I was booked on the last cruise that got canceled and I spent months comparing land only to cruise. Course depends on what kind of a land you do. Here you have many options you can do budget Airbnb style or go to luxury route ( Aulani high end rooms, fine dining etc. )
For us the cruise was a better option mainly because it was my mother’s dream to go to Hawaii and she is elderly. So she’s not able to island hop on flights after spending 24 hrs getting there from Europe. It really comes down to what you wanna do. If the main goal is to experience Hawai’i you’re basically wasting five good days floating on the ocean and money as land can be done cheaper; including island hopping. For my kids, DH If you wanted simple Sea days on Disney ships we would do port can wrap sailings and only pay a third. For many that’s what they want.
We might do this cruise as that type of getting from A to B is best for my mom. If it was just me and my family of teenagers and husband we would do land. Mainly because it would be tons cheaper for us in the end, we would invest much more time on Maui ( stupid how here there’s no overnight) and those five sea days is a lot of “wasted”vacation time for us. And plus with Southwest now flying getting there and back my flight is not an issue cost wise
My mom is retired, has all the Time in the world and I’m making the time for myself to escort her.