Hawaii, Here We Come!!!

If you've been noticing lately, The Travel Factory Gang has a Hawaii trip coming up next month on Norwegian Cruise Line's Pride of America!! I wish you were going along!!! There might still be some space but the air might be a little pricey, although I did find some air with connections for around $800 yesterday. So, for a trip to the 50th state that will introduce you to most of the islands and give you time to enjoy all of them, give us a call today and we'll do our best to get you on. You'll not regret that experience!! In my opinion, it's the best way to see a lot of Hawaii in 7 days.

Speaking of Hawaii, they had their best visitor count in July...ever. They had over 835,000 visitors and total visitor spending that month totaled more than $1.4 billion. Interestingly the visitor count from Japan, their largest international market dipped a little in July, and the Canadian visitor count was also down, so it was greater input from the mainland that generated the volume.

Year to date through July, Hawaii has welcomed a total of 5.2 million visitors, an increase of 2.5% year over year, and those visitors have spent $9.1 billion across the Aloha State.

One Hawaii specialist remarked that he thought the perception of Hawaii being a safer vacation destination than Europe has given Hawaii a competitive edge for the tourist dollar in 2016. Also the zika threat has deterred folks from the Caribbean and South America, plus there is not a history of terrorism there, so Hawaii is looking pretty good to the traveler right now.

I've always suggested to folks who are going on the cruise in Hawaii to consider going a couple of days early to enjoy the activities available in Honolulu. The cruise leaves out of Honolulu, and if you arrive on the ships departure date, your flight will arrive around 2-4PM, so by the time you get to the ship it will be later in the afternoon which will negate you getting to see much at all of the sights of Honolulu. Then when the ship returns from cruising the islands, they arrive early and try to get you off the ship by 10AM. Most of the time the flights back to DFW leave around 6-8PM, so you would have a little time to go to Pearl Harbor or Punchbowl or USS Missouri, or take a circle island trip, but it is a little easier to do it when you do a 2-night pre-cruise hotel option.

Norwegian Cruise Line is the only cruise line that has that state's permission to cruise for 7 days out of Honolulu. Other lines do cruise the islands, but they have to start in Los Angeles or San Francisco, so it is a 14-day trip with only 4 days cruising the islands. That means that you would spend only 6-8 hours on each island.....not enough time to do much. In contrast, the Pride of America spends 2 days and overnight in both Maui and Kauai, and one day in Kona on the west side of the Big Island and one day in Hilo on the east side of the Big Island. One of the features that I'm looking forward to is when they reposition on the Big Island from Hilo to Kona and they sail around the coast where the current volcano is spewing lava down the mountain side. I've seen it before and when that lava hits the ocean, the steam that it produces is awesome. Keeping our fingers crossed.

The experienced agents at The Travel Factory will be more than happy to help you arrange a Hawaii vacation or cruise, or any other vacation idea you might have, so give us a call today at 698-1421 or toll-free 800-760-4040. For this type of vacation, it's always best to come in at 4150 Southwest Drive, and let us have a face to face interview and answer a lot of questions that you might have. We look forward to helping you manufacture the vacation of your dreams.