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Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

Thanks. We appreciate the feedback.

Our trip to Hawaii was in October. The weather was fantastic.

We hope you have a great cruise! We booked excursions each day except for one day in Kauai where we rented a car and explored on our own. It was our first visit to Hawaii and we found excursions that enabled us to see some of the must-do things. However, we may do a bit more exploring on our own if we are lucky enough to return. As for the ship & entertainment, we enjoyed meals onboard, saw a comedy show one night, and enjoyed a fun show led by the cruise director another evening. After exploring the islands, most nights some light entertainment was enough. On other cruises we've done, the onboard entertainment has had a bit more to offer in terms of production shows or music. But for this itinerary, what was offered was OK. Hope that helps.

Glad it was helpful.

Sounds like an adventure. We'd love to cruise there and have our eye on a Hawaii + Alaska combo cruise at some point in the future. Can't speak to what this passage will be like as we haven't done it yet. To get less motion, we try to book a stateroom that is in the center of the ship, preferably on a lower deck. We did encounter some larger waves on a Caribbean cruise. In that case, we used motion sickness medicine, ate light & ate some ginger candy, and took it easy. Remember to have one hand for the ship and one for you. Here are two videos where cruisers described their experience. Hope these help. Cruise with Ben and David: th-cam.com/video/Qhb5ctzuZWE/w-d-xo.html Very unOfficial Travel Guide: th-cam.com/video/B_MBbqB00LA/w-d-xo.html And here is one on how to avoid seasickness from Life Well Cruised th-cam.com/video/UKlmgRfUL-o/w-d-xo.html Good luck with your cruise and let us know how it goes.

Glad you enjoyed it!

If you are asking about the cost of the shore excursions, we thought that the offerings and price may change over time so didn't include that information. For the latest info, your best bet might be to use the NCL shore excursion finder at: www.ncl.com/shore-excursions/search?destination=Hawaii+Cruises Hope that helps.

Thanks for the questions. We are sorry to hear about your experience with excursions when your cruise got rescheduled. It would have been great for NCL to offer to book the excursions for you when they booked the new cruise dates. This might be were working with a great travel agent could be helpful. We did book excursions for our Pride of America cruise through NCL. For us, that worked well and we appreciate the assurance that they won't leave port without you. However, many people do choose to book through other tour companies. The excursions we did were all run by people other than NCL even though we booked them on the NCL website. From what we have experienced on other cruises, that seems pretty standard. In terms of availability, there are a variety of excursions. We did see that at least one of the excursions sold out. If you are flexible you'll probably be able to find some interesting options. Our tip is not to wait until the last day to try to book. Another option is to explore on your own. That can give you more flexibility. We did that on one of the days in Kauai. Rental cars are available from the airport which is fairly close to the cruise terminal. We might do a bit more of that if we are lucky enough to visit Hawaii again. But we liked having the tour guides who helped us see many things we might have otherwise missed. Not sure we can tell you what option is best for you. However, here are two articles that might be helpful. Tips for Travelers: www.tipsfortravellers.com/cruise-line-excursions/ Cruise Critic: www.cruisecritic.com/articles/ship-sponsored-or-independent-shore-excursions-which-is-right-for-you Hope you have a great cruise.

Great recommendation and we agree. For a trip like this, trip insurance is a must-have item.

Appreciate the feedback and your question. Our tour included the museum area and a boat ride to the Arizona Memorial. We did not have the opportunity to visit Ford Island and Hickam Field. However, it appears that you can book a bus tour to Ford Island at Recreation.gov www.nps.gov/perl/ford-island-bus-tour.htm

Awesome. We hope you enjoy your visit to Powhatan State Park - it is one of our favorites for a quiet weekend. We just tried one of the interpretive ranger walks they added this year and it was very interesting.

Thanks for the great question. Many travel trailers come prewired for a backup camera. There is a power cable that you connect during installation which ties into the campers 12 volt power. When we use the camera, we have our camper plugged in to the power from the 7-pin trailer connector on the truck. Turning on the truck's lights turns on the running lights and backup camera on the camper. Hope that helps.

Thanks for the question. The battery I have used is from Jackery but it is unfortunately no longer available. Garmin recommends using using one of their constant power or parking mode cables. Garmin help article at: support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=16JHZTTniZ66tr4NvYzgd5 The Garmin Constant Power cable can be plugged into your vehicle's OBD port and might be a relatively inexpensive option to ensure power to the dashcam.

@@traveltrailsail Thank you for your reply 😎 I just bought a Garmin Dash Cam 57, and thought it would be easier/safer to use a power bank instead of hard wiring it to my new car’s electrical system.

Thanks for the feedback. We'll keep learning and working to make future videos better.

Thanks for the feedback. We hope you have a great cruise!

Glad you found the review helpful. Appreciate the idea! Thanks.

We hope you have a great first cruise!

Thank you. Appreciate the positive feedback.

Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it. We can't wait to camp here again.

Great question. Overall, we are glad we used excursions as they made things easy. Our guides helped us see the best sights and provided an explanation for what we were seeing. Many do this trip on their own by renting cars. If you do some planning and are OK with renting a car and ensuring you return on time, you could explore on your own. When we return, we'll probably still do a few excursions. Since we have a better feel for the islands, we would likely do a bit more exploring on our own We felt like we could have easily done Pearl Harbor on our own. We'd likely try to use a shuttle or just rent a car for the day. The hotels we stayed at charge quite a bit to park a car. We did rent a car one day on Kauai to explore Waimea Canyon and visit Kauai Coffee. We think this gave us more time at the canyon and more flexibility over the offered excursion. Getting to the car rental location here was pretty easy. A daytime visit to Haleakala could likely be done on your own. There are two days on Maui so doing this on day one would maybe take the pressure off from missing the ship. However, we did the Haleakala sunset and appreciated having a skilled driver coming down the mountain after dark. On the big island, you may be able to do some exploring at Volcanoes National Park on your own. However, we did appreciate having a good guide. You could probably do a Luau on your own for day one of Kauai. It looks like they sell tickets with transportation if you prefer to book this on your own if you opt not to get a car. We are glad we didn't try to do the Road to Hana on our own. It would have been a long day and might have been less fun if we had to do all the driving. As they say, your mileage may vary. I hope that helps. Let us know how you do the trip. We'd love to hear about your experience.

We are happy to be helpful. Thanks for letting us know it was useful.

Awesome! 2026 will be here before you know it. Hope you have a great adventure.

Awesome! Sounds like you had a great time. Thanks for sharing. We also enjoyed visiting all the islands and experiencing great foods like shave ice. Appreciate hearing about your experience and your tips.

Thank you for sharing your experience. We hope your next bucket list adventure is a good one.

Sounds like you are getting a great trip planned. We hope you have a great time! Maybe someday we'll do a cruise from the West Coast to Hawaii but this one from NCL that focused on just Hawaii was great.

My cruise back in 1982 on a different ship and line that is no longer there, was befor costco but I heard the cheap place was Walgreens right across the street from Waikiki beach. Also some of the beest and cheapest food options for me. I went as a single cruiser and went cheapest rate as a guarentee share that was bumped up a single room. Fun.I agree go early to see the sights of Oahu. You may never be back. My dad had been on Oahu during WW2 and said how much he loved it. At that time only the The Pink Hotel was on the beach. I went into the lobby and took a picture just for my dad. I wished I would have booked a stay after to. Good tips.

Glad it was helpful!

We were on deck nine. Toward the aft (rear) of the ship, there are a group of rooms that are shifted out a bit from the middle rooms. They are 9666-9696. These rooms have easy access to stairs and elevators. In addition to a great view, these rooms seemed pretty quiet. On deck 9, you have staterooms above and below. Since they are aft of the stairs you are less likely to have people walking in the hallway outside your room. Hope that helps.

@@traveltrailsail great. Im booked in this same block of rooms. EXCITED!

Appreciate the feedback and the request. We try to share accessibility information and will work to get better at it. On this review, we pointed out the tight bathroom entry but failed to mention that there is an accessible bathroom nearby. In addition to the pool lift, what kinds of things do you find most helpful to know?

Thanks for the question. Short answer - I think Uber would work for your ride to the port. Longer answer. We had arranged shuttles & taxis for our transportation between the airport, hotels, and cruise terminal. Those generally worked well. However, we did have a few issues. When we ran into an issue with our shuttle from the port to Aulani, we used Lyft and it worked great. And, the Lyft ride, similar to Uber, ended up being less expensive than the transportation we had arranged. Since you asked specifically about Uber, you may want to check out this article from Uber on transportation in Honolulu. www.uber.com/global/en/r/cities/honolulu-hi-us/ Hope that helps.

We hope you have a great cruise! We thought a balcony was a great option. We entered ports early in the morning and the balcony enabled us to enjoy watching the view of the islands and port before heading to breakfast. Either side is probably OK. You'll often have a view of working ports meaning you may see containers and shipping activity. In Kuai, the port side seemed to have a much better view. We also selected port so that we could better enjoy the Na Pali coast. However, on our cruise, we left later port later in the day and did not get to experience that view.

@traveltrailsail Thanks so much for your reply. Your video popped up on my recommendations and I really found all your videos on your cruise very helpful and enjoyable. Hope you make it back to Hawaii soon.

Oh, and I subscribed to your channel so I don't miss your newest adventures.

Thank you. We appreciate the feedback and support.

Thanks. Good call out. Nice to see those lines also fly the US flag. Maybe we'll have to try a cruise on one of them someday.

Sounds tasty. Good luck with the roasting.

Glad it was helpful. We hope you enjoy your trip! And...Go Tigers!

Thanks for the feedback. We hope you enjoy your cruise and visit to Hawaii.

Appreciate the feedback. Glad it was helpful.

Thank you so much. We are glad you enjoyed it.

I wish I had a clear answer for you. We didn't leave the ship at night. However, I'm pretty sure I have heard that you can come and go from the ship anytime during the two overnight port stays in Maui and Kauai. Unfortunately, like you, I wasn't able to find an official confirmation. I checked through out Freestyle Daily's, too, but they didn't provide anything specific. We hope you enjoy your cruise.

@@traveltrailsail I have totally enjoyed you videos. Booked a car and we are going for sunrise! Mahalo

Good luck with the sunrise. Sounds great! We'd love to hear how it goes.

Good luck. Hope your job on the Pride of America is fantastic.

We had three nights in Waikiki, seven nights on the cruise, and then two nights at Aulani. We highly recommend arriving 2-3 nights before the cruise if you are travelling from a long distance. The post-cruise stay was a nice addition and gave us a chance to see a different part of the island. Keep in mind that travel time may add to the total time you need for your vacation. Hope that helps.

Thank you so much for all of this help!! I have written down so many things from your videos. We are going to check out the exact hotels y'all used even.

Glad the information we shared was helpful. Did you book your trip? We can't wait to hear about it. Hope you have a great vacation!

The rate for the Waikiki Beach Marriott is just listed as "Ocean View King Room with Breakfast". The breakfast was great. We also used the resort's beach chair program which allowed us to use two Tommy Bahama beach chairs for our day at the beach. Overall, we really liked our stay here. A few additional things to consider. In addition to the room rate and taxes, this hotel does have a daily resort fee. Our room was booked by our travel agent when she booked the cruise. Unfortunately, the way it was booked meant we did not earn Marriott points for our stay. You may want to consider booking it on your own if you frequently stay at Marriott hotels.

Great information -thank you very much!!

Thanks for your questions. We appreciate it. Free at Sea is a promotional rate offered by NCL. We found it worked well for us as the things it included were things were a good fit for us. On prior cruises, we would typically have a bill for things like gratuities, dining, and beverages. While we likely didn't get the maximum value out of all of the perks, it was great to have no surprise bill at the end of the cruise. The alternative is to book a basic cruise. NCL calls that a sailaway rate. It appears that with that rate, you may get the lowest fare but you may not be able to select your stateroom. To find out how much Free at Sea costs, I guess the best thing would be to price out the cruise two ways. Once with selecting your room and including Free at Sea. Then try it a second time with the basic rate plus gratuities. To that, add on things you are likely to do such as purchase water, soda, a glass of wine with dinner, etc. While that isn't an easy answer to how much it costs, I hope that helps.

This is the perfect answer. Thank you so much!

Absolutely. It is a great spot to camp by the water.