Here are my notes and Penny's interlaced with mine, regarding our cruise of Hawaii. This note was sent to a friend of a friend:
"Blue Hawaii Helicopter was great. We purchased the dvd of our in-flight conversation, sites, etc Think Blue Hawaii Helicopter was available on all the islands. We took our trip on Kauia. Was wonderful and would highly recommend it. Ray booked it online from our hotel in Honolulu, I think, and saved a bunch of money.
Rental cars cost about $35-$45 per day. We thought they were worth it and driving was easy. If you are sharing the cost with a friend, then I'd also rent car company's navigational unit if you don't have your own. They really do a good job in getting you where you want to go. Rental cars were easy to use. At every port, except Kona, there were shuttles running back and forth to the airport to pick up the rental cars on a regular basis. The airports were only about 10-15 minutes away from the docks. Think the airport at Kona is farther away and I did not see any shuttles. We rented from Hertz in Hilo and the return shuttle was only a small van. There were too many people waiting to return to the ship so we couldn't get on a van back. Had plenty of time but Ray was concerned that the next van many also be overcrowded. No problem! Ray just went up to Thrifty shuttle and asked if her was going back to the ship. He told us that he was and a bunch of us went with him. He didn't ask, and didn't seem to care, whether we had rented from Thrifty. Ray called from cell phone (no reception problems) and reserved our cars. Think he used AAA and got a discount. Don't remember if we used Hertz all the time but the ship uses Alamo I believe. We did notice that there was a long line to pick up Alamo cars when we got to the airport at Hilo.
To us, the food on the ship was not all that good but is passable. Next time we'd eat more meals off the ship. We didn't find food to be as expensive as we thought it would be. This was probably our biggest disappointment. However, as Ray said, there are plenty of alternatives. We had the rental car overnight in Kauia and on the second day we just left early on the second morning and had a great breakfast on the way. As Ray said, we didn't really think that eating out on the islands was excessively expensive.
Specialty Rest. on ship. Cagney's is rated high but the night we were there wasn't worth it to us. We asked a couple seated next to us and they agreed with our assessment. Meal cost us $20 pp. We really enjoyed the Japanese specialty rest. Tapigniap??? Can't remember how to spell it! Anyway, I agree, well worth the $10 or $15 surcharge. They do have assigned seating times - 5pm/7pm/9pm I believe - so, if you plan to do this may want to choose a night/time when you know you will be on board and not participating in any activity. I know that this one books up quickly as it has limited seating. As soon as you get on the ship, start making reservations for the specialty restaurants as they tend to fill up fast.
Zero tolerance for bringing on your own spirits, except for wine and you pay a $15 corkage fee per bottle. If you don't finish the bottle during a dinner they will keep it for you, send it to your room, or whatever you want. They have a good system. We ordered 5 bottles of wine on the day we boarded (they had a wine waitress available in the Atrium - or whatever NCL calls their lobby). We could have had them sent to our room or they would hold them for us. We elected to have them hold them for us. Whatever restaurant we chose to eat in we just showed our receipt and told them which bottle of wine they wanted and they brought it to our table. If we did not finish the bottle they would either cork it and save it for us or deliver it to our room. We elected to have it delivered to our room and it was there ahead of us. (Think we went to a show so they did have a little time.)
We enjoyed the shows on board."
To view our albums of Hawaii, go to:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Signin.jsp?UV=437821501871_939337764110 sign in: cruise@yahoo.com p/w: cc
click on "My Albums" and then go to Page 3. You'll also see some of my albums on "My Friends Albums" approx. page 5, showing Hilo, Kona, Kuaui.
Cheers! Ray
