Thread: Cruise to Hawaii or Land tour only ????

For a tropical cruise go to the Caribbean but to see Hawaii do a land trip. You need to be on land 24/7 to get to see what Hawaii has to offer.

I have to agree. Having just returned from 7 days in Maui it was definitely not enough. Another factor for me is that it takes 12 hours for us to get there from NY. That's a long time to fly and then to be moving from island to island every day would just exhaust me. I'd rather go back for 10 days and split it between two islands. This way it also is an excuse to go back to catch all the islands!

I also generally do not book a cruise in expectations of really enjoying the ports. To me, the ports are just a little sampling and mearly a tease. To do any land location justice I won't do it as a cruise. The one exception to that is Alaska. I think that's a perfect cruise destination as the scenary is all around you the entire time.

We have done Hawaii many times both ways. One problem with the land vacations we took was that we tried to get too much in on one vacation. Flying between the islands takes up almost a day each time so a ten day trip with three islands really only gave us six days of touring, the rest was transport. The B2B Ensenada trip suggested above was nice as we went around the islands twice and had 4 days in Maui. One trip we spent a week in Maui then a week on American Hawaii Cruises sailing around the islands.

I would say a cruise is a great intro to the islands to find out which island you want to spend more time on next time. The trouble is I can never make up my mind which is my favorite island. Right now I think I want to try Molokai, but it won't happen this trip as we leave on Summit in a few weeks for fourteen days to Hawaii. Oh well, maybe next time will be land!

Originally Posted by Ziggy7

We would like to cruise to Hawaii but friends of ours are trying to convince us that a land tour is better. Of those of you who have cruised to Hawaii once, whats your thoughts about this ???

I've never cruised to Hawaii, but have been there on land vacations 4 times, my most recent being November 24th -Dec 3rd 2005. Hawaii impresses me as a destination for a land vacation as there are so many places to explore. We stayed on the island of Kauai, on our last trip there and even though I'd been there twice before, there were so much had not seen before as I did a one day fly/drive. Maui is another island that I enjoyed. Oahu (Honolulu), Hawaii (big island) and Molokai are all good to explore. One thing I found out on this last trip is the fly/drive deals that were available in the 90's are no longer available anymore. I recall paying $99 for a round trip flight and car rental to each island from Honolulu. Last November, it cost us $396 RT in flights and $90 in rental car costs to two islands from Lihue, Kauai.
On the other hand, I can see that it would be extremely nice to see the islands by sea. Problem is you don't have the amount of time to see and enjoy each island. I am not a big fan of spending 5 days at sea, so I would fly to Honolulu and sail from there.

Have cruised to Hawaii and have taken land vacations.

Much prefer the land vacation as you can spend as much time as you want in Kona, Honolulu, etc.

The cruise was nice but we only got to spend so much time in each port which limits you to the number of excursions that you can do.

You'll see a lot more if you do the land vacation - the first time we went for 2 weeks. The second time for 3 weeks.

Our last 2 trips were 3 weeks, as is our next one in 2007. Two weeks just wasn't enough. We do 3 islands with condos. Big Island, Maui and Kauai, in that order.
Although cruising Hawaii would be great, it will only leave you wanting more.