We’re not a Cruise Couple (only once previously) and this is not a comparison of Cruise Lines. This is an attempt to present our experience on a Cruise of the Hawaiian Islands to help you plan for this vacation option.

With a visit to the Hawaiian Islands as one of our Bucket List items, the question was how to see as much as we could in a short period of time. We settled on flying to Honolulu, where we stayed for 3 nights at the Aston Waikiki Beach hotel before cruising to the islands of Maui, Hawaii and Kuai for the next 7 nights. Only Norwegian Cruise Lines offered a multi island cruise departing from Honolulu. We signed up for shore excursions at every port, except Honolulu, through NCL and well in advance to assure availability. Quick summary, it was great.

We arrived on Oahu on Wednesday, 3 days prior to sailing, and took only one tour – The Roberts Stars and Stripes tour of the Arizona Memorial, the Battleship Missouri, the Punchbowl and downtown Honolulu. This tour had been arranged, in advance, by our travel agent. Read more