5 Most Exciting Excursions Norwegian 7-day Hawaii Cruise
Vložit
- čas přidán 21. 07. 2024
- This video highlights the top 5 most exciting excursions for the Norwegian 7-day round-trip Hawaii cruise vacation. Much of the video credit is from the NCL website excursion videos.
0:00 Introduction
0:45 View List of Excursions
2:21 Honorable Mention: Atlantis Submarine in Kona, Hawaii
3:10 Luau Kalamaku on Nawiliwili, Kaua'i
4:06 Volcanoes National Park Port: Hilo, Hawaii
4:44 Big Island Snorkel on Kona, Hawaii
5:17 Road to Hana on Kahului, Maui
6:13 Mokihana Helicopter on Nawiliwili, Kaua'i
6:50 Outro
Just did this cruise with my family last week. Will leave my impressions of outings at each stop.
Day one Maui, Bicycle ride down Haleakala, a bit disappointing because the company NCL uses doesn't go to the top of the volcano crater, only one company has a contract with the Park Service for the top of the crater. The staff were very friendly, felt very well taken care of. One stop for snack or shopping, The day my son and I went it was a little cold, rainy and cloudy, still some very nice views and a good time overall, but probably least enjoyable excursion overall. Total time about 5 hours At the time nothing to compare it to.
Day 2 Maui, Lanai Snorkeling, NCL's excursion sold out. So my son daughter and myself booked with PACWhale, which is the Pacific Whale Foundation. Less expensive than through NCL, but you have to get either a rental car or an Uber to Lahaina 35-45 minute drive from NCL port. We used an Uber so cost was probably comparable to NCL for three people with a free at sea excursion discount for the first person. The crew through PacWhale is amazing, the head tour guide has a degree in Marine Chemistry, one of the other crew I spoke with has a degree in Marine Biology. Everybody knew their stuff! Nice breakfast included, good instruction on the mask on snorkel, the dive site has excellent visibility on the day we went, but not an over abundance of marine life. I only saw a couple of small schools of fish, mostly singles. Depth varied from about 25 to 60 feet of water. About an hour and a half of total time in the water. My daughter got a little cold and quit early. Saw a few beautiful Moorish Idols, and I saw a Black Tipped Reef Shark (about 6 feet in length) but I was the only one who saw the shark as it took off for open water ( I saw it for about 30 seconds). Had a nice lunch after the snorkel, the marine biologist I spoke of earlier gave an overview of the fish we saw with a colorized photo description of many of the fish. Another crew member gave a history of a couple of the landmarks at Lanai. The highlight was on the way back we saw a mother and calf Humpback whale, this was in mid May so very late for Humpbacks still to be in Hawaiian waters. Crew felt calf was probably a late birth for them to be still in Hawaii. Total time about 7 hours including the drive time, roughly five and a half hours on the boat. I highly endorse this excursion!
Day 3 Hilo, My sister, son and daughter and myself rented a jeep (less than $125) and went to the top of Mauna Kea, 45-60 minute drive. Wear a jacket and have at least sunglasses. Mauna Kea is at 13,800 feet at the summit, you have to stop at the visitor center (I think about 8500-9000 feet, sorry I can't remember exactly), and acclimate for 45 minutes to the altitude. Only 4 wheel drive vehicles can summit and you are given instructions by a park ranger before being allowed to summit. If the day is clear at the top, which it was for us, the views are breath taking. It was 42 degrees with sustained winds of 50 mph with gusts above 70 mph thus the need for glasses. My son didn't wear sunglasses and had to wash volcano grit out of his eyes at the summit. I also had a bit of grit in one of my eyes with glasses on. At one point I walked about 200 yards to both get a better view and get behind one of the several observatory buildings to get out of the wind a bit and felt dizzy/lightheaded. No shortness of breath, but be warned you are at altitude! My sister and daughter only lasted about 5 minutes outside of the vehicle due to the cold. After the descent back to the visitor center the ranger wants to visually check each person in the vehicle for altitude sickness, and they check the temperature of your vehicle's brakes before allowing you to descend farther. At the time we returned to the visitor center traffic was closed to the summit because of the high winds. We then went to Volcano National Park and saw the Kilauea steaming no lava, but heavy mist not a great view, there were some steam vents you could look into and smell the sulphur and feel the heat from, not as interesting as the vents in Yellowstone for comparison, and also went through a large lava tube. The flora around the park is dense and verdant and quite impressive. Norwegian cruise line offers tours to both of these sites but you couldn't do both in one day as we did. Too me Mauna Kea is much more impressive than Volcano National Park and I highly endorse this excursion. We did see the van that took the NCL excursion to the top of Mauna Kea at the same time we were at the summit. Total time about 8 hours, we were about half an ahead of the end of boarding returning to the ship.
Day 4 Kona, My son and I went deep sea fishing through NCL excursion, there were a maximum of 6 guests to a boat, only 11 people signed up for this excursion so there were two boats with only NCL cruise guests on board. Each person on board caught one fish. 4 Yellowfin tuna and 2 Mahimahi. A crew of two the captain and a first mate/deckhand. Both were vastly experienced and we spent the majority of the time fishing for Marlin but alas. My son actually had 3 strikes but some Rough Toothed dolphins took two of the yellowfin he had on the line. So technically he caught a fish and a half. There is a local Sea Turtle in the harbor and you can see it quite close up. Total time 5-5.5 hours I highly recommend this excursion! I'm not sure why it was so sparsely attended.
Day 5 Kuai, the four of us rented a car (see day 3 above) and explored around the island, we went to the Costco and bought some Macadamia nuts and Hawaiian chocolate bars, saw some nearby falls and went to the Marriot hotel very close to the cruise ship that had a very nice beach and a botanical garden with a pond that had an abundance of large Koi. Kuai is very lush and it was rainy or overcast through most of the day. We did not go to the Luau, we (my parents and the myself and kids went to the Brazilian Steakhouse on the ship) I can't comment on it other than that were incredibly long lines for the Luau as we returned to the ship.
Day 6 My son took the rental car early 6:00 am and drove all over the island by himself. he had some great pictures from the Western coast of Kuai, the Napoli coast and the Grand Canyon of Hawaii. I hung on the ship with the rest of my family nothing more to report for day 6.
Day 7 Honolulu, disembarkation. We rented a suburban to hold out luggage and went to Pearl Harbor. There is a nominal fee for parking, but a boat ride and solemn tour of the Arizona Memorial is free. We also toured the battleship Missouri which does have a fee. Both were quite interesting. NCL does have tout that includes both of these, but seem rather expensive in comparison to what we did. Probably spent 5-6 hours at Pearl Harbor total.
That's it! Hopefully this is helpful. Have a great trip! David
Awesome review! Thank you for sharing the details with us, David! :)
My Pleasure!
i don’t know why so many ppl do ship excursions. most of them can be done on your own faster and for less money. i have learned after my first cruise to ONLY book with the cruise line if your destination is far from the ship and your on a tight time crunch, otherwise just go it alone, i feel it’s a much better experience that is normally cheaper and a shorter amount of time, that’s my personal opinion anyway but i’m happy you had a fun time
Great video keep them coming
Thanks, John! Will do :)
Very good video brother
Thank you, my man. I appreciate it.
I am booked for this cruise in May. POST COVID (I hope and pray). They are cruising again soon. Maybe you could take the cruise again. (Soon so I can watch before I cruise near the end of May.) Many people are booking cruises now, and would love to see a comparison of 2019 vs 2022.
We are too
My wife and I are actually hoping to do an Alaska cruise this summer. I'd love to do the Hawaii cruise again but probably not in the cards for us any time soon :(. I'd love to hear how it goes for you!
are the excursion pick ups near the ship? are there different time slots to pick from?
Yeah if you book an excursion through the ship they'll make sure you have transportation from the ship. If you book from another place besides the cruise you'd usually be responsible to arrive at the excursion point.
For the Road to Hana, how long do you get to spend at these places that you would stop at? Like the black beach, do we have time to go swimming etc.. Also, for the helicopter tour, do they pick you up at the Port and then drive you where you get onto the helicopter? If it only lasts 2 hours, I would assume they take you back to the Port in which you only wasted probably 3 hours. Did you book everything through Norwegian or is it cheaper to book directing with the people?
We booked everything through Norwegian. It is more convenient, but probably slightly more expensive. We didn't do the helicopter tour but I'm quite confident a shuttle would be provided if you booked through Norwegian. I'm not exactly sure about how much time you have on the road to Hana drive, since we did not do that one ourselves. This video has a few more details about Hana: www.ncl.com/jp/en/shore-excursions/OGG_07/Road-to-Hana.
from what i read about the road to hana it’s hard to say if you’ll have time, it really depends how long you stay at each stop and now often you stop. if you want to spend 2 hours at the black beach and not stop for that long on other stops then you will prob have time. the road to hana is prob best on the first port day in maui since the ship is there all night so you don’t have to worry about rushing back or missing it
I'm booked for next May. I don't like taking excursions that the ship sells. How easy is it to just take an Uber to the beach at the different ports?
So easy. Uber and Lyft were all over the place and we took them a lot from the ports. We took an Uber to Carlsmith beach, actually, from the port. I think that was on Maui if I remember right.
Sailing POA on Feb. 29. Do you have on thoughts on the Gold Coast and Cloud Forest excursion?
Thanks for your comment, Gerald! I did not have the opportunity to go on that excursion, but here is a review from somebody that did. Perhaps you will find it useful. www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60583-d1752097-r189895782-KapohoKine_Adventures-Hilo_Island_of_Hawaii_Hawaii.html
@@conciseisnice Thanks
@@geraldwalker7609 You're very welcome! Best of luck on your cruise!
For the luau, is all the seating good to see the show?
Hi, Nadia! Yes, all the tables have pretty good seating to see the show. Each table is round and seats about 10 people, so if you are seated with your back to the stage you'll simply have to turn your chair around to see the performance. But the performance takes place primarily on a center stage in the middle of all the tables, with some of the action taking place in the crowd areas.
Utter Practicality thanx!!