Hawai’i vs. The Caribbean: Pleasant battlegrounds for tropical supremacy

After my fourth cruise, I think I can confidently embrace the word “veteran” when it comes to this style of vacation. It’s still not my personal preference, lacking the local colour and off-the-beaten-track charm I usually seek out. But if you’re catering to older and less agile relatives, or if you’re looking to control costs with a package that includes lodging and food, it’s not a bad option.

The novelty this year is not the cruise (we’re on Princess once again) but the destination: Hawaii. The 14-day journey departs Los Angeles, spending four days crossing the Pacific before reaching America’s distant 50th state. The next four days are spent visiting the chain’s four most popular islands: Hawai’i (aka “the Big Island”), Oahu, Kauai and Maui. Then it’s a four-day crossing back to Mexico, because American shipping regulations mysteriously require a foreign stop (for this cruise, at Ensenada) before returning to Los Angeles on day 14. It’s quite a different experience, in many ways, from the Caribbean option. How do they stack up? Let’s look at a side by comparison.

Beaches: As one of the most isolated bits of land on the planet, there’s a lot of ocean for waves to build across before hitting the Hawaiian coast. This generates the surf for which the islands are famous, and it is fun to watch the kids on the boards. The volcanic origin of the land makes a wide range of colours of beaches, from classic pale sand to black or green. Pretty and dramatic. But not great swimming beaches. This is the Pacific, and it’s cold. From almost every Caribbean island you can walk across flour-fine sand into tepid, gentle surf glimmering with various blues, so clear and calm you can often snorkel off the beach. We didn’t see a single beach of this quality in Hawai’i. The Caribbean is the stand out winner here.

Culture: The Caribbean is a microcosm of European culture, filtered by former empires and given a dark edge by a brutal history of slavery. But these days the dominant cultural element seems to be the golden age of piracy, never far from a boat trip, dinner or walking tour near you. Hawai’i has its own distinctly Polynesian culture, which flourished for a thousand years and had about a century of recorded history under local monarchs before commercial pressures saw it sucked into the United States. Today there’s an active movement to resurrect the native culture, from hula and luau to a deep respect for the land very much in tune with modern society. For its uniqueness, rather than being such a derivative of other cultures, a narrow advantage goes to Hawai’i.

Weather: I’m writing this swaddled in a jacket, sheltered behind the ship’s windscreens, looking out at cloudy skies. All four of our days in Hawai’i featured clouds, on two days the skies never turned blue. Hilo, the residents inform tourists with a gentle irony, is the wettest city in the United States. Not even a contest. If you want guaranteed heat and sun, go to the Caribbean.

The locals: Both places depend on tourists for their livelihoods, and the natives work hard to make you feel welcome. But in the Caribbean, as this blog has attested in past entries, it’s not unusual to come across the stroppy girl who can’t be bothered or the gruff local who resents the foreigners. Given issues with drug trafficking, there’s a rough element on some of the islands about which you need to be wary. Hawai’i, on the other hand, could teach the rest of the world how to do tourism. You get the feeling every local wants to hug you, drape a lei around your neck and take you home for a bit of poi and spam. (Of that, more later.) This is a culture that has an extreme esteem for hospitality, and it’s obvious. Not only from the natives. Plenty of white folk … obvious immigrants from the mainland … are chatty and helpful. Every time we appeared to be lost or perplexed, some local popped up to offer advice on buses, the best beaches, where to eat, etc. Hawaiians win, hands down.

The Food: Both fusion cultures, one mixing the tastes of Asia and Polynesia, the other a mélange of Europe and Africa. Both are blessed with a profusion of fresh fruits and seafood. Both have bartenders skilled at creating wicked concoctions with fruit juice, coconut milk and deceptively tasteless alcohol. Although only in Hawai’i are they served in gloriously tacky Tiki god heads. The vast variety of Hawaiian food is impressive, especially if you’re up for sushi, Thai, Chinese or any kind of tropical fruit. (My most exotic foray was a Durian smoothie. This legendary fruit of Southeast Asia smells vile but tastes of creamy vanilla. Not sure I’ll go out of my way to have one again, but exciting to sample.) Classically Hawaiian food is, truth be told, a bit odd. It’s a carb-heavy culture where a “plate lunch” of meat, a scoop of rice and another of macaroni salad is a staple, and Spam is favourite consumed in mass quantities. You’re probably more familiar with the Caribbean staples: red beans and rice, jerked meats, callalou, washed down with a Red Stripe. The Caribbean also has the advantage of growing many of its own spices, most notably cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper and vanilla. I’m a happy omnivore and have to call a tie here.

The music: Little Grass Shack, Aloha Oe and the gentle sound of steel guitar or ukulele are instantly evocative of hula girls, surfing natives and Pacific sunsets. Hawai’i has a lovely, evocative soundtrack that wraps itself around you while you’re here. But once home, where do they feature on the iPod playlist? This stuff just doesn’t have the staying power of Bob Marley, Jimmy Buffett or UB40, all regularly heard beyond their native tropic zone. Advantage Caribbean.

Overall it’s close, but I give the edge to the Caribbean. (That’s probably also influenced by the fact that it’s a lot easier to get to.) Had the weather been better, the scales would have tipped in Hawai’i’s favour. I’m not going to turn down a free trip to either place, but when voting with my own vacation time and money, I’d rather be paddling off Virgin Gorda than Maui.