We go to The Big Island twice a year and stay on the Kona side. This year we decided to cruise to the Islands rather than fly. It took getting used to not having any internet while we were at sea but we got used to relaxing, learning about art, learning about the islands from presentations from a naturalist, laughing with comedian Steve Caouette and meeting new people. Our first stop in Hilo. we enjoyed the Land of Fire and Ice excursion but made the mistake of eating at a food truck during our break for a quick lunch. My husband got horrible food poisoning that reared it's ugly head that evening. Our room steward told me to report it to the medical staff immediately so they could help him. BIG MISTAKE!! The put my husband in quarantine in our room! So we were unable to make our pre-paid planned excursion to Pearl Harbor & Mighty Mo and the following day's excursion on Maui. If I had just packed Imodium, we could have treated his food poisoning on our own and not involved the ship's medical staff!! We are new to cruising so we didn't know the complications of notifying the medical staff of such a treatable illness. LESSON LEARNED. At least Princess refunded our cost of excursions and paid for a lovely dinner at The Crown Grille for my husband and I for our inconveniences.

We still enjoyed this cruise immensely. We would much rather stop on the Kona side of the Big Island but liked all of the other stops and felt the amount of time spent at each island was a good amount of time. I think we will try booking our own day trips rather than use Princess's excursions now that we know there are options.

Princess handles the embarkation and disembarkation very organized and it works very well as long as the passengers pay attention to the directions given. Our room steward left a print out with instructions of how to proceed on the the day of disembarkation that made it all so easy. We were amazed there were still people who didn't know what to do! There were luggage porters available when we got our luggage making it easier to get our luggage to our car in the terminal. Read more