Taking the Crown to Kahului, Maui

Normally, our Princess Hawaii cruises anchor offshore of Lahaina and then tender passengers ashore.  Julie and I have then taken the inexpensive local bus to our favorite beach, Ka'anapali, to spend the day snorkeling and relaxing in the sun.

Crown Princess, however, ported in Kahului, which is on the other side of the island.

Kahului has several advantages, which is probably why NCL Pride of America uses it for their Maui port, where they feature with an overnight stay (two days on Maui).

First, tenders are not required, which is easier operationally for the cruise line and also much easier for passengers who aren't bound and determined to go to Ka'anapali Beach or funky Lahaina town.

Granted, when we cruised on Pride of America, we went to the nearby airport and rented a car, which we drove to Ka'anapali Beach, making a few stops along the way.  That brings us to a second advantage of porting in Kahului: it is close to airport rental cars, so you can take the famous Road to Hana or easily drive to gorgeous Iao Valley, which are considerably further from Lahaina, whether you drive or take excursions.

Which brings us to a third big advantage: Kahului opens up shore excursions with shorter van or bus routes for the cruise guests who unlike Julie and me are not set on Ka'anapali for a perfect beach day.  Admittedly, our usual DIY bus trip is not too profitable for the cruise ship.  And that is a big advantage for the cruise line: more potential revenue while opening new horizons for guests.

If you can see that Maui island viewed from the sky looks very much like a woman's upper profile, getting from Kahului to Lahaina would be starting at the nape of the lady's neck, proceeding just below her chin like a necklace, and then up her face to the lady's hairline, whereas getting to Lahaina to Ka'anapali could be accomplished by raising her eyebrows, if that really was a pliant face.

While we could have taken a tour bus along the necklace to take a catamaran to Molokini or done one of the other excursions that Kahului made relatively easy to reach, we instead walked from the port to a nearby shopping center to catch an Uber to Ka'anapali Beach.  We were quite pleased to see that the beach, which had notably shrunk when we visited there in 2018 on what I've oft referred to as our "semester-at-sea" Princess cruise with naturalist Mark Harris, now has as much sand as I ever remember, and possibly more.

Because the ship ported on the other side of Maui's head, we didn't see many cruise blue-and-white-striped ship towels when we camped out in shaded sand near the Sheraton at Black Rock.  So, that turned out to be a big advantage for us by porting in Kahului: fewer tourists at our favorite snorkeling spot.  Of course, it cost a lot more time and money to get there and back, but it was still worth it.

Fantastic snorkeling as usual, and on this day we had at least three very friendly sea turtles swimming around the coral with us.  We didn't see any whales on this cruise, but swimming around the point I was able to hear their song in the distance.

Lunch at Julie's favorite restaurant in the world, Hula Grill.  Check.

We had time for renting a lounge chair in front of the Ka'anapali Beach Hotel to just savor the beach before catching an Uber on the other side of the lobby at that hotel, which we used as our access point to the beach, purchasing a pricey Diet Coke in the mini-mart there.

Just after we drove past Lahaina, our driver received an irate phone call from a guy who had left his phone in the Uber vehicle.  He was yelling that he needed his phone NOW!  Because we had built in an extra hour for our return, in case there was a long delay catching a ride, we told the driver to agree to meet him.  So, we took a detour to the huge Banyan Tree in Lahaina.

The irate former-fare's wife was obviously mortified by her husband's tantrum, so she tried to give our driver a $20 bill, which he turned down.  As we drove off, we told him that he should have taken it.  We certainly weren't going to tip extra for him being forced to go out of his way.

Crown Princess was visible from miles away on the necklace road, a reminder of just how large these floating homes-away-from-home really are.  While the drive had not been as easy as raising our eyebrows, it was a great finale in Hawaii for this cruise.