Waikiki the Night Before a Honolulu Cruise: Hotel Parking or a Same-Day Car?

The Prince Waikiki, at the Ala Moana end, is the low figure: $45 to self-park, plus tax. Valet there is $50.

Its 6-foot-1 clearance rules out a tall van — check the class before you book a big one.

The ʻAlohilani lists $55 to self-park and $65 for valet, with the first valet night at $50 through its resort fee. The Moana Surfrider is valet only, $65 a day.

The Waikiki Beach Marriott tops the four at $80 valet and $65 to self-park, before tax. Lose its ticket and its page lists a $75 charge.

Hyatt Regency and Hyatt Centric list self and valet parking without a rate, and Hilton Hawaiian Village’s parking pages didn’t load for us. A missing rate is a question for the front desk, not a sign of free parking.

Choosing the room itself? Our Honolulu cruise hotels rank them, and the splurge list covers the high end.

Land at HNL mid-afternoon and most of these counters will have closed by the time you reach Waikiki, about 9 miles away.

That shapes the whole night-before plan — a Waikiki car is a morning pick-up, not an arrival-day one.

Returns are easier than pick-ups. Sixt takes cars through the ʻAlohilani valet around the clock, and five other desks list a key box or a drop.

Avis spells out the catch: the car stays your responsibility until it’s checked in the next business day.

Hertz’s Hyatt Regency page says nothing about after-hours returns, so plan to be there by 4.

For every desk’s hours on a given day, airport included, the hub’s checker runs them.

One night comes to about $117 on our numbers, and at the Marriott’s $80 valet it’s about $142.

Two cabs, airport to hotel and hotel to pier, come to roughly $69 on the proposed meter — about $48 less, with nobody circling a garage.

If you take the car anyway, return it at HNL on sail morning, where the counters open early, then ride the 6 miles back to Pier 2.

A town desk skips HNL’s charges — at $41, a one-day Waikiki car is about $55 with fuel for a 25-mile loop, our arithmetic, and no garage night at all. Against the overnight car above, that’s the garage saved and the airport fees gone.

Skip it if an unattended drop worries you — then pick a desk whose closing time fits your day instead.

Waikiki sits about 3.4 miles from Pier 2, roughly 10 minutes with no traffic by our routing — a cab or rideshare, and a short one. On the city’s proposed meter that’s about $22, our arithmetic, though we couldn’t confirm the meter is in force.

Give the driver “Pier 2 Cruise Ship Terminal” — the hub explains why the plain “Pier 2” can send you astray.

The car-free options, the trolley among them, are on the decision page.

If the island day matters, search a Waikiki desk for that morning and that evening, not the afternoon you land. Then check its closing time against your plan before you compare the rate.