This was a bucket list cruise for my wife which included our wedding anniversary so a lot of thought and planning went into it or so we thought. It turned out our anniversary was on the day we crossed the international date line and thus disappeared!

We rented a house in Honolulu for 8 days before boarding and for those who say the island is not worth spending time on I would refute that. We traveled about the island every day swimming at different beaches, snorkeled Hanauma Bay twice. We climbed Diamond Head, ate off food trucks had Moco Loco, attended a Hawaii University football game shopped the flea market at the stadium hunted down Macadamia pie and generally had a great time. We did not venture into or have time for Waikiki.

We booked an Aqua Class A1 deck 11 aft cabin after careful consideration of a number of factors from being on the top aft of the ship in potential rough seas to the price of the cabins in addition to reviewing some truly frightening reviews of the ship and itinerary on CC. Read more