My dear Hawaii sisters ....

[agdbirmingham]

Well my husband and I are considering visiting Hawaii in the next year or so (thanks to our lovely travel voucher we just won, yippee!!). Anyways, we've never been to Hawaii and we've never been on a cruise so we were thinking of going on a cruise around the Islands.

BUT we're afraid if we do that instead of just going to Hawaii that we'll miss out on a lot of things. My husband has limited vacation so it would be difficult to do both. Do you think we would still experience Hawaii by just taking a cruise? Any Hawaii experts out there?

You've come to the right place.

May I ask which cruise line you're considering for your vacation? The ones I'm somewhat familiar with (NCL, Pride of Aloha, etc.) spend at least 2-3 days in each port. Oahu is beautiful, but I love getting away to the Neighbor Islands because I think it's there that you can really truly get away from it all.

IMO, 2-3 days in each port (Honolulu, probably either Kona/Hilo on the Big Island, either Wailuku/Lahaina/Kahului on Maui, and then Lihue on Kauai) is pretty much enough time to sightsee, go to a luau, hit the beach, go shopping, take in a show, etc.

I have never been on a cruise within the islands, as most locals just island hop via interisland flights, but I'm sure it'll be fun and much cheaper than airfare/hotel on each island.

Hopefully hawaiiagd can chime in...she's had experience in the tourism industry!

[agdbirmingham]

I figured I came to right place, I knew I had a lot of GREAT sisters in Hawaii

We actually haven't looked into any cruise lines yet. That's our next project. We were just trying to get a feel if it was even a good idea or if it would be better to just go and stay on a few of the islands.

I didn't realize that some of the cruises would spend a few days in each port. That's great! That would probably be perfect for us. I've only done a little research so far and it looked like the ones I found only spent a day or less at each port and most of the time at the sea which is why we were afraid we would miss out on a lot.

The other problem is that because of our schedules we would probably have to go sometime in between this October through next February which sounds like the rainy "season". How much rain are we talking about here? Is this a really bad time to go?

Thanks for all your help!!!

Honestly, we don't have a real rainy "season". It's usually hit or miss when it comes to the weather. In the past two or three years or so, we've had crazy rains in January/March -- but things can change in the matter of days because we got those wonderful things called tradewinds that mean either mean beautiful days or disaster! On a regular rainy day, we don't have the rains for more than 2, 3 days tops. Sometimes it just lasts a day. Like I said, you never know with our weather...but 85% of the year it's at least 80 some degrees outside!

I can't remember who else does interisland cruises, but I know NCL's Pride of Aloha offers 7, 10, or 11 day packages where they promise more time ashore than afloat. It only takes a few hours to get from one island to another, so you might want to take that into consideration when shopping around.

Because October-February is considered "off peak", you might also want to look into discounted air/land/car packages if you choose not to go the cruise route.

[agdbirmingham]

Thank you VERY much for all the info! You've got me so excited about going on a cruise or to Hawaii that I'm not sure how we're going to wait until the end of the year!!! I think we're fairly set now on going to Hawaii (either cruise or by land). We may look into a south pacific cruise, but the flight over there sounds way too long!!!! THanks again so much!