Was the Cruisetour Worth it?
When you search on Norwegian Cruise Line’s website for cruises in Hawaii there are a few options that come up. The main ship is the Pride of America which sails every week from Honolulu to Maui, the Big Island and Kauai before returning to Honolulu. When you book the Pride of America you can book the 7-day Hawaii Cruise by itself or as part of the 11-day Oahu Explorer Cruisetour. This was the first visit to Hawaii for my family (me, husband, two elementary age kids). We decided to go big and book the Cruisetour after we saw that it included the major places we wanted to visit: Dole Plantation, Polynesian Cultural Center, Pearl Harbor and Kuoloa Ranch.
When you book the Cruisetour with Pride of America you are provided three nights in the Hyatt Regency Waikiki (you book either standard or ocean view room). You then have two full days of touring and a partial day before you board the ship. One reason we booked the Cruisetour was definitely the convenience of it. We liked the idea of a bus taking us to each attraction, the driver handing us tickets and then picking us up again. We didn’t want to worry about finding our way around the island. Also, if we drove, we thought the driver of the car would miss out on seeing a lot of the scenery.
The hotel stay with the Cruisetour starts on Wednesday before your cruise. We actually arrived a day early on Tuesday and I’m so glad we did. It gave us a full day to adjust and explore. Once the Cruisetour starts you are kept very busy. Knowing we were arriving a day before our reservation I simply booked a one-night stay at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki for the same room category. I called a few weeks before to let them know we had two reservations, and they linked them, so we didn’t have to move during our visit. It worked out great!
The first full day of the Cruisetour is Thursday when you meet on the first floor of the hotel, where the shops are, to get assigned to a bus driver. There were 4 buses full of Pride of America guests. We were assigned to Lehua, and she was great! We arrived at the Dole Plantation around 9:30 and only had 45 minutes. It was only enough time to purchase a Dole Whip or another food item and to shop. We were sad that we couldn’t do the train ride. From Dole we drove north to the Polynesian Cultural Center. Lehua shared a lot of information about the pineapple industry and the North Shore as well as background of the Polynesian Cultural Center.
Once we arrived at the Polynesian Cultural Center, she gave us the tip to get lunch at a restaurant or one of the food trucks outside before going in. My family ate at a food truck and then got to the entrance right before the gates to the Polynesian Cultural Center opened. We watched the opening show and then went off to explore the many villages inside. At 4:15 we had to be back on the bus. It definitely wasn’t enough time to see everything, but we made sure to do something at each village. About half of our bus had made arrangements to stay later at the Polynesian Cultural Center to watch some of their evening entertainment. They had to arrange their own way back to the hotel. I heard they didn’t get back until after 10pm, which certainly would have made it tough to get up the next day. We made it back to the hotel around 6pm. It was a long drive, and we stopped at some spots downtown, but very scenic with the ocean to one side of the bus.
The second day of the Cruisetour (Friday) was a very early morning. Some people decided to skip since they had been out late. We had to be on the bus by 7am! For breakfast we walked a few minutes down the block to McDonalds since it is open 24 hours. We then boarded the bus for the trip to Pearl Harbor. This trip took us through a different area of Honolulu, and we were told a lot of information about the city and the battle of Pearl Harbor. Lehua, our driver, provided us with our tickets and a map where she noted the order we may want to visit the museums and memorials. The main reason for the early departure for the second day is so that the group arrives early enough to get on the waitlist for the Arizona Memorial. We arrived around 7:30am and went right in to get on the waitlist. While waiting for our text to return we visited the museums near the Arizona area. When we realized it was going be to be a longer wait than we expected, we headed to the other side of the area to the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum. We were some of the first ones in. We walked through the World War II Submarine Bowfin and the Museum. We thought both were great. When we were finishing the museum we got our text for the Arizona, we walked back over and waited for a boat over to the Memorial. After we returned, we saw the movie. By then it was 10:45am and we were hungry. We took our bus driver’s advice and took the bus to Ford Island to the USS Missouri. There was a food truck outside and covered seating nearby. By the time we finished lunch it was 11:30am and we had to be back over on the tour bus at 2pm. We walked through the Missouri without a tour, there was a lot to see, and we went up and down lots of stairs. The shuttle bus picks up at the Missouri and stops at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum before returning to the main Pearl Harbor area. We spent some time at the Aviation Museum and then caught the shuttle back in time to board the bus back to the hotel. Most people in our bus group didn’t have time to see the three other areas included in our tickets because they just waited around for the Arizona text. The ticket included the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum, the USS Missouri and the Pacific Aviation Museum. We were happy to see all we could and I think the Pacific Fleet Submarine Museum was our favorite. Our bus was back at the hotel by 2:30pm which was great since we could explore, get dinner and pack our bags for the cruise the next day.
Extra Info: Pearl Harbor has a no bags policy. This was a matter of great discussion on cruise groups and on the tour bus. They don’t allow bags; however, they allow clear bags (confusing right). I carried a clear crossbody with my wallet and phone. We also had a large clear bag with our refillable water bottles. We brought our bags with us, but the ABC Stores, located everywhere in Waikiki, carry clear bags.
Our third cruisetour day (Saturday) was also the day we would board the Pride of America. We placed our luggage tags on the bags that would be taken to the ship and left them just inside the room. When we boarded the bus at 7am we let our driver know how many bags we had left behind. (We had Apple AirTags in each of our bags so as the day went on, I could see their progress towards the cruise ship.)
The main focus of this tour day was Kuoloa Ranch, but we made a number of stops on the way. We stopped at a great lookout to the ocean and then reboarded the bus. We visited the Byodo-in Temple for about 45 minutes. It was beautiful and there were thousands of koi fish in the water around it. We then stopped at a Macadamia Nut store for 45 minutes; I personally thought this was a waste of time and just wanted to get going. We tried some samples and the reboarded the bus, there wasn’t much to see other than the store.
Finally, we made it to Kuoloa Ranch by 11am. Two of the bus groups went on the movie sites tour and the other two (ours being one) watched a cultural presentation. We then all had a box lunch (which we had picked a few days earlier). The box lunch options were ham, turkey, chicken pesto (I think) and one more (probably vegetarian). The lunch included bottled water, chips, pineapple, and a brownie. This was the only included meal in the whole Cruisetour portion. After lunch the groups switched and we went on the Movie Sites tour. Several Jurassic Movies and many other films and tv shows have been filmed at Kuoloa Ranch. It was beautiful! On the way to board the Pride of America we drove through the Punchbowl Cemetery. We finally arrived at the Pride of America around 3pm.
Overall, we really enjoyed the Cruisetour. We were able to see the sites we really wanted to see and learned so much more than we expected during the drives to and from places. Could we have done the exact same itinerary without booking the Cruisetour? Yes, we could have done most of the itinerary ourselves and likely for less money. (It appears that the cruise tour adds about $1,500 per person for at least the first two passengers.) However, it was wonderful to be able to not have to plan, especially when I was already researching and planning what we would do in the ports during the cruise. One aspect of the Cruisetour that I hadn’t thought about was that our driver, Lehua, would keep up a running commentary about Hawaii, the history, the islands, the culture and more. It was definitely more information than an audio guide would be able to give since this was a Native Hawaiian sharing their experience. I would definitely recommend the Cruisetour to first time visitors to Hawaii. We may not have had as much time as we wanted everywhere, but now we have a reason to go back.
