ever going to do this trip again, I would take one of the RCCL repositioning voyages in May or September. That would mean having to fly one direction. But, it would also mean the opportunity to spend a few days in the islands as well - and 1/2 the sea days!

 

fyi - the activities on the Princess ship during our voyage were mostly computer classes (that were an additional cost), scrapbooking classes (that were an additional cost), lectures on the economy, real estate, wills, etc, bingo, country line dance class (lots of fun!), art auctions, and game gatherings (cards, backgammon, etc). The pools were closed all the way over because the seas were too rough - and most of the way back because we had a Noro outbreak.

[karatemom2]

How long ago was your Princess cruise? I think they have actually done a great deal to create a Hawaiian atmosphere. In fact I thought there was quite a bit last year, and this year (we just returned last week) it was even more. We had a Hawaiian band called Elua that entertained everyday by the pool and in the lounges. There were lectures daily about the islands, lei making classes daily with different mediums every sea day as well as daily ukulele and hula classes. They have also revised the menus to include special items each evening that offer a taste of Hawaii. Also in Honolulu they brought an amazing young hula troupe onboard for two shows. At the end of the cruise all of the passengers who took the ukulele and hula lessons performed in a special show. I'm not sure how much more they could do that they are not doing. It seemed pretty extensive to me.

[hopeh]

 

What line do you suggest to see the most ports. Husband would want to see the Arizona.

 

 

Thanks,

Robyn in Phoenix

Robyn, my husband and I are going to celebrate our 30th anniversary by going to Hawaii (trip of a lifetime). We are booked on the Carnival Spirit April 24, 2009 sailing. We chose this sailing because of it's itinerary---you should go to Carnival site and see all the options. We researched Carnivals Hawaii itineraries for several weeks and thought the Spirit on the 24th was the one for us. This is our 4th cruise--- all with Carnival!

Hope this helps---Aloha, Hope

[Bucky3]

We have taken the Hawaii cruise several times on RCL, Carnival, and Princess. We loved the Carnival Spirit cruise - did it in the opposite direction - fall from Vancouver to Honolulu and then stayed on for the following cruise Honolulu to Ensenada. That was the best of all!!

 

We love Princess but were VERY sorry to see them eliminate Kona from the Golden itinerary. We thought the Hawaii influence was certainly very present on Princess. In fact, it cost us a lot 'cause hubby took the uke lessons on the ship and insisted on buying his own instrument in Honolulu !! He joined a uke group here at home and now plays with them once a week.

 

If you enjoy sea days, the RT cruise is a wonderfully relaxing way to visit paradise! Aloha!

[WNcruiser]

If you don't want to do a R/T from the west coast, look at a Hawaii repo cruise that is only one-way. I believe Royal Carib and Carnival both have cruises scheduled for early 2010.

 

You will still have 4 or 5 sea days to enjoy insted of 8 and get to see all of the islands. You can then spend an extra day or two in Honolulu either pre or post cruise.

 

I find the sea days very relaxing and enjoy just lounging around although there are activities if wish.

[sassyredhat]

We have cruised Hawaii twice, both with HAL (different ships). We are booked 2010 to sail with Princess.

 

We had wonderful cruises with HAL, it just that we were invited to go with someone who was sailing Princess.

 

HAL's itin. is actually 15 days as they port in Kona. Princess stopped that port due to scheduling.

 

I will miss Kona on my next cruise. It is actually on of my favorite ports. But I am excited to try Princess. :)

 

Pat

[Caroldoll]

and HATE THAT MANY SEA DAYS, not to mention that it is rough part of the time.

 

I go absolutely out of my mind after the second sea day. We do love trivia and other activities, but it is very confining.

 

I also think that you do not get to immerse yourself in enough ports.

 

I come from Hawaii and I feel that Hilo is a complete waste unless you take a helicopter to the volcano, but Kona is wonderful and two days on Kauai and Maui are wonderful. We have made the Norwegian cruise two times--Pride of America and had a wonderful time. Stayed extra in Waikiki. Just perfect.

 

This is a personal thing. There are other cruisers who just love sea days. We do not.

[cruising forever]

We cruised Honolulu to Ensenada on RCCL's Radiance a few years ago and loved the cruise, but Ensenada is the absolute armpit of the world; you have to debark at like 3 am and get on a bus (sometimes the bathrooms don't work) with a locals driver down the PCH up to San Diego; that ruined the cruise! RCCL's only offering in 09 was a r/t on an old ship, so we jumped.

 

This time. we're going on CCL's Spirit on a 12 night cruise (has a very loyal following) from Vancouver to Honolulu with stops in Kona, Kauai and Hilo overnight stops in Maui and Honolulu - how great an itinerary is that? Come look at our Roll Call if you are interested in joining us; the prices were awesome!

[Beach4me]

How long ago was your Princess cruise? I think they have actually done a great deal to create a Hawaiian atmosphere. In fact I thought there was quite a bit last year, and this year (we just returned last week) it was even more. We had a Hawaiian band called Elua that entertained everyday by the pool and in the lounges. There were lectures daily about the islands, lei making classes daily with different mediums every sea day as well as daily ukulele and hula classes. They have also revised the menus to include special items each evening that offer a taste of Hawaii. Also in Honolulu they brought an amazing young hula troupe onboard for two shows. At the end of the cruise all of the passengers who took the ukulele and hula lessons performed in a special show. I'm not sure how much more they could do that they are not doing. It seemed pretty extensive to me.

 

I just realized that my earlier response to your question didn't make it to the thread. (My laptop shut down but I though the post had completed. Sorry!)

 

At any rate...my cruise was on the Island Princess (BEAUTIFUL ship!) in Jan/Feb 2007. It sounds like Princess has made some changes - menu selections, Hawaiian band onboard, etc - which is a GREAT improvement! We didn't have those things. We had steel drums when we had poolside entertainment. And, there was no Hawaiian food offering - in fact, pineapple was not even an option every day. If I'm not mistaken, we had one macadamia nut dessert but it was a standard Princess dessert, not a special offering because we were on a Hawaiian voyage. Suffice it to say that it sounds like they've done some stuff to improve the atmosphere. Good for Princess.

 

I would also like to agree with, Caroldoll. To me, the roundtrip voyage really ends up being about the sea days and not about the islands. This is a sea-intensive trip - not a Hawaii-intensive vacation, imo. It's all about what you want. If you want a cruise with a little bit of Hawaii, this is a great vacation option. If you want Hawaii with a little bit of cruise, the round-trip is not the best choice.

[Don_In_AZ]

My wife and I will be sailing on the HAL's 15 day circle Hawaii out of San Diego in this October. It will be the first cruise for both of us as well as our first trip to Hawaii. The reasons we chose HAL were as follows:

 

1. Princess does not port in Kona - I'm not sure why they would eliminate a popular (from what I've read at least) port on a cruise where there is so much time spent getting to the destination, but they did and for us, that was a deal killer!

 

2. Carnival's itinerary looks awesome but by the time we add on the one-way airfare ($300) to the super saver cruise fare ($1350 for outside), it was more expensive for a shorter cruise. If you have the time to add a week in Hawaii after your cruise, then perhaps this is a more attractive option. Also for our situation (which I assume is similar to yours since you're in Phoenix also) you either have to deal with departing from Ensenada (which really is a hassel) or you have to fly to Vancouver which is even more $$$.

 

3. RCI has limited offerings in Hawaii (3 dates) and 2 out of those are only 10 day itineraries (4 ports). The 3rd date on Rhapsody in Sept is 12 days out of Vancouver but is more or less the same thing Carnival offers.

 

4. NCL's Pride of America definitely gives you the most time in the islands but since they pulled 2 ships out of the Hawaii market (Pride of Hawaii and Pride of Aloha) they have raised their prices quite considerably. Also this intinerary requires r/t airfare to Honolulu ($500 at least) in addition to your cruise fare and your vacation is only 1 week as opposed to 2 weeks with the round trip itineraries. Also NCL no longer offers the 10 day itinerary that went down to Fanning Island (which I thought was a nice option) so there are NO sea days and actually not much time at sea at all.

 

So this left us with HALs 15 day itinerary which at (approx $1400 for outside) for a 2-week cruise that included 5 ports (HILO, MAUI, KUAI, OAHU, KONA) was the best all-round option we felt. It's r/t from San Diego which is an easy drive from Phoenix (or a $99 r/t on Southwest) which also made it the most economical.

 

Other factors we considered were:

1. HAL's older demographic - Fine with us, since we are not big party'ers and we look forward to the more traditional "quiet elegance" that HAL is noted for.

 

2. Sea Days - We want to relax on this trip and the additional sea days will give us time to do that. It also lets you thoroughly explore the ship and gives you lots of opportunities to make new friends. Also, this is our delayed honeymoon so it gives us lots of time for...well...you know...togetherness!

 

3. Ship Size - The MS Zaandam is not a mega-ship although at 66,000 tons isn't tiny either. I want to feel like I'm on a sea voyage which to me was another factor in favor of the r/t itinerary. The Golden Princess is a mega-ship (over 100,000 tons) so if that's important to you, you may want to weigh that into your decision process. Carnival Spirit is also in the mega-class.

 

4. We wanted to sail on our Anniversary (07 Oct) so the HAL itinerary worked out almost perfectly from a timing standpoint. The only drawback to sailing that early is that we will miss the whales!

 

 

Anyway hope all this helped. I'll be posting a detailed review upon our return (wish more poeple would do that) for all to read.

Good Luck with your planning,

Don

(also in Phoenix)

[GillCC]

you missed the Celebrity Mercury sailings...we will be doing the 15 night trip on 2/28

[Iris5383]

My wife and I will be sailing on the HAL's 15 day circle Hawaii out of San Diego in this October. . .

I'll be posting a detailed review upon our return (wish more poeple would do that) for all to read.

Good Luck with your planning,

Don

(also in Phoenix)

 

Don - I will be looking for your detailed review in early November. We have booked the same trip leaving Nov 22nd.

 

You did a LOT of research. We are going with HAL because we love their ships and we've always enjoyed the sea days. We've never had so many on one trip, so this will be the test!

Laura

[Don_In_AZ]

you missed the Celebrity Mercury sailings...we will be doing the 15 night trip on 2/28

 

 

Sadly, it appears they are pulling out of Hawaii after Spring 09...

[vjmatty]

We are also doing a round trip, on the Golden Princess out of LA on April 1 of this year. Since the islands all are distinct I thought a short time on each one would be a good sampler as to where we might want to spend more time in the future.

 

I didn't want to do the NCLA cruise because the price was just as high as the RT, which doesn't compensate for the extra flying.... we east coasters already have to fly across the country, so flying across the Pacific doubles our time in the air.

 

As far as the sea days go, we are frequent transatlantic crossers and welcome the days at sea... someone above said it will be a sea journey with a few days in Hawaii, whereas I see it more as three mini-vacations, crossing, four days in Hawaii, then another crossing. We did something similar last April where we took the QE2 East, spent 4 days in Paris, then took the QM2 home.... this is the same idea on the other side of the planet, with romantic islands rather than a romantic city. I love having an anniversary in April :)

[CRUZBUDS]

We are just 51 days from our fourth R/T from San Diego. We've also done the one way twice. We didn't have any trouble with the bus ride from Ensenada. Maybe we're lucky.

 

We love the sea days. On our first R/T on the Infinity we had another sea day in the middle. Many people, including us, were unhappy about it since they were just killing time. We didn't need the sea day to make our next port. We were surprised how tired we got after our first few ports and actually welcomed the break.

 

We work really hard and just want to de-compress on vacation. The seas are a perfect way to start our vacation and seas days at the end are a great way to rest up from all the fun we had in the islands.

 

We cruise to cruise - if you really want to experience Hawaii you have to stay a while.

[bluesky10]

Robyn,

NCL Pride of America is the most port intensive. The cruise originates on Oahua. We have done that twice now - most recent was this past summer. The best cruise ever. We did not want to spend four days at sea and have it cut into our port time. Pride of America stops at all the Islands. Go to www.ncl.com or go to www.aa.com and click on cruises. They have some excellent fares. Also, look at Hawaiian Airlines out of Phoenix. It is non stop, great food and wide seats. Hawaiian Air has a monthly calendar where you can see the airfares for the next year.

Aloha

Chris

[west coast cruiser]

I have gone on this cruise twice and have booked it again in March 2010. I love the sea days and this is primarily why I take this cruise. I have gone on Princess both times and am booked on the Golden for the next one.

This is a cruise for those who love being on the ship and looking out at the sea. I usually read about 5 books on this cruise. It is so relaxing.

It is good that the cruise industry has something for everyone. If I was going just to see Hawaii then I would fly directly to Hawaii and spend time there. This cruise for me is for the days at sea.

WCC

[Cruise Arizona]

Robin we did the Celebrity Infinity RT from San Diego three years ago. We were late 30's with 7 and 9 year old kids. We all felt there was plenty to do during the sea days, but most of all plenty of time to rest and relax.

 

Our last cruise was a Trans Atlantic with Celebrity which had 5 sea days between the Canary Islands and St. Maarten. We really needed those sea days after such a port intensive start to the cruise.

 

Some of the things we did to and from Hawaii were Hula lessons with a Hawaiian lady, wine tasting with a wine maker from California, talent shows, karaoke, ping pong, swimming pools, music by the pool, food and ice carving demonstrations, visiting with friends, scavenger hunts, watching pool side games, shuffle board, board games, card games, chess.... well all pretty low key but plenty to do.

[CRUZBUDS]

When NCL tried to shut down west coast R/T Hawaii cruises we were very fustrated. As you can see there are many different types of cruisers.

 

NCL America had absolutley no interest to us. We want the seas days. If we needed to fly to Hawaii, we would stay on the islands. We do not like port intensive cruises. As you can see, there are other people with the opposite opinion - it's what makes the world go around.

 

Please NCL & Uncle Sam, leave our west coast Hawaii cruises alone.

 

Aloha,

[vjmatty]

If we needed to fly to Hawaii, we would stay on the islands.

 

This is my feeling as well. For me, the point of a Hawaii cruise as opposed to a Hawaii land vacation is not having to fly all the way there... especially since it isn't any cheaper to sail from Honolulu than from LA.