We flew into Honolulu a day early (if you have the time I highly recommend doing that). We live in Northern Michigan and by the time we got to our Hotel room we were exhausted. I was so glad we didn't have to go straight to embarkation - I didn't know how much patience that would require. We had the cruise line make our air reservations and book us at the Waikiki Marriott for Friday (now I wish we'd come even earlier). We bought transfers to the Hotel from the cruise line and I don't recommend that. It took them 2 hours to drive us from the Airport to the Hotel - we waited for passengers - we waited while they drove everyone else in the bus to a different location - we were too tired for that and would have been a lot happier paying someone to take us directly to the Hotel. The Marriott is gorgeous - high rise - lots of amenities - right in Waikiki and we had a gorgeous view.

Because we had the pre-cruise hotel room thru the cruise line at the Marriott - they took our luggage right from our room to the ship for us and also gave us a shuttle ride to the ship and we got to use a special Marriott line for embarkation which was much shorter than the regular one. So - that made embarkation a breeze.

We had a balcony cabin - which I recommend for this Cruise especially and the cabin was really nice. Lots of clever places to put things - a comfortable bed and I loved the balcony. It was covered and it was not hanging over the edge of the boat - there was deck below - the deck was on 6 and we were on 8 so I felt like if I somehow fell off - I could survive. Read more