Nancy and I first visited the Hawaiian Islands when I we met there during my R&R week from Vietnam in 1971. We had five wonderful days together and I went back to finish my tour and Nancy returned to Wisconsin. Since then we have been there a couple of times either on vacation or some sort of business. We did fly to a couple of the Islands on past visits but decided we wanted to see the major islands all in one trip. Norwegian Cruise Lines offers a week long trip that takes you to four of the Islands with stops and a chance for an excursion at each stop. As we hate packing and unpacking, flying, finding places to stay and places to eat so we thought a cruise would solve most of those problems. So, we booked a seven day cruise around the Hawaiian Islands. We did not pre-book any excursions. We wanted to see what was offered at the time we got there, and we were not sure if we were even going to take any. We were going there to relax. Here’s what the cruise looked like:
And, here is what you are supposed to see, at least on O’ahu:
So that’s basically what we did. We went there with an “Aloha Attitude” so we were determined not to try and do everything there was to do at every stop. We ended up getting off the boat twice and had a very relaxing and enjoyable time … in spite of being on a cruise ship.
The Spirit of America (Norwegian Cruise Lines) has been doing this trip since 2015 … every week, all year long. It is one of the few ships doing passenger cruises that is registered in the United States and consequently, by law, crewed by a majority of American citizens. Now, if you have been on other cruises you probably found most cruise ships are crewed by non-Americans. Also, if you have spent any time in America, especially near a tourist activity (except Disney World) you have noticed a difference in attitude between the foreign cruise crews (yes, a homonym) and American service personal. Same thing on this cruise. Service was good, could have been better. Servers were good, could have been better … at least by cruise standards. That said, because we are not fussy people and are perfectly competent to care for ourselves, we did fine, had a good time, and saw what we wanted to see.
Because we travel a great deal and have been disappointed several times by airlines not getting us to where we were going when they said they would, we booked into Hawaii a day early and spent our first night there in Honolulu. Yes, that does add to the cost of the trip but not as much as missing the first day or two of a cruise and being bounced around and wind up on an abbreviated cruise all stressed out and fatigued. We arrived in Honolulu early but by the time we went through immigration, got our bags, found a taxi and rode to the Hotel, it was close to noon. The hotel was gracious enough to allow us to check in early so we did. We ditched out stuff, put on some comfortable clothes and walked down to Waikiki Beach. It’s Winter here in Oz and while there is no snow, it is cool, relatively speaking. Waikiki was warm and sunny. We spend most of the afternoon walking along the beach front, looking in stores, watching the surfers, and enjoyed a nice dinner. Our hotel was close to the beach but our room was a “mountain view” so we looked the other way. Not bad but not the beach. Here are a few interesting views:
We had a pleasant arrival, nice dinner, and turned in early ready for our trip the next day.
So, here we are at the next day. Took a cab to the port and boarded the ship. Boarding was quick, easy, and simple. Everyone was pleasant and we were aboard just after 12. What they don’t tell you is that when you board early to avoid the rush, you wait for hours for your cabin to be ready once you are on the ship. As we were in our “Aloha Attitude” we just said “No Worries”, got a couple of Tequila Sunrises, found a deck chair, and vegged out till our room was ready. Easy Peasy!
While you are waiting for your Tequila Sunrise and cabin, I will show you a couple pictures of the ship and our cabin:
Our first stop was in Maui. We didn’t get off the ship. Too popular means too crowded. Remember, we came here to relax … Aloha!
Next stop was Hilo … didn’t see anything on the itineraries that interested us so we continued Chilling on board … but we did find going into the harbor interesting:
When we got to Kona we decided to get off the boat and see what there was to see. We disembarked and took a taxi to the local market. Interesting … yes, Nancy did find things to buy there, I was shocked!! We walked and shopped for a couple hours and headed back to the ship. Kona:
It was an interesting trip. Nancy got to buy some “Souvies” and we were back on the ship. As you can see from the picture of our itinerary, we now have a long trip to the North and Kuau’i. While we were enroute we decided to do a trip to the Waimea Canyon State Park when we got to Kuau’i. Waimea Canyon may look familiar to you as parks of “Jurassic Park” were filmed there. When we docked in Kuau’i the next morning we filed out and got onto out bus. This is the part I really dislike about cruises … excursions by bus! I don’t like big crowds of people on a tour … more than four is a big crowd. Here we had about 25. The thing that save this one for me was the “Rogue” bus driver. He said he had been in trouble several times for going “off track” on his tours but he was going to do it again. Loads of useless but colorful information as we drove along. He grew up here so now we know his life history … interesting. The tour was good. Here’s the Canyon:
The driver took us on a quite a tour to supplement the canyon tour but, I must admit, it was interesting and scenic. No one else on another excursion got to see all we did. I’m okay with that.
So then it was back to Honolulu. We pulled in the next morning and prepared to disembark. That also went quite well with no waiting in some holding place till it was your turn. If you didn’t have checked baggage from the night before, you could walk off any time. We only had two roller bags so we didn’t turn them in the night before, had a nice leisurely morning, and walked off at about 10. Caught a cab to the hotel, and checked in. Due to connecting to Australia we needed to stay overnight and catch an early flight out the next day … Boo Hoo! Same hotel but the Waikiki side. More pictures from Waikiki (mostly from our balcony:
We found it to be ironic that “our” ship was doing one more turn around Hawaii as we were preparing to leave. It was even more ironic it was right at sunset with the sun right behind it. The perfect ending to an interesting cruise. Hope you enjoyed coming along.
