I have been searching, but all the tours either start to early or end to late. We get to Kauai at 9am and leave at 6pm. Does anyone know of any options that I as yet have not found?
I have been searching, but all the tours either start to early or end to late. We get to Kauai at 9am and leave at 6pm. Does anyone know of any options that I as yet have not found?
My advise, start early. I don't consider 9am early. There's driving involved if you are renting a car and that takes time, even though the island is small. Speed limits are not high. The helicopter tour is nice. Certain beaches that you may have read about are difficult to find as they are not marked on purpose to prevent intrusion of tourists. Know where and what you want to see, get a map of Kauai to determine the locations. You need to do you homework, otherwise, you may waste a lot of time.
As Char said above, there will be excursions available through your cruiseship. Even though, many excursions booked through the line may tend to run more money, there's the benefit that if something happens to the vehicle you're traveling in back to the port, the ship will wait for you. No such guarantee if you are on an indy excursion or just travelling on your own.
One thing to consider too is whether you are docking or tendering into port. Ships going to Kauai can do either. In the case of tendering, those with ship-booked excursions as well as specific passengers (those in full suites, those with a major category of loyalty program, eg. Elite for Princess) will get first priority for the tender ships. So even if the time getting into port is listed as 9am, you may not be able to leave the ship for a half hour to an hour after that.
That was a consideration for us in Maui. My hubby wanted to do a snorkeling excursion there, which is a tendering port, and I checked the various companies online (you can google the name of the port and use a few key words to narrow down the hits). Many of them had much earlier times than we can make for their morning trips (which were recommended over afternoon). I guess they concern themselves more with hotel guests than with cruiseline passengers. So we went with the trip offered by Princess. We had priority tendering (we were actually escorted to the front of the line), had continetal breakfast and lunch aboard the little boat, and had more than an hour after our return to check out Lahaina and do a little shopping and picture taking before getting into the tender line.
Another thing to be concerned about, now that I think of it, is that often port times get changed between the time you book and actually sail. Happened to one port on each of our last two cruises, one was shorter by an hour, one was longer by an hour (but we ended up missing that port due to high waves).
So if you do find an excursion to book on your own, make sure you get their cancellation policy in writing (just in case, you don't want to pay for a trip you can't go on), and get a contact phone number. Also bring the ship's newsletter with you as it will list the time to be back on the ship (it's always BEFORE sailaway time) and the name of the port agent just in case you miss the ship.
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