Pride of America 1 week cruise to Hawaii
 

I'm trying to decide whether to take the ship's excursions or rent cars and book excursions on my own (my wife and myself). Some of the stops on this cruise are from 8am to 6pm, and one is tendered, so we might not have much time. Any suggestions?

I did this cruise and we did a mix of both. This was in 2007 and I am going to assume the itenerary is the same still. What we planned was to rent a car at the the stops where you stay overnight (Maui and Kauai) and for the one day only stops (Hilo and Kona) to take excursions. I think that would have worked out fine except the ship missed the stop in Kona and the first of the 2 scheduled days in Maui due to rough seas (so they said, didn't look too bad to me), so we had to cancel an excursion and a rental car. (took an excursion on the abbreviated Maui stop)

If port delays or cancellations happen to you then you may be better off with excursions because the cruise ship will cater to you more so than those without booked excursions but as long as you don't pay for the rental car up front and can cancel without incurring fees I think they're great to have. It is the US after all, and driving is civilized and not too stressful, except for bad traffic on our tour a bit East of the port in Maui where everyone goes to see the big waves come in.

The car rental in Kauai was very painless and cheap, a bit of a walk but no big deal at all and I was very glad we had a car there and would definitely recommend it over excursions. If I had to do it all over again, I'd still go with my original plan to mix excursions and car rentals.

We sailed the PoA in 2007 as well. We rented all cars thru Thrifty (get a Blue Chip card for shorter lines). In Hilo, we rented a car for the day and had plenty of time to drive to and tour Volcano Nat'l Park and Akaka Falls and Waipio Valley.

On Maui, we rented for two days and parked at the pier overnight. We drove to and toured Haleakala Crater and the Iao Needle and the Old Lahaina Luau on day one and the Road to Hana on day two.

We did not rent a car in Kona...we did a catamaran snorkeling excursion with Fairwind.

On Kauai, we rented for one day. Drove to Princeville and beached it on day one and on day two (without the car) we did the Blue Hawaiian helo excursion.

Hope that helps. Red