Pride of America Review
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Pre-Cruise In Honolulu
We left home on Thursday for the Saturday sailing of the Pride of America. Because of the length of the trip from Wisconsin and the five-hour time difference, we figured we would need some recovery time on Oahu before the cruise. Also, we had some things we wanted to do in Honolulu, such as see the chapel where we were married at Fort Shafter forty years ago, and to see the Pagoda Hotel where we stayed at that time. It turned out the Army tore the chapel down and was in the process of putting up a headquarters on this very high site with great views of the ocean. And, the hotel now has a Wal-Mart a block away.
Before we left home we signed up for the Thrifty car rental Blue Chip program, made rental arrangements at five cruise stops, and used a discount code which we got online. Thrifty has the best pricing in Hawaii. They are located with Dollar in several locations, but the pricing is different. Our cost in Honolulu was about $28 per day plus taxes for a Chrysler Sebring four-door. We used their "Wild Car" program, which provides their choice of a mid-size or larger car at favorable rates. The cars we rented included Chrysler Sebrings, a Dodge Charger, and a Jeep Rubicon. Reserving ahead of time and the Blue Chip program are musts for use in Hawaii. The rental sites were jammed with people in every location. Their site on Kalakaua Avenue in Honolulu had long lines of people standing in the sun all day long. With the Blue Chip program you give your name to the shuttle driver and they have the car ready for you when you get to the rental site, which has a separate line for Blue Chip card holders. We paid an extra $30 in Honolulu so we could leave the car downtown, rather than return it to the airport. The downtown location provides a pier shuttle at the top of the hour. The radios in the Thrifty cars are set to a radio station, KINE, with a great playlist of Hawaiian music. Here's a link to their music-streaming site, http://hawaiian105.com/, which should be good background music for planning cruises.