Are you willing to spend 15 days on a boat for 4 days of Hawaii?

Carnival Cruise line announced two new itineraries recently sailing from Los Angeles to Hawaii.  You spend 15 days on the ship for 4 days of Hawaiian day stops.  Is it worth it?

(Carnival Cruise ship "Imagination" ports off of Key West)

Carnival is betting that the lower prices to get to Hawaii will lure tourists into this special cruise.  You'll be spending 4 days out on the open Pacicic each way to and from the Islands.  Once there you get 4 days of big stops including Hilo, Kahului (Maui), Honolulu, Nāwiliwili (Kaua'i) and Kailua-Kona in that order from the Los Angeles port.

Costs start from around $1,200 per person for the "cheap" rooms and go up to around $2,000 for better rooms with views.   This puts you on 2,124-passenger Carnival's Spirit ship with the first cruise in 2011 from December 2nd to the 17th and in 2012 April 13th to the 28th.   With round trip tickets from LA to Hawaii being around $400 to $500 on average for the extra $700 or so of 15 days of food, room and entertainment that's not bad!

The cruises include obligatory stops in Ensenada, Mexico -- just three hours on the last evening -- to meet federal rules requiring an international stop by non-U.S. flagged (and staffed) ships) cruising American ports.  So check out the deals here:  Carnival.com/Hawaii and you could be hanging 10 before you know it.


Surf One Robert August II Complete Longboard (8.875 x 43.75)