You are not going to “get the most out of your experience” in Hawaii by taking a cruise. You are going to waste most of your time on the boat, instead of spending the maximum time seeing Hawaii. You certainly won’t see anything besides tourist attractions if you take a cruise and just see the places where the boat drops you off for a few hours on each island.

I suggest you forget about the cruise and spend 3 nights on Oahu, 4 nights on Kauai, and 7 nights on Maui. Rent a car on each island and get away from the tourist areas and explore.

The Hawaii SuperFerry only goes between Maui and Oahu, but there is no advantage to taking that ferry instead of just flying between the islands.

Lots of info about Hawaii cruises, sights, hotels, condos, activities, restaurants and more is at

A good site for cruises is with “Amazing Tours and Travel”

The only cruises around Hawaii in Aug are with NCL. There is however, a 12 day cruise with Carnival from Hawaii that departs in Oct 08.

NCL spends the longest time in port of all the Hawaiian cruises. There are longer Hawaiian cruises, but they start and/or end from the mainland. Thus the reason they are longer is that they spend time between the mainland and Hawaii.

If you want to spend a long time on each island, you are correct, and cruise is not the way to go. Many people use a cruise to get a taste of each island, then they go back and visit the islands they want to spend more time at.

Why not consult a travel agent. there is no charge to you. An agent would know a lot more details and have resources to get info on Hawaii cruises. You may get a better price, and/or a better cruise going thru a travel agent.