For 2012, I have rejected the Caribbean in favour of Hawaii. I think it has more of a wow factor. Awesome is reserved solely for the Grand Canyon
At this stage in the planning process, I intend to fly to HNL. I know a flight time of 24 hrs from Europe is long.
The debate is between a cruise or a land tour of the islands.
What would your advice be for a first time visitor to the islands? This trip is unlikely to be repeated as I have far too many other places I wish to visit. The length of the visit can be variable upto a month -is that too long? Bear in mind I am a bit of a history buff and not a shopper.
Done both. For a first time I'd do the land tour. A follow up cruise is fun, but I'd island hop from condo to condo on my first venture. On our cruise this year we re-visited many of our previous visit's destinations and that was nice.
My impression... land in Honolulu, do the Pearl Harbor tour, cruise the Waikiki beach strip on day one, then jump over to the other Islands ASAP. It was pretty much a tourist trap to me.
Fit a luau into your program somewhere. They are kinda hokey, but a fun time.
Normally I automatically say Land. But you have up to a month with is wonderful. You could do a little of both to save moving around so much. You could either fly to Honolulu and do Pride of America which as long as you lower your cruise expectations a tad...ok more than a tad... it's a fantastic way to get an overview of Hawaii, it also does the afternoon cruise by the Na Pali coast and an evening sail by the Volcano.
You could also fly into Vancouver and spend a couple of days to break up the flight and do a one way sail to Hawaii. They do those in September after Alaska...or other way around in May.
Or, you could just do a straight up land trip, moving between the islands isn't too bad, especially with a month
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Normally I automatically say Land. But you have up to a month with is wonderful. You could do a little of both to save moving around so much. You could either fly to Honolulu and do Pride of America which as long as you lower your cruise expectations a tad...ok more than a tad... it's a fantastic way to get an overview of Hawaii, it also does the afternoon cruise by the Na Pali coast and an evening sail by the Volcano.
You could also fly into Vancouver and spend a couple of days to break up the flight and do a one way sail to Hawaii. They do those in September after Alaska...or other way around in May.
Or, you could just do a straight up land trip, moving between the islands isn't too bad, especially with a month
My wife wants to fly to Honolulu and do the Pride of America .I want to fly to Calif and cruise from there .
In all honesty, I'd do Pride of America again strictly for the itinerary. The food in the dining room was bad but the buffet was actually really good. As it did an overnight in both Kauai and Maui we ate on land two nights. The rooms were absolutely fine.
We have limited vacation time, there's no way in hell I'd spend 10 days at sea for 4 days in Hawaii.
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Did you decide on anything Annie? We just booked a week in Honolulu for September, can't wait for some sun!
Hi
I actually decided to cruise with POA and combine it wth some time on Big Island. I know I am lowering my standards
However I have since discovered that there is no such thing as a non-smoking cabin on POA - so that idea is scuppered.
So I have booked nothing as yet but I am now veering towards Cuba - tour of island/Havana with a beach stay at the end. The flight time is also a lot shorter.
Anyway I have sun break booked for Dubrovnik in August - looking forward to that.
If POA implements non-smoking cabins, I could change my mind.
We spent over a week on both Oahu (mostly north side and interior, I agree with negative impression of Honolulu, save the Arizona memorial) and Big Island without running out of things to do and see. We'd like to do the same on Kauai some day. Recently searched cruises to see if we could combine a longish stay in Kauai with the volcano sail by, and POA was the only possibility. Since we love sea days, maybe we’ll do one of the cruises that originates on the west coast, includes the volcano, and ends in HI, then fly to Kauai for a few days or more.
I was just going to post that!! wanted to make sure you saw the change in policy.
Thanks
Interesting that Cruisemates article says Cruise Ship is best way to see Hawaii but a Kuki article suggested - see Hawaii 1st by land
Because of the flight time etc I was going to do both - trying to avoid too much duplication - decisions, decisions etc
BTW I was truly 'flamed' on another board for saying I was cancelling cruise because of smoking policy - hate posts were something else and eventually they pulled the whole thread.
Keep in mind also that a Hawaiian cruise makes for a fantastic opportunity to see all of the islands in a short time span. That is it provides a nice sampling of all the islands that is convenient without the need to island hop via plane. You can decide which is your favorite island and always return there for a more extensive land trip.
You should visit Kona on the big Island and if your hungry think about eating at Bongo Bens Some of the best food we ever had a real laid back type of place. Have Fun wish I was going Oh and by the way if you want to visit the green sand beach thats about a 3 mile walk just a little warning but there are locals driving back and forth that will give you a ride for a donation
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Hawaii - Cruise or Land
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