Just a Vapor

I’m home. Five of us just returned from vacation yesterday. My wife and I, along with her brother, sister, and brother-in-law went on a 7-night Hawaiian cruise abord Norwegian’s “Pride of Aloha”.

We began our trip by flying into Honolulu on December 31st. We got there the day before our ship was supposed to depart, but being Minnesotans, we didn’t want to risk missing departure because of a blizzard at home. This also gave us extra time to see a few things on Oahu before departing, though some things were closed for New Year’s Day.

Before going on the trip, we had read many reviews about this particular ship, and many were pretty bad. None of us had ever been on a cruise, and didn’t know what to expect. We decided on the cruise because it appeared that we could do it for about the same cost as getting a hotel in Honolulu for a week, and this afforded us the opportunity to see four islands instead of just one.

As we got to the ship, check-in seemed smooth and relatively quick. The most difficult part was finding our rooms. Deck 6a is a partial deck that is only accessible by a set of stairs on each side from deck 7. We had to get assistance just to find out how to get to 6a, and then made the mistake of carrying our bags down the wrong set of stairs. We had to go back up, then to the other side of the ship (from Port to Starboard – not far). Upon finding our room, we were pleasantly surprised that the 120 square feet that we expected was roomier than we imagined it would be.

We didn’t do a lot on the ship, as it was always viewed as our hotel, not our entertainment venue. We regulary got up before 7:00 a.m. for a quick breakfast before leaving the ship for a full day of activities. The excursions offered by the ship appeared to be a lot of fun, but they were very expensive. We opted to rent a car at each stop and do things ourselves, many times doing the very same things as people doing ship-sponsored excursions, but at a fraction of the price. We always faired well enough that the car was more than paid for with the money we saved by doing our own thing.

The ship provided meals, which we took advantage of at breakfast and supper. There is a buffet and two restaurants that are included in the cruise price and three restaurants that require cover charges to enter. We ate mostly at the buffet. My sister-in-law and her husband went to both of the included restaurants, and the rest of us tried one. They offer a little more fancy menu, which my wife and I aren’t really into.

The food everywhere we ate was not that great. Most of what I ate I would describe as “edible”. It wasn’t bad enough to avoid altogether, but wasn’t good enough that we would have chosen to eat there had it not already been paid for.

We departed Honolulu (on Oahu) on New Year’s Day around 10:00 p.m. My wife and I were in bed before we sailed, as we were still on Central Standard Time, which is four hours ahead of Hawaii time. We arrived bright and early the next morning in Lihue, Kauai. Kauai was the least populated island we visited, and is called the “Garden Island”. We spent the day at Weimea Canyon, called “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. My wife and I also went and toured a Sugar Plantation while the rest hiked to a waterfall.

The next day we kayaked up a river not far from the port. We didn’t have time to do much else, as the ship sailed at 1:00 p.m. It took us all the way around the island of Kauai before sailing on to Hilo, the main city on the east side of the big island. In Hilo we spent the entire day in Volcanoes National Park. We hoped to see lava flows, but couldn’t get close because of the rugged terrain, time restraints, and the fact that it was blocked off due to a 40+ acre shelf falling into the ocean back in November (we didn’t find out about it being blocked off until later.) My wife’s brother and I finished the day with a helicopter tour of the park, where we did get really close to lava flows, like within a few dozen feet.

On Thursday we arrived in Kona, on the opposite side of the big island. We ventured out on a self-planned excursion that the ship didn’t even offer. We ended up touring some caves that were once lava tubes. As the lava flows, the top cools and solidifies, forming a tube that the rest flows through. These were really cool to see. We had heard about it because the Minneapolis Star Tribune (Star & Sickle as we call it) had done an article on it. The tour guide said the place was not well advertised because they don’t want tour busses showing up. They want to keep it to small groups, and if any buses were to show up, they want them all to be school busses.

Later Thursday, we took a very quick tour of a small coffee plantation and headed to the beach to take a stab at snorkeling. I didn’t fair so well, as I dropped a much needed part on the ground while getting out of the car and thus couldn’t get my snorkel to work right. Luckily I stumbled on the part when we were getting back in the car and had it to use later in the trip.

After Kona, we headed to Maui. We spent Friday exploring the western part of the island and doing some more snorkeling (this time with the missing part and working gear) and also did some boogy boarding. My wife and I did a little shopping in the evening while the others went to a Luau.

Saturday morning we took a zip-line tour through the rain forrest on the east side of Maui and then headed back to the west side where we went on a whale watching trip. The hump-backs are in Hawaii for a few weeks at a time in winter, and we had the chance to see a few. I also had the fortune of catching the flu sometime Saturday, which I am still battling.

Sunday we were back in Honolulu. We went over to Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona and the USS Missouri. The Arizona is a battleship that was sunk during the attack by the Japanese, with the famous memorial over it. The Missouri is a similar battleship that remained in use until after the first Gulf War, and is also where the peace treaty with the Japanese was signed ending World War II.

We finished the day with a little shopping before heading to the airport for our long trip home.

Overall, I would recomend the cruise to anyone going to Hawaii for the first time. If you get the cheapest room on the ship, and treat it like a hotel room, it’s a great way to see more of Hawaii than you would on your own. If we ever go back to Hawaii, we wouldn’t do the cruise again, but now we know what we like and what we don’t about Hawaii, and can better plan a return trip. If you were to go on the cruise, however, don’t waste your money on their excursions. In some cases we saved as much as 50% by doing things ourselves, even by going to the exact same places. With the most expensive car we got being about $45/day (+gas) and having 5 people, we saved enough by doing thigs ourselves at every stop that we more than paid for the car. The only bad thing was that there were a couple times we had to get a cab ride to or from the airport in order to get the car or turn it in. My advice is to use Alamo everywhere except Honolulu, where I’d recommend Thrifty (but call ahead, Thrifty didn’t have any cars when we were there – though they did give us a free ride to Alamo). Alamo had a shuttle bus at every stop except Honolulu, and Thrifty had shuttles at most, but cost more too.

I hope to be over this flu thing soon so I can go back to work. I started a new year, with a new set of sick days, and don’t like the idea of using them up right away.