Two years ago, I wrote about taking my toddler on a cruise to Alaska. We loved our experience cruising to Alaska, even if there were a few bumps in the road. When we got off that cruise, my mom asked if we wanted to go to Hawaii in 2026. Without really thinking about it, we all said, yes, of course.
In 2024, 2026 felt like a lifetime away. In my head, my daughter would be almost 4, making a cruise much more manageable. (This is both true and untrue.) The thought of flying felt a little daunting — I’m not the best flyer, and it’s not my preferred method of travel — but I was willing to do it to spend 10 days with my family in Hawaii. (Oh the sacrifices I make. Just kidding.)
Spoiler alert: we had a fantastic time. But let me walk you through our itinerary first…
The Itinerary
We took the Pride of America cruise from Norwegian Cruise Line. This is a unique cruise because the Pride of America is a smaller and older ship, staffed almost entirely by American staff, and it’s considered more of a floating hotel than a cruise. There are smaller restaurants, less gathering places, and generally less to do on board than a larger ship, like the Encore.
My parents had done this cruise before — at least once before, but maybe twice — and really enjoyed it. I was prepared to enjoy it as well. This was our rough itinerary, for both before and after the cruise:
Day 1 - Thursday - Fly to Honolulu, check into the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki
Day 2 - Friday - Tour Pearl Harbor, spend time in Waikiki
Day 3 - Saturday - Board the Pride of America
Days 4-5 (Sunday-Monday) - Maui
Day 6 - Tuesday - Hilo
Day 7 - Wednesday - Kona
Days 8-9 (Thursday-Friday) - Nawiliwili
Day 10 - Saturday - Return to Honolulu, fly home
However, the best laid plans often go awry. We were on board for the August 8 sailing, which, if you don’t know, was impacted by Hurricane Lala, which was supposed to make landfall August 15/16. On Thursday, it was announced that the ship would be returning to Honolulu a day early. Thus, our itinerary looked like this:
Day 1 - Thursday - Fly to Honolulu, check into the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki
Day 2 - Friday - Tour Pearl Harbor, spend time in Waikiki
Day 3 - Saturday - Board the Pride of America
Days 4-5 (Sunday-Monday) - Maui
Day 6 - Tuesday - Hilo
Day 7 - Wednesday - Kona
Day 8 - Thursday - Nawiliwili
Day 9 - Friday - return to Honolulu, made the choice to disembark, checked into Embassy Suites in Waikiki
Day 10 - Saturday - Fly home
As you can imagine, finding enough hotel rooms for my entire family at least minute was challenging and expensive, but we did it. The altered itinerary aside, we had a blast.
Let’s Talk Amenities
The Pride of America is a significantly smaller than other NCL ships — and thus, the cabins are smaller. This was a small argument in my family; I knew the POA cabin was smaller than the one we had on the Encore and I was right. They’re about 40 square feet smaller on average. (My family members were convinced they were bigger.) That wasn’t a huge problem — my kids are still relatively small, so it’s not like we had 4 adults smashed into a single room. However, my kids are both not comfortable sleeping in bunk beds — one is too small (my 3-year-old) and one gets scared (my 10-year-old), so we had to settle for nearly everyone in the single bed in our room. That’s fine. Was it the most comfortable? No. But did was get by? Yes.
On the plus side, this time our cabin did have all the expected amenities: we had shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in our shower, plus hand soap by the sink. That’s a win! There was also a blow dryer, inexplicably, in our room — mounted just below the tiny tv. That was… odd. It was truly ancient and took up a shocking amount of room.
I do feel like this cabin had more storage space — lots of drawers, shelves, and a big closet. It was very easy to keep our clothes and things organized throughout the cruise. We stored our suitcases underneath the bed. Perfect. The bathroom also had a small corner medicine cabinet, perfect for our medication, toothbrushes, etc.
The ship, despite being smaller, did still have a varied selection of speciality restaurants, plus two complimentary dining rooms and the buffet (the Aloha Cafe). The Hawaiian cruise is the only cruise that the Pride of America does, so everything is pretty themed. There is also a Starbucks onboard, which is typical of most NCL’s, and there is also some limited shopping, a candy/toy store then a clothing and jewelry store. Otherwise, the boat’s allure is really that is is a floating hotel that allows you to hit the highlights of Hawaii.
Everything We Did
For the sake of keeping this a little bit shorter, here’s everything we did on each of our stops.
Honolulu: Danny and I toured Pearl Harbor, sans kids. I did not think Violet would be able to understand Pearl Harbor and it would not be anything enjoyable for her. I did want Forrest to attend, but he wanted to stay at the resort and play with his cousin and Violet. Fair. We booked this tour through Viator and loved it. Our tour guide, Finny, was genuinely knowledgable about the history of Honolulu and Pearl Harbor; he was incredible. Danny and I both enjoyed ourselves and Pearl Harbor is fascinating.
Maui: Our first stop on the cruise was in Maui. We rented a car and drove around — visiting Makawao, Paia, and some other small towns. We also visited a coffee shop near the pier first thing — Momona Coffee. We got a cookie, a chocolate croissant, a kombucha, and a strawberry lemonade to share. I said this last time, but the coffee on cruise ships is genuinely so terrible, I needed a pick-me-up.
Then we went on a tour of the Maui Gold Pineapple Farm. This was so fun. We got shaved ice at Tobi’s in Pa ia, went to a beach near Makawao. The Maui Gold Pineapple farm has a farm store where you can buy pineapples, of course, as well as locally made foods and gifts. Our tour was led by Rudy, one of the original founders of the farm who helped create the specific pineapple they grow. We also got to eat so much pineapple on this tour. We gave this one a 10/10. We were exhausted by the time we returned our rental car and got back on the boat.
Hilo: For this day, we went on an NCL excursion to the Hawai’i Volcano National Park. This was such a fun tour. It also stopped at Big Island Candies, a cookie and candy store. We bought some water and snacks for the day there. We loved the Volcano Park — the volcano was very active (it ended up erupting the next day!) and we learned so much about Hilo, the mythology around the Big Island, and the history of people there. This was a fantastic experience.
Kona: On this day, we went on another NCL excursion — a glass bottom boat tour. This was a simple, 1-hour tour and, spoiler alert, I wish it was longer! We saw so many different fish. We didn’t see any sea turtles, but my parents on the very next tour did. Kona is a tender port, so getting off and on the ship was a little challenging, however we really loved Kona. So many cool shops and restaurants. The kids were kind of hitting a wall of exhaustion at this point, so we didn’t spend a ton of time in Kona; we went back for a nap and then spent the rest of the day in the ship’s pool.
Nawiliwili: Sadly, we had to cancel our plans for Nawiliwili — the first day, we’d planned a pool day while everyone was off the ship to recharge after several big days. We had a scuba tour planned for day 2 in Nawiliwili, but it was on this day that the ship’s captain announced that our itinerary was changing because of Hurricane (then Tropical Storm) Lala. I spent our pool day drinking mai tais and helping my family find 4 hotel rooms in Honolulu on short notice (we did!). We also had to re-arrange our specialty dining plans. And then I had to pack up our room to get off the ship early!
Honolulu - Round 2: We disembarked the ship around 10:45 and got a cab to our hotel, the Embassy Suites Beachwalk. We checked in, but our room wasn’t ready yet — so we had them store our luggage (the bellhop attendant was the nicest man we met in Hawaii — seriously great) and went exploring. We walked to the nearby Royal Hawaiian Center, a sort of luxury mall. It had gotten really hot and muggy in Honolulu, so I was really missing our beach access and pool on the ship… but we really enjoyed this day, hilariously. We ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (“you went all the way to Hawaii to eat at the Cheesecake Factory?” Yes my kids were tired and confused, sometimes you need some familiar french fries) and then explored the mall. Our room was ready when we go back to the hotel and we ended up having a two room suite (!!). We had a great time relaxing, ordering Doordash for dinner, and just chilling out after a very weird 48 hours.
All the Packing Details
When it comes to packing, I try so hard to be organized… but I inevitably slightly overpack. This time, we did not want to check bags on our flights, so we had 4 backpacks (personal items) and 4 small rolling suitcases. I made it work. Here’s what helped:
These day of the week packing cubes: I say this every single time I write a travel post, but if you have kids and you don’t have these packing cubes… what are you doing? These make life soooo much easier. I packed for each day for the kids then 2-3 outfits each just in case, plus 2 swimsuits each. Easy peasy and done.
Take items that are versatile: in my case, that meant dresses. I took a lot of flowy maxi dresses that worked as day dresses, beach coverups, and evening wear. I also took this one piece from Aerie that is genuinely my favorite dress of all time. I did also pack shorts, t shirts and tank tops… but I really did not wear them. It was dresses, my Aerie dress, and pajamas almost exclusively.
Don’t pack toiletries: controversial, if I’m flying, I don’t take toiletries beyond my essential skincare (sunscreen) and makeup, plus deodorant. If I was driving and had unlimited storage space, that’s a different story… but I didn’t take any toiletries and it was honestly fine. I survived without my special body lotion and body spray, my multiple skincare products, etc.
Invest in a good backpack: I bought this backpack to take on the plane, knowing we wanted to maximize space. Honestly, it was worth every single penny; I loved this backpack. I love that it unzips like a suitcase; it was comfortable to wear as we were racing through airports and onto cruise ships. Just a 10/10.
Here’s everything I don’t recommend:
Don’t bring a ton of activities for kids. I said this in my Alaska cruise post and I guess I didn’t remember, but yeah… don’t bring a ton of activities. We ended up barely touching them the entire time and I was left carrying a backpack of art supplies and coloring books.
Don’t worry about souvenirs. I brought a small, fold up duffel bag to check on the way back, just in case we got too many souvenirs. I don’t know what i was thinking — we rarely buy a ton of souvenirs and prefer magnets (we let each kid pick a magnet of their choice during the trip), keychains, hats. Things that don’t take up a ton of room. I ended up not needing the duffel bag and it felt like a waste of space.
The Good Stuff
As with last time, the dinners in the dining room were my favorite. I can’t help it! I love a 3 course meal! I love someone bringing me a fresh peach bellini or mai tai without asking. I do!
My favorite dinner was actually Moderno Churrascaria, one of the specialty dining options. This is a Brazilian steakhouse and when I tell you it was the best dinner of the entire trip… I mean it. It was so good. They have a specialty drink called the Caipirinha and it was incredible. Everything I ate was delicious. It was just a great experience.
We always get the Free at Sea package with free drinks — and of course that’s one of my favorite parts. Sitting by the pool while my kids played, sipping a mai tai, and reading a book is up there with one of my favorite experiences. The pool, by the way, has a separate 3-foot pool with a 1-foot portion — perfect for Violet to play in. She was too scared to go into the deep part without Forrest, so it felt way better to let them play on their own. Plus, there were two lifeguards on duty constantly.
We loved all of our tours and excursions. We got to do so much more in Hawaii than we did in Alaska because Violet was older, potty trained, and less reliant on a stroller. It felt like we got to experience so much on each island and we still only scratched the surface.
The Hard Stuff
Our itinerary getting messed up sucked. It was a huge bummer and kind of felt like a weird, anticlimactic end to our cruise. Said with the caveat, of course, that it sucked more for the Hawaiian people experiencing the hurricane.
Otherwise, we had such a great time and Violet was so much easier this time around… it was just a great trip! Even better, we did not end this trip sick, thank god — which brings me to something from my previous cruise blog post I want to mention.
On our Alaska cruise, Violet woke up sick on the day of disembarking. I called the medical bay to ask about having her temperature taken and they declined, saying that they do not treat anyone under the age of 3. Someone left a comment on my previous blog post that this is not true and not legal. Unfortunately, it’s a big complicated. Technically, NCL is able to provide emergency services to anyone who has a ticket — that is, since they allow 6 months and older, they can provide emergency serves to anyone 6 months+. However, on a practical bases, the medical bay typically declines to treat kids under 3 due to the liability. This is to say, if it’s an emergency, they’ll help (which will likely mean getting them off the boat); but if you just need basic medical care, they will decline. And because you’re on a boat in the water and not on land, that’s just the way it is.
Would I do it again?
In a heartbeat! With a small caveat — next time, I just want to stay at a resort. Our favorite days were the first 3 days at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and honestly, I could have happily spent 10+ days there. We loved exploring Waikiki and Honolulu, there were so many more places I wanted to go to, but we didn’t have time. I would absolutely take my kids to Hawaii again, like, tomorrow if the opportunity presented itself.