Hawai'i Observations

[jiminyC_fan]

We loved the cruise and wouldn't change a thing. Weather and waves did not surprise us. We don't leave it to Disney to plan our entertainment so we were fine there. We pretty much wing it for the day and we did great.

The islands were fantastic and we were very pleased with our choices for tours. We did all islands on our own with the exception of the luau.

Big Island, volcano tour through Island Marketing
Maui, private waterfall tour on the Road to Hana through No Ka ** Adventures (unbelievable)
Honolulu, rented a car and toured Pearl Harbor and then drove island to North Shore. Enjoyed a shrimp truck for dinner.
Kauai, helicopter tour through Mauna Loa Helicopters. It was a helicopter for 2 or 3. You could have doors on or off and we chose off. Great service and everyone has a great view. Highly recommend them. It certainly ended our Hawaii visit on a great note. After the flight, we had a day room at the Marriott. WOW, soooo worth it. Great pool and fantastic beach with a beautiful view of the Wonder.

We felt DCL handled the merchandise soooo much better on this cruise than other special cruises.

 

[jiminyC_fan]

Not sure why the asteriks showed up for the adventure tour company.

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Not sure why the asteriks showed up for the adventure tour company.

The board censor probably thinks it's a bad word.

 

[poohluv2u]

While I enjoyed some of the trivia games on the way out....repeating them on the way back (some new 'topics', some repeats) seemed overkill. I know they were well attended, but I think partially due to the fact that there weren't other options. I'll admit, I was hoping for a 'mystery at sea' on the return trip.

Found myself to be looking for activities in the afternoons. And I'm a serious reader/lounger, so I'm thinking folks who like to be more activite were really feeling this.

Thankfully, there were a lot of friends on the cruise, so we organized our own card games and gatherings. (Diversions was often packed with card/game players.)

A mystery at sea would have been fantastic, I would have loved that

 

[Robert and Kelley]

We had a wonderful time. We did not participate in a lot of the ships activities because they did not appeal to us. I did think they could have offered more activities for adults. That said we visited the rainforest everyday and did lots of walking on the sea days. We even managed to get out in the sun on a couple of the warmer sea days. Watched a couple of movies at the goofy pool which never seemed crowded. My complaint was the lack of movies on the stateroom TV. They only changed about 4 movies halfway through the cruise. I do love the movie Thor but I think I saw it about 30 times (at least parts of it).

We thought the ship had to move pretty fast (compared to the carribean cruises) to get across in the allotted time and that added to the motion and the wind on deck.

Totally liked the way merchandise was handled all around. We were on the Dreams MV and this was handled 100% better.

Loved Hawaii and are planning our trip back to stay at Aulani. This was an amazing cruise and I am glad we took it.

 

[dylan'smom]

I just want to add that I especially loved the cooking demos this time, of which there were at least 6!! They were some of the best I've seen...entertaining & nicely done.... & the lamb chop served in one was some of the best food I had on the cruise!! Yum!!

That said, I would have liked a few more activities for adults, here & there on the way back too!!

I kept busy when I wanted to .....saw lots of films, lectures (on Mexico too), checked out dance lessons, character pics, a little trivia, bingo, spa, DVC party, etc. - it's just that without the decks open & inviting for people to "spread out across," the shipboard activities were so FULL!! Oh well, all in all we had a great time...the FEs alone could keep one busy with 100+!!

 

[dylan'smom]

Another thing I wanted to mention..as an observation...was tax was added to everything on board when we were w/in 3 miles of Hawaii.

This included excursions too, so i was glad we had those charged to our account at the beginning of the cruise.

 

[LindaBabe]

We were on that cruise (over 60s, first seating). The service WE had was terrific (CHakapong, Wiera and Harry, stateroom hostess Willipie). All the cast and crew we encountered were outstanding (once we left the terminal - the terminal crew? not so much). All the DIser's We encountered on the ship were just lovely. Attended the opening meet and greet, group photo and Mascot meet. We also dined with Diser's (CnDisneydad & SSHaw & their families) and enjoyed them all VERY much.

Sea Mornings, there was a lecture, art of entertaining, and craft class. Unfortunately, they overlapped early in the trip and then were back to back decks apart later on, which made attending all of them problematic. All the morning activities were crowded, sometimes to the point of not being able to fully participate. Afternoons, there were mostly tastings and bingo. In my view, they could have run a second round of morning activities in the afternoons to give more people the opportunity to attend AND to spread out the crowds a little.

I can't speak for afternoons, seemed like most of what was scheduled was trivia, tastings or bingo - lots of tastings - every day at least one, often more. I'm sure Disney likes those - they generate income. We read, or I crocheted, when we could find a warm space to sit - or else we napped. In my opinion, on cold water cruises, there needs to be more indoor seating and sheltered seating.

I agree with the poster who said the first run movies were inconveniently timed - but they still filled up.

Out of 14 cruises including a Transatlantic - This was the WORST for sea day discomfort (rocking, cloudy and 35-40 knot winds ) - BEST for ports of call - gotta love Hawaii!

Fortunately, we finished our trip with three days in Vegas, so I DID catch up on my quota of warmth and sun. For ME, enduring 9 days with 'ratings of less than 5 on a scale of 1-10' was too high a price to pay for 4 days in Paradise. We won't be repeaters on this itinerary.

 

[super mike b]

It really surprises me that some of you guys went on a cruise with so many sea days expecting Disney to keep you busy. We had a great cruise, but would have loved a little more sun.

 

[ImprovGal]

I just want to add that I especially loved the cooking demos this time, of which there were at least 6!! They were some of the best I've seen...entertaining & nicely done.... & the lamb chop served in one was some of the best food I had on the cruise!! Yum!!

That said, I would have liked a few more activities for adults, here & there on the way back too!!

I kept busy when I wanted to .....saw lots of films, lectures (on Mexico too), checked out dance lessons, character pics, a little trivia, bingo, spa, DVC party, etc. - it's just that without the decks open & inviting for people to "spread out across," the shipboard activities were so FULL!! Oh well, all in all we had a great time...the FEs alone could keep one busy with 100+!!

I managed to keep pretty busy, as well, and I stay out of Bingo and the spa. The only movie I managed to squeeze in, was the 12:01am premiere at sea for Avengers. There were 8 Art of Entertaining demos, each one different. I managed to attend 6 of them, I think (those 10:30am Palo brunches do conflict, after all). I'm a trivia buff, so I went to most of the adult-only sessions (scored a few wins WITHOUT cheating -- AHEM!), plus a couple of the family ones (Steven's theme park music trivia was so much fun; I was sorry I missed the first one and got there late to the 2nd one, but it was worth the SRO. Also, Becky did a great job with her Hawaii trivia!)

My mornings were usually pretty busy (especially since I always started my day with the Cruise Director's Morning Show), so I didn't mind a bit of downtime in the afternoon. I also am not a sunbather -- 12 DCL cruises and I've never once set foot in a pool -- so I didn't mind the chilly weather on the sea days. It did make it difficult to get to the beverage station while wearing a skirt, however.

Yes, a murder mystery would have been nice. However, I really think that the effort put into the Pub Night event more than made up for it. That show was amazing and while "If I Were Not Upon the Sea" is always a highlight of my cruises, I really appreciated seeing the performance material from the cruise staff.

I booked all of my excursions through the ship and I really enjoyed all of them.
Hawaii: Gourmet Volcano Adventure -- the winery was a pleasant surprise and I thought our guide was very knowledgeable.
Maui: Ocean Center & Plantation (a fun break!) and the Luau
Oahu: Taste of the North Shore (great sightseeing, excellent guide, and a tasty lunch!) and the Haunted Tales (ok, a bit too much emphasis on orb photography, but the history was interesting and it was still entertaining)
Kauai: Allerton & MacBryde Botanical Gardens -- I originally booked Rainforest 4x4 Hike, but switched to the gardens a few days before sailing. The gardens were absolutely beautiful and I appreciated having a guide who shared so much information focusing on the scientific features of the gardens.

 

[ALK$Disney]

A mystery at sea would have been fantastic, I would have loved that

They had this in the Oceanner Lab. My daughter was telling us about it. I have to agree there was a lack of entertainment on the way back, but we kept ourselves entertained. I did like the 80's and 90's music trivia.
Overall we loved the cruise, hated getting off it and going back to reality.

 

[ibouncetoo]

Another thing I wanted to mention..as an observation...was tax was added to everything on board when we were w/in 3 miles of Hawaii.

This included excursions too, so i was glad we had those charged to our account at the beginning of the cruise.

Yep, excursions charged at the beginning and they added the automatic gratuity on the return trip.

A good head's up for the October cruisers. Even spa treatments, on board purchases, last minute excursions booked all would have tax applied on those four days. (A fairly modest 4.? % though....at least to me where we have 9+% sales tax)

.

 

[luv2sleep]

Yep, excursions charged at the beginning and they added the automatic gratuity on the return trip.

A good head's up for the October cruisers. Even spa treatments, on board purchases, last minute excursions booked all would have tax applied on those four days. (A fairly modest 4.? % though....at least to me where we have 9+% sales tax)

.

Well that's interesting! I always thought things were charged at the end but part of my expenses were also charged a few days into the cruise. Is that a change or has it always been this way?

 

[ibouncetoo]

Well that's interesting! I always thought things were charged at the end but part of my expenses were also charged a few days into the cruise. Is that a change or has it always been this way?

Don't recall when excursions were charged on past cruises, but it makes sense that they would want to charge the excursions for this cruise before we got there to avoid the tax.

.

 

[Disneyhenry]

Lots of great info here that we will be able to use for our October Hawaii Cruise. Some worried me (drunks?) other eased my mind (no drunks?). We have early dinning, I will bring some extra reading stuff for the slow days. We have decided to just rent a car on every island and take a look around.
Thanks everyone for all your input

 

[Lexa]

If you are planning to do laundry on the ship....a day before we hit islands laundry rooms were BUSY...I know I waited for washer and later for dryer to get available and a day after the islands.....I visited all laundry rooms and they were equally busy

And about being busy.....between all planned DIS activities, ship activities I found enough stuff to do....I hardly touched my books I brought with me....but people have different tastes for different things....even with lack of sun and warmth on sea days, i had plenty to do.

 

[paulcrsb]

I had a great time. I think I was expecting the sea days to be warmer but that was lack of research on my part. I made up for the lack of deck time by reading which was very relaxing. I found myself several times picking my Kindle off of the floor after dozing off while reading.
I traveled by myself and was supposed to be linked with the late night Dis diners but somehow DCL fouled that up and I ended up with a table of single traveling cruisers. It was a table for six with one person never showing up and another dropping out after two nights. Still the remaining four of us had a great time at dinner. It was quite a diverse group but our common bond was our love for Disney and DCL.
Hawaii was great! I had great excursions (all booked with DCL). After my morning excursion on Oahu I took the hop-on-hop off bus to Waikiki beach. Had a couple of drinks at Hard Rock and Dukes then watched the sunset on the beach. Amazing! I ended up being a little for dinner showing up in my swimtrunks and t-shirt at Tritons. I apologized for my appearence to my tablemates and no one seemed to care which was great. In 16 DCL cruises this is the first time I have shown up in shorts at dinner and was relieved that no one batted an eye.
As far as the "drunk" people didn't really encouter that but there was quite a boisterous table in our dining room. I figure that they were just having fun and in the end isn't that what Disney's all about?
All in all it was an amazing cruise!

 

[Lexa]

Main dinning linking worked great for us (Thanks to Paula). We were seated with wonderful table mates.

 

[super mike b]

Some worried me (drunks?) other eased my mind (no drunks?).

We were on this cruise. I don't remember seeing anyone that even looked drunk. Now, if you are the kind of person that gets offended when they see other people consuming alcohol and having a good time..........

 

[jiminyC_fan]

We didn't see drunks either. We did hear about a brawl in the laundry room on the second day, LOL.