Thank you. I love when the video and review includes important details like the port terminals and walking lengths and shows the taxi and ride share pick up areas.
That's awesome. Yes it was just more than we expected to actually get into the town area. You can get a cab closer in Kauai than Maui. But walking to the town is not super quick @@chezellis
@@Cruisingfoodies This will be my 3rd time to Hawaii, but my first on the Pride of America. So I knew about the town distance, just not about the actual port terminal. Thank you again.
Great editing on the video and very informative! Just booked this cruise for April with my wife & daughter and you gave me great tips like renting a car to explore the island yourself. The excursions offered on the ship are really expensive! Thanks!
Thank you so much for watching!!!! Absolutely, rent a car, we found Priceline to be the cheapest way to go. It was also so nice to go at our own pace and explore so much. Hope you have a great cruise. Feel free to ask any questions. We live over on O'ahu and are happy to help
@@Cruisingfoodies Thank you for responding. For the overnight stays, is there a time you have to be back on the ship? Like say, I book a Luau & stargazing at the Hyatt (thanks for the rec 😊), it will be well into the night when we we're done and back to the ship. I can't seem to find that information on the NCL website.
@@xXxExLa That's the best part of the overnights is that you can stay out till anytime and you can come and go for that whole day that you're there and night. A lot of people go to luau's or even go out clubbing late and you can come back at any time which is great
That was an awesome review! Planning, early stages, a four generation vacation cruise, and since everyone shouted *HAWAII* , this is one of our options as well as a week on land! So thank very much!
So many memories.....I worked on the POA from 2015-2017. So sad about Lahaina. I had the most amazing experience working and living in Hawaii. Mahalo for sharing your cruise🥰
That is so awesome! Which department were you in on POA. And yessss absolutely awful about Lahaina. It's a beautiful area and we were gutted over everything that occured.
@@Cruisingfoodies I worked in the Spa and Fitness Center on POA. I also worked passenger luggage on embarkation day! I had so much fun working on the ship. I plan on vacationing back to Hawaii in July🥰.
That's awesome! There are so many great things to see in each island and lots of tours that you can take but we found renting the car to be the most cost effective. We live on O'ahu so if you have any Hawai'i questions, please feel free to ask! Happy to Answer
I live on Oahu and have seen the ship often over the years. I will be retiring within a year and will plan a trip when everything is settled. Prices now in November seem incredibly inexpensive so I may be going this time next year. Thanks for the offer to answer questions I may have! BTW, I subscribed with the ringy dingy symbol. :)
@@harveyh3696 thank you so much for subscribing. And that is so awesome you are planning to retire soon. The rates are definitely much more reasonable during the fall/winter, so that will be a great time to go.
This video was awesome! It was so informative, I will be working on Pride of America soon and this video gave me an idea of what type of work environment I will be in and I am so excited 😀Thank you and wish me luck 🍀
loved the review! Our two families went back in April 2010 and loved every minute of it ! Back in 2007, my older brother and I went on the Pride of Aloha (when NCL Hawaii had three ships). See some changes, but really makes me want to go again after all these years around the islands. Oh yeah, I clearly remember 'the honor' 'I' felt as we left the ship and walked to the ports to have the local greeters, etc. ask us locals 'how was it?", is it expensive?, etc. I just had to tell them that they gotta experience it for themselves ! I could see it in their eyes how exciting it would be if they did go on the around the island cruise !
btw you need to edit the total cruise day noted in the description box to 7 days (you have it at 8 days). Leave Saturday late evening and return the following Saturday morning.
It was a really nice way to squeeze in as much as we could in a week. And visit friends on other islands. We loved having those overnights as well. That makes a big difference in cruising Hawai'i. I love that you went on a Hawai'i cruise too. What is your favorite port?
@@hawaiiguy1 you are right, it's technically 7 days for sure. The cruise line has it listed as an 8 day sailing bc they count the Saturday you return. So I wanted to make sure they know the sailing
@@hawaiiguy1 right! Nowadays they list everything by nights so it'll say 8 days/7 nights lol. Marketing for sure! One ad said spend two weeks in Hawai'i on a cruise but it was half hotel half cruise lol. The hustle lol
Hi, where did you park your rental car in Kahului, Maui, while going back and forth to the cruise ship? Can you bring a camera in, when you did Tour of the Stars? I like your video, it has plenty of valuable tips
@@cuabroadnow thank you so much for watching. We went to the Seaside motel. They allow you to bring a camera or your cell phone but we weren't allowed to video. The cell phone actually ended up taking better pictures than the camera we had.
Thank you so much for this review, you did a fabulous job! My husband and I have a cruise planned for Jan 2025 but have recently read a number of negative reviews about POA and are now hesitant. Mainly the negative comments regarding the ship being dated, unfriendly staff and mediocre food have us concerned. It seems as though you had a very positive experience? We have been to Maui, Kauai, and Oahu over the years and will be spending a week on the Big Island after this cruise. We thought the cruise would be a great way to relax and enjoy the scenery. Thoughts?
Thank you so much for watching and your kind comments, that is very nice of you. To be completely transparent, we did eat at specialty restaurants 4 out of the 7 days so I do believe the food is substantially better in the specialty dining. I agree with the fact that the ship is dated, however, the areas that were updated were very nice. Another option, would be doing a repositioning cruise on a larger, more updated cruise ship. I have done both celebrity and Royal Caribbean and left out of Vancouver and visited the Hawaiian islands and ended in Honolulu, because this is where we live and I have also done it the opposite direction and I did enjoy that more because the ship had a bit more to offer. I will say that the staff was hit or miss. We had some really nice people and then other people you could tell did not want to be bothered. We really enjoyed the overnights on this ship, so for us I would say we used it more so as a floating hotel versus a traditional cruise. Cruise. Cruised over 50 times so we really enjoy being at sea but generally with a larger newer ship. I would say expectations in regards to not having much to do on the ship, and also being on land the majority of the time would be probably the best way to anticipate this type of cruise on POA. Feel free to email me with any questions. I'm a travel agent n happy to help.
Hi, we will be flying on the same day as the embarkation, arriving at the HNL airport at 10:30 AM. Do you think this will be enough time to reach the port? I am worried that we won't be able to make it to the ship.
If you have the option to come a day early, I always advise to do so because there could always be a flight delay. But if you do arrive on time at 10:30am, you have plenty of time to hop onboard. It's about 20 minutes from the airport, so you'll be good.
Great video!! We cruise in April. It will be our first trip to Hawaii 😊. Did I see a lady with a dog on her lap at the Moderno restaurant?! How is that possible!?! That was so strange!! 😮
Lol you sure did. It's a diabetic alert dog for my mom. She has a dog that helps her avoid diabetic comas. Years of training n lots of shots n paperwork to have her travel with the service dog. We are huge cruisers too. We live here on O'ahu. Feel free to ask any questions!
That’s amazing she is able to travel with her dog like that. My parents had a black lab that use to go nudge my dad when he was in bed for no reason. I always said maybe he could tell his sugar was dropping (he was diabetic too). Maybe I was right!! I will be in Honolulu for 6 nights and running a half marathon in the magic island area the. We will sightsee Oahu the rest of the week. My mom and sister fly in the next week and we cruise together. We are excited!! I will def reach out with questions as I think of them!! In the meantime, I will check out all your other Hawaii videos!!
@@ewatts74 You are probably completely right. There's something in human saliva that indicates to dogs that their sugar is dropping or high depending on what they get trained for. But that's probably exactly what it was. And yes, feel free at any time to reach out with any Hawaii questions. There's a lot of great places to eat here right off the main area in Waikiki. You guys will have a ball.
Aloha!!!!! That's so awesome you'll be visiting here in Hawai'i! We did not need reservations for any shows. The shows we thought were awesome were the local performers who sang, played ukulele, and danced hula. I think you will really enjoy them. Let me know if you need any recommendations here on O'ahu
We brought our passports but only ended up needing our US driver's license and they used the passport as secondary but they said it wasn't necessary. I would still bring two forms just in case
Thank you so much for this! we booked on a whim to get the sale price. Then we looked at comments - yikes! we are a bit concerned. But this video gives me hope. Question - from the airport, how do we get to the port? and about how much would it cost? We are arriving the night prior. Thinking about staying in a hotel near airport. Any hotel/area you can recommend? Thank you so much!!! 🙏🏻
I really feel the best way to look at it as a floating hotel but not to compare it to the newer modern cruise ships bc it just doesn't have the bells and whistles. But it's a great way to see a lot in a week. I highly recommend coming a day or two early bc we watch people miss the ship every week. I would say look into the ala Moana Hotel. Feel free to email me and I can send you a bunch. Also the uber/Lyft is great. It's about 10 min away
Very informative. We have a group of 12 friends going this May and your video addresses some of our question. Do you know if you can reserve a car prior to disembarking? Just concerned because of the size of the group.
Absolutely you can. If all 12 of you are traveling together, I would recommend going through Priceline and renting 2-3 vehicles. I'm a travel agent and I will tell you the rates for cars are higher through other websites. So save your $$ for sure and use priceline or expedia. If you're looking for tours for your whole group, they are avaialbe. And I can send you some good links. Lots of info to try to squeeze in lol .
What is better....this cruise around or flying to and spending a day or 2 on each of the big name islands....im worried that the cruises to and around hawai'i would make exploring and getting a real good taste of the area difficult because you only spend such a short time at each port
I have done a couple Hawaii cruises. Even though we live here. I will say that my favorite one was actually the repositioning cruise where we flew into Vancouver for a couple days. Had several days at sea to relax and then explore the islands and finished in Honolulu and did a lot in Honolulu. I feel like this gives you a really good taste of the islands, especially because they're super long days at port or even overnights. However, I would still add in more time in Honolulu since I feel that Oahu offers a lot
Also, a good plan is to look at the tours offered in each port and see what you're interested in. And then rent a car and do it on your own. We found that there were things we were not interested in so for us, it was much easier to do it this way. Car rentals are super easy and we did that in each port. Also with Maui and Kauai having overnights, we felt we saw everything on our list.
@@Cruisingfoodies oh okay that good to know that you felt there was enough time at each stop....did you rent cars ahead of time or the day of at each stop? are there cars close to port or did you have to take a taxi to and from the rental place?
So I rented a car ahead of time through Priceline for the airport. We did have to take an Uber over to the airport which was about $15 and the car cost us anywhere between 40 to $70 depending on the port. But that was still well worth it since we were a party of five. If I would have done a tour, it would have been at least $80 a person so we were able to squeeze it in a lot in a rental car instead. I highly recommend using Priceline since they were the most reasonable. I'm a travel agent and Priceline had great deals. The only place we ran into an issue was in Maui when the line was really long because two flights unloaded at the same time but other than there we were totally in and out
BTW, Gina...During intro, you mis-spoke when you mentioned "R/T Honolulu cruise"...It's a 7-day Hawaii interisland cruise. Honolulu is city/district on Oahu island. Also...Honolulu=Hoh-noh-loo-loo not Hanalulu. Hana is town on E Maui
In Kauai, you can get free street parking about a block away from the pier. In Maui, we paid a nearby hotel at the end of the pier $25 to park overnight.
You can rent a scooter ahead of time because honestly it was a lot of walking from the ship to outside the port. But it is flat, so we saw plenty of people in wheelchairs and scooters able to get on and off fairly easy.
So you can take public transportation in some ports but it takes much longer. There are plenty of tours offered as well but it can get pricey. So for us, we picked our favorite things we wanted to do and rented a car n went to those vs the tour bc it saved a lot of $. Where the ship docks, isn't really close to much except in Maui, there is a beach and shopping area off the area of the tender.
@@territhomas3293 that's great that was open. When we got on, it was only the buffet, but it could've been the timing as well. Thanks for letting us know.
Yes, my kids had their passport with them. But there was an infant next to us. They asked for the raised seal birth certificate. I also saw another couple that didn't have any id and they let them on. They were us citizens so I don't know if that is why.
So we used Priceline for every rental. It ranged bc we did an SUV since there were five of us. It was between $35-55 in each port. Well worth it. We got gas at Costco when nearby or hele
I went through the three week course to be on The Pride of America. They need to show newbies this video, cuz the food that was offered to the crew…well, I PASSED FIRE SAFETY,CPR/First aid,just not the food part, Went through all the team building…had a good time..away from family for five weeks, good or bad.. should have been a more positive experience
@@LynP1 I know the staff offerings from room to food can be different on each ship. I'm not sure what is currently being offered onboard the POA but def sorry to hear it wasn't good
Thank you. I love when the video and review includes important details like the port terminals and walking lengths and shows the taxi and ride share pick up areas.
Thank you so much for watching. We were honestly a little surprised at the amount of walking in both Maui and Kauai. So I'm glad this helps.
@@Cruisingfoodies I had also watched Parodeejay, who did the whole walking through the Maui port, but I wasn't aware of Kauai being long too.
That's awesome. Yes it was just more than we expected to actually get into the town area. You can get a cab closer in Kauai than Maui. But walking to the town is not super quick @@chezellis
@@Cruisingfoodies This will be my 3rd time to Hawaii, but my first on the Pride of America. So I knew about the town distance, just not about the actual port terminal. Thank you again.
@@chezellis oh that's great! There's so much to see on each island. It's really beautiful over here
great information on the ports and rentals
Thank you so much for watching! Using priceline for rentals saved us a ton in traveling around the islands
Great editing on the video and very informative! Just booked this cruise for April with my wife & daughter and you gave me great tips like renting a car to explore the island yourself. The excursions offered on the ship are really expensive! Thanks!
Thank you so much for watching!!!! Absolutely, rent a car, we found Priceline to be the cheapest way to go. It was also so nice to go at our own pace and explore so much. Hope you have a great cruise. Feel free to ask any questions. We live over on O'ahu and are happy to help
@@Cruisingfoodies Thank you for responding. For the overnight stays, is there a time you have to be back on the ship? Like say, I book a Luau & stargazing at the Hyatt (thanks for the rec 😊), it will be well into the night when we we're done and back to the ship. I can't seem to find that information on the NCL website.
@@xXxExLa That's the best part of the overnights is that you can stay out till anytime and you can come and go for that whole day that you're there and night. A lot of people go to luau's or even go out clubbing late and you can come back at any time which is great
That was an awesome review! Planning, early stages, a four generation vacation cruise, and since everyone shouted *HAWAII* , this is one of our options as well as a week on land! So thank very much!
Awe tysm for watching. If you need any help planning, please feel free to reach out to me.
Very good documentary, thank you for sharing!
Thank you so much for watching!
Thank you for your review We are going in November so this really helps us.
@@MarkLamb-q1j thank you so much for watching. Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions
A great experience in many ways !
Yes for sure. Being able to spend a full day in each port and the overnight ports as well was great
So many memories.....I worked on the POA from 2015-2017. So sad about Lahaina. I had the most amazing experience working and living in Hawaii. Mahalo for sharing your cruise🥰
That is so awesome! Which department were you in on POA. And yessss absolutely awful about Lahaina. It's a beautiful area and we were gutted over everything that occured.
@@Cruisingfoodies I worked in the Spa and Fitness Center on POA. I also worked passenger luggage on embarkation day! I had so much fun working on the ship. I plan on vacationing back to Hawaii in July🥰.
@@Soul_Education that is so awesome! The spa looked so nice. We just took a peek this trip. Let us know when you're in town!
@@Cruisingfoodies Will do!!!
Great video! We booked this trip for 2025 so great to get an idea of what do to while docked at the islands
That's awesome! There are so many great things to see in each island and lots of tours that you can take but we found renting the car to be the most cost effective. We live on O'ahu so if you have any Hawai'i questions, please feel free to ask! Happy to Answer
00:03 The only ocean-going American Flagged cruise ship too!
Never been on a cruise and NCL's Pride will be my first.
That's awesome! When are you going? It is an older and smaller ship but we are big cruisers so if you have any cruise questions, feel free to ask
I live on Oahu and have seen the ship often over the years. I will be retiring within a year and will plan a trip when everything is settled. Prices now in November seem incredibly inexpensive so I may be going this time next year.
Thanks for the offer to answer questions I may have!
BTW, I subscribed with the ringy dingy symbol. :)
@@harveyh3696 thank you so much for subscribing. And that is so awesome you are planning to retire soon. The rates are definitely much more reasonable during the fall/winter, so that will be a great time to go.
Thankyou! I'll be retiring mid-year so timing will be perfect! @@Cruisingfoodies
@@harveyh3696 that's awesome! Thoroughly enjoy yourself!
Great video, thank you
Thank you so much! Happy to share!
Very well put together and entertaining Gina! If you miss Broke Da Mouth there's a location in Kapolei now by the theaters.
OH yes, we were soooo happy they were in Kapolei too. One of our fav spots. I love their purple potato salad lol
This video was awesome! It was so informative, I will be working on Pride of America soon and this video gave me an idea of what type of work environment I will be in and I am so excited 😀Thank you and wish me luck 🍀
Thank you so much. That's so awesome. Good luck. And let me know if you need anything while you're on O'ahu
@@Cruisingfoodies I will definitely, thanks for your reply and keep up the good work 👍God bless 🙏
@@mishabogar777 thank you so much. N I hope you have a great time onboard
@@Cruisingfoodies Thank you ♥
loved the review! Our two families went back in April 2010 and loved every minute of it ! Back in 2007, my older brother and I went on the Pride of Aloha (when NCL Hawaii had three ships). See some changes, but really makes me want to go again after all these years around the islands. Oh yeah, I clearly remember 'the honor' 'I' felt as we left the ship and walked to the ports to have the local greeters, etc. ask us locals 'how was it?", is it expensive?, etc.
I just had to tell them that they gotta experience it for themselves !
I could see it in their eyes how exciting it would be if they did go on the around the island cruise !
btw you need to edit the total cruise day noted in the description box to 7 days (you have it at 8 days). Leave Saturday late evening and return the following Saturday morning.
It was a really nice way to squeeze in as much as we could in a week. And visit friends on other islands. We loved having those overnights as well. That makes a big difference in cruising Hawai'i. I love that you went on a Hawai'i cruise too. What is your favorite port?
@@hawaiiguy1 you are right, it's technically 7 days for sure. The cruise line has it listed as an 8 day sailing bc they count the Saturday you return. So I wanted to make sure they know the sailing
@@Cruisingfoodiesboy, what ncl marketing !
They used to advertise it as a '7 day cruise' for years 🤷🏼
@@hawaiiguy1 right! Nowadays they list everything by nights so it'll say 8 days/7 nights lol. Marketing for sure! One ad said spend two weeks in Hawai'i on a cruise but it was half hotel half cruise lol. The hustle lol
So want to do this ! 🚢🌴🏝 old skull diner had me
Omg yessss you guys def would love the stops. Soooo pretty in big island
Great info!
Thank you so much. I did a video right before this one on what we did our entire week, hope that one is helpful as well
@@Cruisingfoodies I will give it a watch! Thanks!
@@UALocal8KC absolutely! :)
Hi, where did you park your rental car in Kahului, Maui, while going back and forth to the cruise ship? Can you bring a camera in, when you did Tour of the Stars? I like your video, it has plenty of valuable tips
@@cuabroadnow thank you so much for watching. We went to the Seaside motel. They allow you to bring a camera or your cell phone but we weren't allowed to video. The cell phone actually ended up taking better pictures than the camera we had.
Thank you so much for this review, you did a fabulous job! My husband and I have a cruise planned for Jan 2025 but have recently read a number of negative reviews about POA and are now hesitant. Mainly the negative comments regarding the ship being dated, unfriendly staff and mediocre food have us concerned. It seems as though you had a very positive experience? We have been to Maui, Kauai, and Oahu over the years and will be spending a week on the Big Island after this cruise. We thought the cruise would be a great way to relax and enjoy the scenery. Thoughts?
Thank you so much for watching and your kind comments, that is very nice of you. To be completely transparent, we did eat at specialty restaurants 4 out of the 7 days so I do believe the food is substantially better in the specialty dining. I agree with the fact that the ship is dated, however, the areas that were updated were very nice. Another option, would be doing a repositioning cruise on a larger, more updated cruise ship. I have done both celebrity and Royal Caribbean and left out of Vancouver and visited the Hawaiian islands and ended in Honolulu, because this is where we live and I have also done it the opposite direction and I did enjoy that more because the ship had a bit more to offer. I will say that the staff was hit or miss. We had some really nice people and then other people you could tell did not want to be bothered. We really enjoyed the overnights on this ship, so for us I would say we used it more so as a floating hotel versus a traditional cruise. Cruise. Cruised over 50 times so we really enjoy being at sea but generally with a larger newer ship. I would say expectations in regards to not having much to do on the ship, and also being on land the majority of the time would be probably the best way to anticipate this type of cruise on POA. Feel free to email me with any questions. I'm a travel agent n happy to help.
Thank you so much for the reply, this is very helpful! @@Cruisingfoodies
Absolutely! Anytime @@jenhoneycutt8615
Hi, we will be flying on the same day as the embarkation, arriving at the HNL airport at 10:30 AM. Do you think this will be enough time to reach the port? I am worried that we won't be able to make it to the ship.
If you have the option to come a day early, I always advise to do so because there could always be a flight delay. But if you do arrive on time at 10:30am, you have plenty of time to hop onboard. It's about 20 minutes from the airport, so you'll be good.
Just Subscribed 😎
Thank you so much. And thank you for watching :)
Great video!! We cruise in April. It will be our first trip to Hawaii 😊. Did I see a lady with a dog on her lap at the Moderno restaurant?! How is that possible!?! That was so strange!! 😮
Lol you sure did. It's a diabetic alert dog for my mom. She has a dog that helps her avoid diabetic comas. Years of training n lots of shots n paperwork to have her travel with the service dog.
We are huge cruisers too. We live here on O'ahu. Feel free to ask any questions!
That’s amazing she is able to travel with her dog like that. My parents had a black lab that use to go nudge my dad when he was in bed for no reason. I always said maybe he could tell his sugar was dropping (he was diabetic too). Maybe I was right!!
I will be in Honolulu for 6 nights and running a half marathon in the magic island area the. We will sightsee Oahu the rest of the week. My mom and sister fly in the next week and we cruise together. We are excited!! I will def reach out with questions as I think of them!! In the meantime, I will check out all your other Hawaii videos!!
@@ewatts74 You are probably completely right. There's something in human saliva that indicates to dogs that their sugar is dropping or high depending on what they get trained for. But that's probably exactly what it was. And yes, feel free at any time to reach out with any Hawaii questions. There's a lot of great places to eat here right off the main area in Waikiki. You guys will have a ball.
Hello!! I am going on this cruise in a few weeks and I am very excited! Do you have to make reservations to go to the shows?
Aloha!!!!! That's so awesome you'll be visiting here in Hawai'i! We did not need reservations for any shows. The shows we thought were awesome were the local performers who sang, played ukulele, and danced hula. I think you will really enjoy them. Let me know if you need any recommendations here on O'ahu
Thank you for this very helpful cruise review. QQ: do you need to bring your passport, or Birth Certificate, to get onboard?
We brought our passports but only ended up needing our US driver's license and they used the passport as secondary but they said it wasn't necessary. I would still bring two forms just in case
Thank you so much for this! we booked on a whim to get the sale price. Then we looked at comments - yikes! we are a bit concerned. But this video gives me hope. Question - from the airport, how do we get to the port? and about how much would it cost? We are arriving the night prior. Thinking about staying in a hotel near airport. Any hotel/area you can recommend? Thank you so much!!! 🙏🏻
I really feel the best way to look at it as a floating hotel but not to compare it to the newer modern cruise ships bc it just doesn't have the bells and whistles. But it's a great way to see a lot in a week. I highly recommend coming a day or two early bc we watch people miss the ship every week. I would say look into the ala Moana Hotel. Feel free to email me and I can send you a bunch. Also the uber/Lyft is great. It's about 10 min away
@@Cruisingfoodies Thank you - we'll be staying at the Hyatt - got a good deal!
@@em586 perfect! It's a great hotel!!!
In Maui did you Uber to airport to get your rental car? Was parking overnight a problem? TY
We did uber to the airport and parked overnight at a local motel. Kauai we parked in the street overnight.
Very informative. We have a group of 12 friends going this May and your video addresses some of our question. Do you know if you can reserve a car prior to disembarking? Just concerned because of the size of the group.
Absolutely you can. If all 12 of you are traveling together, I would recommend going through Priceline and renting 2-3 vehicles. I'm a travel agent and I will tell you the rates for cars are higher through other websites. So save your $$ for sure and use priceline or expedia. If you're looking for tours for your whole group, they are avaialbe. And I can send you some good links. Lots of info to try to squeeze in lol .
What is better....this cruise around or flying to and spending a day or 2 on each of the big name islands....im worried that the cruises to and around hawai'i would make exploring and getting a real good taste of the area difficult because you only spend such a short time at each port
I have done a couple Hawaii cruises. Even though we live here. I will say that my favorite one was actually the repositioning cruise where we flew into Vancouver for a couple days. Had several days at sea to relax and then explore the islands and finished in Honolulu and did a lot in Honolulu. I feel like this gives you a really good taste of the islands, especially because they're super long days at port or even overnights. However, I would still add in more time in Honolulu since I feel that Oahu offers a lot
Also, a good plan is to look at the tours offered in each port and see what you're interested in. And then rent a car and do it on your own. We found that there were things we were not interested in so for us, it was much easier to do it this way. Car rentals are super easy and we did that in each port. Also with Maui and Kauai having overnights, we felt we saw everything on our list.
@@Cruisingfoodies oh okay that good to know that you felt there was enough time at each stop....did you rent cars ahead of time or the day of at each stop? are there cars close to port or did you have to take a taxi to and from the rental place?
So I rented a car ahead of time through Priceline for the airport. We did have to take an Uber over to the airport which was about $15 and the car cost us anywhere between 40 to $70 depending on the port. But that was still well worth it since we were a party of five. If I would have done a tour, it would have been at least $80 a person so we were able to squeeze it in a lot in a rental car instead. I highly recommend using Priceline since they were the most reasonable. I'm a travel agent and Priceline had great deals. The only place we ran into an issue was in Maui when the line was really long because two flights unloaded at the same time but other than there we were totally in and out
BTW, Gina...During intro, you mis-spoke when you mentioned "R/T Honolulu cruise"...It's a 7-day Hawaii interisland cruise. Honolulu is city/district on Oahu island. Also...Honolulu=Hoh-noh-loo-loo not Hanalulu. Hana is town on E Maui
Where did you park your rental car at night? We are going in April
In Kauai, you can get free street parking about a block away from the pier. In Maui, we paid a nearby hotel at the end of the pier $25 to park overnight.
When yall were in port for 2 days, did you keep your car rental both days? If so, where did you park it at night while on the ship?
Yes we did. In maui, we found a motel about a 10 min walk away that allowed us to park overnight. In Kauai, street parking right by the pier.
I have serious mobility problems. Is there any way of getting off ship and down the pier other than walking?
You can rent a scooter ahead of time because honestly it was a lot of walking from the ship to outside the port. But it is flat, so we saw plenty of people in wheelchairs and scooters able to get on and off fairly easy.
Thank you for sharing , but do we really need to rent a car on each island.
?
So you can take public transportation in some ports but it takes much longer. There are plenty of tours offered as well but it can get pricey. So for us, we picked our favorite things we wanted to do and rented a car n went to those vs the tour bc it saved a lot of $. Where the ship docks, isn't really close to much except in Maui, there is a beach and shopping area off the area of the tender.
That's not true about the buffet being the only food for embarkation.
The skyline dining room was also and is open for lunch on embarkation day. 😁
@@territhomas3293 that's great that was open. When we got on, it was only the buffet, but it could've been the timing as well. Thanks for letting us know.
Where did you park your rental cars?
In maui, we parked at maui seaside motel, you can pay for an overnight parking pass. In Kauai, there's plenty of street parking right by the pier.
Question ma'am, what documents needed for cruising in Hawaii....passport or driver's license (CA to be exact) is fine?
Just your license is good. No need for a passport if you have a US id
@@Cruisingfoodies thank you!
@@cobrakai388 no problem:)
I’m booked on for July 12 2025
That will be so fun. Let me know if you need any suggestions
We are 2 days out and traveling with our 11 month old. Were your kids required to show birth certificate or any other form of ID?
Yes, my kids had their passport with them. But there was an infant next to us. They asked for the raised seal birth certificate. I also saw another couple that didn't have any id and they let them on. They were us citizens so I don't know if that is why.
Is there a boat tour to see the lava flowing into the ocean?
Lava ocean adventures has tours to go around volcano national park. Hope this helps 😁
How much was your car rentals?
So we used Priceline for every rental. It ranged bc we did an SUV since there were five of us. It was between $35-55 in each port. Well worth it. We got gas at Costco when nearby or hele
Did you have to rent a car on each island? Did you need to reserve the car in advance of the cruise?
I went through the three week course to be on The Pride of America. They need to show newbies this video, cuz the food that was offered to the crew…well, I PASSED FIRE SAFETY,CPR/First aid,just not the food part,
Went through all the team building…had a good time..away from family for five weeks, good or bad.. should have been a more positive experience
@@LynP1 I know the staff offerings from room to food can be different on each ship. I'm not sure what is currently being offered onboard the POA but def sorry to hear it wasn't good
Was that a dog on that lady’s lap in the steak house?
Lol my mom's diabetic alert dog. Long hair chihuahua that goes everywhere with her.
That is a great support to have!
@Amy-mb5vj yes, it was trained to indicate when her sugar starts dropping to avoid diabetic comas.
Gora pakora
Spread Aloha ❤️❤️❤️