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Our ship arrived into Maui about 3 hours before its scheduled arrival. Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, is not a tourist destination. This is where a large population of the locals live and work. It is an industrial port and is where the most major airport on Maui is located. We spent a week on Maui several years ago to attend the wedding of our nephew. We arrived by plane, rented a car, and spend most of the rest of the week on the other side of the island. We'd come back to Kahului from time to time to do some shopping at Costco or Walmart. This is definitely where a lot of the locals do their shopping. But, I don't think there are many, if any, hotels or restaurants along any beaches in the Kahului area. It is not promoted as a tourist destination and all the shore excursions take passengers to other areas of Maui that are tourist destinations. Carnival is one of the few cruise lines that comes into port at Kahului. It is an industrial port with no shopping or attractions anywhere near the port. It is a bit of a walk to get out of the port and then to the downtown shopping malls.
Most of the other cruise lines that come to Maui anchor at one of the most popular tourist towns in Maui which is Lahaina. An advantage of Kahului is that the cruise ship can come right into the port and passengers can disembark right onto land. The cruise ships which anchor at Lahaina have to use tenders to get passengers between the ship and land as there is not dock large enough to accommodate cruise ships.
We had booked the 5 hour "Scenic Maui & Lahaina" shore excursion for $94.99 many months ago. Mostly we did this as just a method to get us to Lahaina as this tour would provide 2.5 hours on our own in Lahaina. Another way to get to Lahaina is just to go to the local mall and get on the public bus. For $4 you can purchase an all day pass on the local public transportation between Kahului and Lahaina. It is a ride of about 15 miles and takes about 40 minutes. However, we decided to cancel this shore excursion the day before and Carnival was nice enough to give us a full refund. This tour included a visit to Iao Valley State Park and the Iao Needle. We toured both of those on our last cruise to Hawaii on the Carnival Splendor in January of this year so really weren't interested in going to them again. For photos from our visit to those locations on our prior cruise click here. Touring Lahaina also wasn't mandatory on our touring list since we had spent a bit of time there when we were in Maui a number of years ago.
Because of the injury to my wife's legs, we had a number of errands that we wanted to run. The first errand was to purchase a light weight compact wheelchair that we could use to go on future shore excursions for the rest of our travels. The one that we rented from Carnival was huge, heavy, and bulky. It was very difficult to travel with that wheelchair. It was even very difficult to fit down the corridors on the cruise ship! Another errand was to go to the Emergency Room of a local hospital in Maui to check on her leg and to get a prescription for something a bit stronger for the pain. A third was to purchase some hot/cold water bottles so she could put some ice on her aching legs. Her doctor and physical therapist both said that would help relieve the pain. Plus there were a few other items that she wanted to pick up at local stores.
After doing a bit of analysis we realized it would make a lot more sense and be a lot more convenient to rent a car for the day rather than try to use Uber or taxis all day long to run these errands. I'm a Gold Member of Hertz and qualify for the discount senior rate so I always check the Hertz rates relative to other rental car agencies. Sometimes Hertz is way more expensive than other rental car options in which case I'll go with another agency. But if Hertz is about the same, then I'll go with Hertz. When I rent from Hertz I can go straight to the car and drive off. I don't have to stop by the rental counter and they don't pressure me to buy insurance or prepay for gas. I have a credit card that is that provides primary car rental insurance and I prefer to fill the tank up before I return the car. The refund of canceling the Maui shore excursion was almost enough to cover the car rental, the taxi fare between the cruise port and car rental center, and the gas for the car.
When we got off the ship there was a long line of passengers waiting for taxis. Fortunately the taxis were arriving rapidly to pick up passengers. It only took about ten minutes for us to get to the front of the line to board a taxi to the Car Rental Center at the airport. There were four other people heading to the Car Rental Center and we were asked if we would mind sharing the taxi with the others. We didn't mind at all as it would reduce what it would cost for the taxi ride. Normally it would cost about $12 plus tip. When we got to the airport each of the 3 couples gave the taxi driver $10, including us. So the taxi driver got $30 for this airport run instead of the $15 he probably would have received if he just brought one couple to the airport.
The taxi had to drop us off at the "Arrivals" section of the airport as the taxis are not allowed to drop people off at the Car Rental Center. But, there is a tram from both the "Arrivals" and "Departures" section of the airport to the Car Rental Center. Oddly, the "tram" looks more like an old style subway train as you can see above. It is a very short route that only takes about 8 minutes to walk if you opt to walk instead of taking the tram.
To my surprise when I go to Hertz at the Rental Car Center at the airport they had my name listed as "Presidents Circle"! I knew I was a Gold Member but did not realized they had moved me up to Presidents Circle. They personally took me over to an area of the rental car lot for "Presidents Circle" and told me that I could pick any car in that area. I selected the above Ford Edge. I normally like to rent smaller cars but this time we were going to have to fit the huge bulky wheelchair we rented from Carnival that we had with us plus the new light weight wheelchair that we were about to purchase. I was able to rent any car in this "Presidents Circle" for the same low rate that I had reserved a standard car online. This car was actually a lot bigger inside than it looked on the outside. There was plenty of room for both wheelchairs.
A lot of the shopping areas of Kahului are pretty close to the cruise port terminal. From a number of the stores where we stopped during running our errands we could see the top of our ship at the cruise port terminal.
The food was as delicious as it has been for this entire cruise. The dining room was fairly empty, probably because the cruise ship does not depart until 11 PM and most passengers are still ashore on Maui.
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
Please include the web address (URL) of the report in which you found the error. Thank you! Send your email to:
