The answer is yes, but we came close!

All good things must come to an end, even trips that were over three years in the making. Getting off the ship was uneventful, and Kirk was there to pick us up for our last day of sightseeing before heading to the airport.

I thought touring the last day was a good way to handle our late flight. We knew there was plenty we hadn’t seen, and doing it this way allowed our luggage to stay with us. The other option would have been a day use room at one of the resorts, but we would rather be out exploring so off to the North Shore it was!

We saw so much the last day I’m not sure I remember all of it. Honestly, it was a bit much even for us. We had been going non-stop for 11 days and we were at the point where we really needed some down time. Nevertheless, we weren’t getting any down time until we got on the plane, so off we went!

Our first stop was at Wailua Coffee for — wait for it — coffee (and chocolate)! We had an interesting tour of the facility and saw how the coffee and cacao gets from plant to product. I got excited when Jim bought four bags of chocolate, then I found out they were for him to take into the office!🙄

Our next stop was at Turtle Bay Resort.

Believe it or not it was time to eat (again) so we went to Lei Lei’s on the golf course at the resort. The food was pretty good, but it was super hot and super expensive (for what it was).

After lunch, we were off to the beach, and we got lucky! Not only did we see our second Monk Seal of the trip, it was also the first day the waves were big enough for surfing!

We started slowly working our way back to Honolulu. One of the stops was at the rock arch at Laie Point. The coast here is beautiful, and is a popular spot for filmmakers. Sounds like most of Hawaii!

I have to admit by this time we were both getting tired. Kirk got us as close as we could get to Marine Corps Base Hawaii so I could snap a couple pictures. Remember my nephew the USNA Plebe who was one of the reasons we started planning this trip? He’s graduating and commissioning in May, and he will be a Marine Pilot!

From the Marine Corps base we stopped at Kailua Beach Park, but we didn’t stay long. One thing I saw posted at the beach entrance was this sign, which I thought was a great idea!

Our next stop was at the Byodo-In Buddhist Temple.

Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden

The road to Honolulu (H-3) and the airport was fantastic, especially in Kirk’s great car. The highway is cut through the mountains and a tunnel takes you from one climate to another (wet to dry). This isn’t my picture, but it gives you a great idea of what the road is like.

Before we knew it we were back in Honolulu at the airport.😢 It seemed hard to believe that after all the waiting and planning it was over in a flash!

We packed a lot into our time, and think we saw as much of Hawaii as it’s possible to see in the time we had. We were on the go almost every minute — just how we like it!

We were thankful for the United Club as a place to wait for the flight. It had comfortable seating, TVs showing college football, and most importantly, bathrooms big enough and clean enough to change our clothes and clean up before the long flight.

Fortunately we had an equipment change for the flight home. Ordinarily I would have been annoyed, but not this time! Hallelujah, we were put on an updated plane with pods! I moved us both to window pods which meant we weren’t sitting together but we really didn’t care. We don’t talk much on planes anyway, and our objective on the red-eye flight was to sleep!

We were about an hour late leaving, but had a nice clear view of Honolulu as we ascended.

The flight was uneventful, and after an unmemorable dinner of some kind of Panko crusted chicken I managed to sleep for about 3 hours. When I woke up people were already stirring getting ready for breakfast and our arrival in Houston.

We had a great trip…it was worth the wait! Almost everything went according to plan, and all but one excursion was everything we hoped for and more. It’s always nice when things you chose from reading reviews and looking at pictures end up meeting or exceeding expectations!

That said, I’m not sure we would go back. We saw almost everything we wanted to see, and (just my opinion) there are a lot of other places we want to go before we would return to Hawaii.

Next up? Commissioning Week in Annapolis with my whole family. Planning is underway and I can’t wait!

Much like Thursday, on Friday we were blessed with (mostly) cooperative weather for some flight-seeing and some cruise-seeing!

We chose a flight with Wings Over Kauai for a Friday morning excursion. https://www.wingsoverkauai.com/ Wings Over Kauai was another tour provider we had been booked with several times in the years it took for us to finally get to go on this cruise. I found them exceptionally easy to work with, understanding about cancellations, and committed to keeping prices reasonable. The only change from our first booking in April of 2020 to our flight on October 7, 2022 was that Wings Over Kauai wasn’t able to provide transportation to and from the airport as they had in the past. That wasn’t a problem, and the added expense was minimal in the whole scheme of things. We took a taxi from the port in the morning, and used Uber to get back to the ship. Easy!

If you’re even thinking about a flight tour, I highly recommend Kauai and this company. The sights are simply breathtaking, and Wings Over Kauai provided an excellent flight. The experience is a little different than a helicopter tour in that the plane does fly a bit higher, but I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything in the plane (I’ve done a helicopter tour before). The tour we chose (Air Van) has the advantage of being considerably less expensive than a helicopter, and everyone gets a window in the Air Van! Wings Over Kauai makes a recording of each flight using a GoPro strapped to the wing strut. The video is narrated and set to music — well worth the extra $50 we paid for a copy.

Words can’t do this excursion justice! I’m not sure pictures can either, but I’m going to let them do the talking. Most of the pictures are mine, but I did include a few screenshots from the video where my pictures had too much reflection from the window.

The colors were absolutely stunning…the bluest blues and the greenest greens. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

We were back at the ship in time for a relaxing lunch followed by plenty of time for me to pack😢 as we cruised to the NaPali coast. When we left the weather was still decent, but we could see rain in the mountains and I began mentally preparing myself for a rainy sail-by of the Napali coast.

Sure enough, it got foggy and started misting not long after we left port. On the bright side, that meant packing was faster because I wasn’t distracted by what I was missing on the balcony.

We rounded the northeast point of the island about 5:00, and at first it didn’t look too promising.

There were patches of blue, but mostly low clouds.

We decided to go downstairs and get our picture taken with the rugged coast in the background. We had waited three years for this, and I was determined to get a Christmas card picture for my persistence!

There was more and more sun peeking through so we went back up to our balcony to enjoy the show! The views just got better and better — sun and clouds, interesting shadows, the setting sun glowing orange-yellow on the rocks, and finally an intense, magnificent sunset.

The sun was setting quickly, and just as we turned to head back to Honolulu Mother Nature put on a display.

Kauai was the island that most intrigued me when I was planning our trip. I knew the least about it, and the pictures I saw were stunning. Kauai seemed to have it all — cliffs, beaches, mountains, a canyon, and a blowhole!

I booked with Noah’s Ark Kauai—https://www.noahsarkkauai.com/#tours—for our cancelled trip in 2020, and never wavered from my plan to spend our first day in Kauai touring with Noah. We anticipated a fun day going to the mountains (mauka) and towards the sea (makai).

I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a couple days. On Monday afternoon when we got back to the ship from our excursion to Haleakala, I had an urgent e-mail from Noah. He had just tested positive for Covid and had to cancel our tour on Thursday.😢

This was bad news for many reasons! Most importantly, I hated that Noah had gotten sick. I hated that Covid was impacting a trip that had been cancelled and postponed so many times. I hated that my “best laid plans” had to be scrapped. Finally, I was worried because I felt responsible for salvaging not just our plans…we had several others from our Facebook group joining us on the tour.

Thankfully when I got the e-mail I had most of the afternoon to spare before we sailed. I called every recommendation Noah had made in his e-mail, and of course nobody had availability on such short notice. I asked everyone I called for recommendations and then called those people. None of them had availability either. I was starting to panic when I reached out to the ship concierge and got a name and number. Several phone calls back and forth with Casey and we had a reservation to tour Kauai on Thursday. Phew!

Do I think our day was the same experience we would have had with Noah? Unfortunately, the answer is definitely not. Noah is a guide, and we anticipated a day filled with stories, planned stops/activities, a lunch break, and being entertained by Noah on his ukulele. What we got was a driver who was very nice and knowledgeable about the island. Casey took us everywhere we wanted to go, but lacked the polish and professionalism of a true guide. That said, we had a pleasant day and we saw a lot. Casey threw in some nice touches and put his personal stamp on our day.

For the most part I’m going to let the pictures do the talking. We were very lucky, and our weather was picture perfect as you will see.

We went searching for turtles in Poipu. They were out there, but it was virtually impossible to get a picture at our first stop.

I finally saw Hawaiian Sea Turtles soaking up the sun at Poipu Beach Park!

After we saw the turtles I thought it would be a good idea to get a picture of me and Jim in our beach attire!😂😂😂

When we left Poipu Beach we went to Spouting Horn, a fabulous blowhole. It was mesmerizing…I could have watched it for hours!

On the way to Waimea Canyon we stopped in a small town — I think it was Hanapepe — and walked around for a while. This was where I think it would have been helpful to have a guide to plan a place to stop for lunch, make suggestions, and set some times to keep us on track. We got to see a lot of things, but I didn’t feel like there was any real plan or itinerary for the day.

Waimea Canyon lived up to its reputation! One nice thing Casey did was take us off the beaten path to see the canyon instead of going to the very crowded visitor’s center.

It was a pretty long drive back to Lihue from Waimea Canyon, and we made two more stops before we went back to the ship.

The first was at the Koa Store in Lihue. https://thekoastore.com

They carry a great assortment of handcrafted Koa wood products made by local artisans. We are in the habit of bringing home one nice souvenir from each trip and we look for something that represents the local culture. I rule out things that are mass-produced, stamped “Made in China,” or that I could pick up on Amazon. I know those criteria don’t always guarantee authenticity, but I think they improve my chances!

After our stop at the Koa Store we went over to Wailua Falls. I’m only going to share one picture of the falls now, because I got MUCH better pictures on Friday.

We were tired when we returned to the ship, but our day wasn’t over! We walked to Duke’s for dinner. It was delicious and a nice change of pace.

I can’t remember what we had for dinner, but our drinks were fantastic! I had a Lava Flow…

…and Jim had a Mai Tai!

Of course, no meal at Duke’s is complete without a “slice” of Hula Pie! The dessert was delicious and enormous! We were both pretty full by the time we left.

We had seen about as much of Kauai as we could pack into a single day and were excited about seeing it from two different perspectives on Friday!

Since we overnighted in Hilo, we needed a short excursion to fill the short day. We didn’t want to cut our return too close to the all-aboard time, but we didn’t necessarily want to have to get up and leave the ship in the wee hours either. We chose a farm-to-table tour — my thought was how bad can something that involves food and beverages be? It ended up being a fantastic day!

Most of our morning was spent at OK Farms, located in the hills above Hilo. They grow an incredible variety of fruit, nuts, coffee, and spices on their property, and they also supply fruit to Ola Brew for their craft beers, ciders, and hard seltzers.

We started our tour with freshly brewed coffee, and then drove around the property sampling fruits and spices right off the trees!

We were also treated to some relaxing food and beverage stops with views of Kaiemukama Falls and Rainbow Falls.

No visit to a working farm would be complete without a stop in the gift shop! Since everything we tasted was so good we took the opportunity to stock up on gifts for friends and neighbors and bought some gifts for us too! I’m still hoarding the delicious Macadamia nuts we brought home, and I only allow myself 2 or 3 at a time!😂

Even though our farm visit was over, the tour was not! We enjoyed a delicious lunch at Ola Brew where we were able to sample the beers and hard seltzers made with produce from OK Farms,

If you’re looking for something different to do in Hilo, I highly recommend both OK Farms and Ola Brew. If you don’t have time in Hilo, don’t worry, there’s an Ola Brew in Kona!
https://www.okfarmshawaii.com
https://www.olabrewco.com

We got back to the ship about 1:00 and actually had some time to relax, sit outside for sailaway, and enjoy a few hours of not having to be anyplace! I took advantage of the downtime in the afternoon to go through e-mail, download pictures, and do a load of sink laundry.

Sunset was just before dinner. It was too pretty to miss…they all were!

Dinner was at Teppanyaki and it was fabulous! Our chef/performer Mario was great and really helped make the meal entertaining and memorable.

After dinner I was done! It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other to walk to our cabin so I could have a close encounter with my bed! We had three more fully packed days ahead and I wanted to be able to take advantage of every minute!

Our cruise had an itinerary change. Several months before we sailed we were notified that we wouldn’t be able to go to Kona because of the Ironman World Championship. At first I was upset — I mean, what else could possibly happen with this trip?!? In the end, the change was actually a good thing, because it allowed us to see things we never would have otherwise, like lava at night!

We arrived in Hilo on a beautiful, picture perfect morning, with hardly a cloud in the sky and a stunning view of Mauna Kea (which many never see).

We had decided to do a small group excursion called “Land of Frozen Fire” to the Puna District of the Big Island. This tour took us to the area most heavily impacted by the 2018 Kilauea eruption.

The most fascinating thing about the tour was how arbitrary the lava was. We drove past (but not through) the Leilani Estates neighborhood, made famous in 2018 when fissures erupted and lava flowed through the neighborhood. Here’s a link to a Wiki article about what happened in the neighborhood during the eruption: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leilani_Estates,_Hawaii

Driving through lush rainforest with the coast on one side, we suddenly came upon a desolate, craggy landscape with a road built right over the top. This “Frozen Fire” is what was left behind when the lava flow cooled and hardened. It’s uneven, sharp, and almost impossible to walk on (for the most part we didn’t even try!).

We also went to the Black Sand Beach at Punalu’u Park. The beach is huge and waves crash dramatically on the nearby lava cliffs.

One of the most interesting sights at the park is the road that dead ends into a wall of hardened lava. Adjacent to the wall are untouched picnic tables! I wondered why the road hasn’t been rebuilt over the lava, and learned it’s still too hot! I can’t even imagine something that wouldn’t be cool enough to build on after 5 years.

On our way back to Hilo we stopped at the famous Star of the Sea Painted Church. The history of this small church is very interesting, including a move by trailer to save it from a 1990 lava flow! Here’s an article with more information about the church: https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/03/how-the-faithful-took-it-upon-themselves-to-save-this-unique-painted-church/

After we left the church we headed back to Hilo, and stopped for a few minutes at the Grand Naniloa Doubletree Hotel. No surprise that the tour company just happened to have a gift shop there! Luckily the other thing they had was a wonderful view of the ship across the harbor.

Most of the couples on our tour opted to stay at the resort for the rest of the day, but Jim and I went back to the ship for lunch (at Cagney’s) and to rest a little before Day 1, Part 2!

Since we were overnighting in Hilo, the local HOHO company, Keikana Tours, had added an evening tour of Volcanoes National Park for lava viewing. Remember when I said the itinerary change ended up being a good thing? That’s why! We never would have gotten to see lava during the day…just smoke and steam.

We took a small bus with 12 people to the park. Our first stop was at the Thurston Lava Tube, which we walked through and I thought was kind of creepy.

Here’s some information about lava tubes: https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/nature/lava-tubes.htm

The lava viewing was both an amazement and a disappointment. While we didn’t see giant rivers of lava, we saw flows within Kilauea’s Halemaʻumaʻu Crater. Occasionally we saw a flare up from a fissure, and the sky had an orange glow reflecting off the clouds. That was the amazement part. The disappointment part was the selfish people who had gotten there early, set up tripods and chairs along the rope, and refused any and every request to share space, even when asked by the park ranger. The darker it got the better the viewing got, and the more immovable the squatters at the rope became. Thus, most of my pictures were taken by crouching and shooting between peoples’ legs or holding my camera in the air and shooting over peoples’ heads.

Nevertheless, we saw lava and also stopped to experience a steam vent on the way home. The steam vent was interesting…cold on one side, and hot enough to give yourself a facial on the other!

Dinner wasn’t much. Remember the banana, mango, and guava breads from Maui? They found their way onto the bus and were enjoyed by everybody on the way back to Hilo. We had a quick snack in the buffet when we got back to the ship, but for the most part we were just tired and we knew we needed to get up early to be tourists again!

It was a great day and if I had it to do over I would make the same decisions!

One of the first things I read about when I started researching what to do on the islands was the Road to Hana. I knew I didn’t want to rent a car, because that would mean Jim was driving while I enjoyed myself! We settled on NCL’s Road to Hana Deluxe and it was a great choice.

We were fortunate to have a clear, sunny day for most of our tour. Hana — and the road to Hana — are on the wet side of the island, and rainy/foggy/cloudy days are common. Even on our tour the mist set in about 3:00, so an early start on the Road to Hana tour is preferable.

We had a group of 8 in a van with comfortable Captain’s Chairs. Temptation Tours was the tour operator, and Gail was our driver. She was excellent…her stories and knowledge of Maui were a real asset during the tour.

We made many stops during the day. For the most part I’m going to let my pictures do the talking.

Our first stop was at the Ke’Anae Peninsula for dramatic views of the rugged coast composed of huge lava rocks.

Our next stop was “Halfway to Hana” for some overpriced but delicious banana bread and smoothies.

There were waterfalls everywhere, but our first waterfall stop was at the Pua’a Kaa State Wayside.

Along the way we saw beautiful Rainbow Eucalyptus trees and other spectacular vegetation.

Hana is a quiet little village at the eastern tip of Maui. In the late 1800s-early 1900s the main industry was sugar cane plantations. There were 7 of them! In 1946 much of the town was destroyed by a tsunami, so what you see today is mostly post-tsunami construction that is built on higher ground than the destroyed homes and structures.

Hana and the surrounding secluded areas are favored by travelers who value luxury and privacy.

Lunch was at Wai’anapanapa State Park. Bet you can’t pronounce it…I couldn’t either! Gail provided a wonderful array of wraps, fruit, salads, and sweet treats in an idyllic setting.

Wai’anapanapa is also the home of Paiola, Maui’s black sand beach. On the day we visited the beach was being enjoyed by quite a few people and one Hawaiian Monk Seal!

We made a couple other stops on the way back to the ship, but in my opinion the Crown Jewels of the day were the Ke’Anae Peninsula and Wai’anapanapa State Park.

The weather had started turning and fog/rain/mist set in for the rest of the day.

Gail did a great job getting us to the major sites on the Road to Hana before the weather turned. We learned it rains on that end of the island more often than not, so we were fortunate to see some of the views with clear sunny skies.

The rain is both a blessing and a curse…all the rain is the reason for the lush tropical vegetation and waterfalls.

It’s truly a rainforest, and the inland part of the drive is enhanced in the rain. Unfortunately the rain does nothing for the ocean views.

We got back to the ship about 4:00. It was a long day, but a great one and we were glad we made the trip.

Dinner was at Cagney’s, and our evening entertainment was trying not to fall asleep in our food!

We were hopeful for a repeat of Sunday’s weather for our Monday trip to the Haleakala National Park and the volcano summit, but it wasn’t meant to be. I know the people who made the sunrise trip did actually see sunrise before the fog and rain set in, but I don’t think the visibility window lasted too long.

We took a private tour with Gus from Holo Holo Maui Tours. He was fantastic and really worked with us to salvage something of our day, but I’m getting ahead of myself…

When we left port at 8:30 the weather wasn’t too bad. We had a mix of sun and clouds and it had been raining, but it didn’t look like a total washout. You couldn’t see the top of Haleakala, but Gus was hopeful the clouds would lift, so off we went.

We saw many variations of vegetation and scenery as we climbed Haleakala.

Unfortunately the higher we climbed the worse it got.

We got to the summit and walked around for a while, but there wasn’t a lot to see. It was foggy, rainy, and COLD!

We ended up stopping at the trailhead for a snack, but it was raining hard by this time so no volcano walk for us!

Instead of our volcano hike Gus took us down to Paia Town where we walked around and did a little shopping. All was not lost, because we found our Christmas ornament for the trip.

If we had the day to plan over again I would make sure we had back-up plans in case of weather. We had a great time because of Gus, but there really wasn’t much to see because of the weather. Since it was a private tour I think we could have/should have gone over to Lahaina and Ka’anapali Beach where it hardly ever rains!

My consolation prize is that we by pure luck picked the good day for Road to Hana. It rained out there ALL DAY Monday, so the people who chose that really didn’t see a lot.

We got back about 1:30ish, and then what I thought would be a leisurely afternoon turned into frenzied activity because of an e-mail. Our guide for Kauai, Noah (Noah’s Ark Kauai) had to cancel because he tested positive for Covid. He sent several contacts and I reached out to all of them, but of course looking on Monday for a tour on Thursday is an exercise in futility. I reached out to the concierge who gave me a name that worked. We played phone tag for a while and I reached out to the other people on the tour, and finally just as we sat down for dinner at LaCucina everything was set. So much for relaxing!

We had an excellent dinner at LaCucina as we set sail for two days in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii!

I woke up predictably early…after all, it was cruising day! Jim was still sound asleep and snug in the bed, so I went out on the balcony and started looking for signs of life.

OK, what I was really looking for was a ship! Between binoculars and a zoom lens, I was soon rewarded!

The hours before we left for the ship were pretty unremarkable. We ate breakfast in the club lounge, finished packing up, and actually had time to relax before it was time to leave for the ship. Confession — I felt guilty leaving without purchasing anything at the hotel, so I went down to the art gallery in the lobby and found some sea glass jewelry that I thought needed to leave Hawaii and go back to Houston.😂

I never said much about our hotel room. It was newly renovated and nicely furnished, but the real attraction was the view. The entire hotel was finishing up a major renovation, so things still had that new car smell. They had taken out the bathtubs and replaced them with walk-in showers which I thought was great! One thing I thought was strange was there was only one mirror in the room. It was over the vanity, but there was no electricity anywhere in the vicinity! Thank goodness I have a lighted travel mirror, or I’m not sure how I would have dried my hair. First World problems, right?

One disappointment was the hotel laundromat had been taken out during the renovations. I was counting on using the laundromat to get our sweaty stuff washed before the cruise. As it was I ended up having to do a sink load on the ship.

Something I wasn’t expecting was the open air/non-air conditioned corridors. I wasn’t surprised that most of the hotel lobbies were open air, but I had expected hallways in high-rise hotels to be enclosed with A/C and they weren’t. I think that contributed a little to the room always feeling a bit humid and sticky. Still, we liked the hotel, the location was perfect for us, and we would definitely stay there again.

Our ride to the ship with Go808 Express was a few minutes late, but that was OK…it was a beautiful morning and our ship check-in time wasn’t until 11:30. Our driver was chatty and personable, and the ride to the terminal only took about 10 minutes.

Check-in and boarding were a breeze. We had a suite, so we never stood in a line of any kind. We were taken to a side room where there were snacks and drinks, and each suite was seated at a desk for check-in. Right about 11:30 the concierge spoke to the group then we were escorted onto the ship. It’s funny, after waiting so long I thought I’d be giddy with excitement when we boarded, but it really just felt normal.

We changed some of our dinner reservations, then had a leisurely lunch in Cagney’s. I’m nothing if not a creature of habit…I decided at that very first lunch on board that the Chicken Milanese was excellent and I ended up having it every time we ate lunch there!

We had to have dessert, because we were on a cruise ship which for us equals having to have dessert! We split a piece of carrot cake, which was delicious.

I’m going to put all the ship stuff here, because to be honest for us the ship was really just our hotel with several restaurants that sailed from place to place. We never made it to a show, there wasn’t a casino, and although we sat down in a bar a couple times for the most part our daily routine was get up, eat, tour all day, return to the ship, clean up, eat again, and sleep.

Many said the buffet was great. I couldn’t tell you, because we only stopped in once for a quick snack after an evening tour. I never even located the main dining room, because we ate all our dinners in the specialty restaurants. I went to the Shore Excursion desk once and Guest Services once. Both were reasonably quick and provided good service. Our room steward seemed efficient…we never formally met him and only saw him once. I guess that’s what happens when you have a butler to take care of you!

I’m not sure I would take the beverage package again. I really don’t think we were on the ship enough to get good value for our money. At most, we each had 2, maybe 3 drinks a day, and it would have been much less expensive to decline the package and just pay for our drinks.

Don’t bother upgrading your internet unless you plan to spend your days sitting on the ship working! We had cell service almost the entire trip save a few hours overnight when we were between islands. For the times we didn’t have service, the included internet was more than enough to cover it.

Our cabin was great! We were in 13518, a Penthouse on a small, quiet deck. We had tons of storage, a huge balcony, and one of the most comfortable beds I’ve ever slept in. All the soft furnishings were in really good shape, and the cabin was immaculate.

What didn’t I like? The lighting at the vanity was awful (Once again I was thankful for my lighted travel mirror!), the railing for the balcony was way too high, and the bathtub was a lethal weapon. Seriously, I could have used a step ladder to get in that thing, showering while the ship was moving was an adventure, and I said many prayers before I got out. There was just no way to bathe and feel safe at the same time! Definitely not for the elderly, klutzes, or anyone else who values their life and limbs! The tub alone would cause me to choose a different cabin next time…one with a shower that doesn’t require gymnastic feats to enter and exit. I would choose a cabin with a walk-in shower!

We sailed at only 50% of capacity, so the ship never felt crowded. There was never a wait for an elevator, and I never saw any long lines for anything. I thought the staff was warm, friendly, and did everything they could to be helpful and provide great service. There were times we could tell someone was in training, but it in no way impacted our trip or our enjoyment.

I had been a little worried that after such a long wait and so many disappointments the cruise would be a let down, but it wasn’t at all. I will say if someone books this cruise expecting it to be like cruising in the Caribbean with lots of sea days and fun in the sun they need to find a different cruise. If people do their homework and understand what the ship is and what it isn’t they will have a great time. For us, the opportunity to see four islands without having to mess with airports, TSA, rental cars, and schlepping luggage around Hawaii was better than any casino or water slide!

My only gripes (and they’re pretty minor) were disappointment with the wine list and the open hours of the coffee bar. I had expected the specialty restaurants and the wine bar to carry a much wider choice of wine by the glass, but the list was the same (and very limited) in all the restaurants and at the Napa Wine Bar. As for the coffee bar, a 6:30 opening time is simply not early enough for this early riser!

Our muster drill location was out on deck (how did we get so lucky?🙄), and right after that we had a meet and greet with about 25 people from our FaceBook group page. It’s always nice to see some familiar and friendly faces around the ship!

Dinner was at Jefferson’s. I had the veal chop and Jim had the salmon. Both were great, and dinner was pretty much the end of the day for us. That night we started the habit of getting everything ready for the next day before we went to sleep, because we were off the ship early every morning.

As soon as I stretched out on the bed the motion of the ship rocked me to sleep. Next stop, Maui!

We woke up at a slightly more reasonable hour on Friday. We were in no rush…we were taking a photography tour and our pick-up time wasn’t until 9:40.

We decided to have breakfast in the Kani Ka Pila Grille both to try some local specialties and to burn more of our resort food credit.

I had never heard of Loco Moco before I started researching Hawaii, but once I read about it I knew it was a must try. Loco Moco is rice topped with 2 beef patties, carmelized onions, mushroom gravy, and topped with a fried egg.😳 I opted for that while Jim had the Hawaiian Style Eggs Benedict. Oh, and we both ordered the smoothie of the day. Big mistake. We had enough food to feed a family of 5 with leftovers for another meal!

The van for our tour arrived right on time, and we joined one couple who had already been picked up. We were soon joined by a couple from Canada and a young man from Australia.

I quickly realized that this was not going to be like any of the other photography tours I had taken on vacations. Even though we saw some nice sights and enjoyed our guide, there was little that made it a photography tour other than the name on the van and the number of cameras aboard. I expected some discussion of settings for the conditions, or maybe some talk about framing or favorite shot tips from a local, but our guide (who was a very sweet young girl) didn’t provide any of that so in that aspect I was disappointed.

The most popular tours seem to be the longer sunrise tours, which we easily could have done Wednesday or Thursday. If I had it to do over again I would choose differently. Oh well, we don’t get a mulligan. It was still a pleasant day of seeing spectacular things.

Our first stop was Tantalus Lookout, where we had stopped with Kirk on Wednesday. Since I had those pictures already I switched to a wide-angle lens and also took a panoramic picture using my cell phone.

https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dsp/parks/oahu/puu-ualakaa-state-wayside/

Our next stop was at the Nu’uanu Pali State Wayside Lookout for a fantastic view of the windward side of the island. The place lived up to its name…it was very, very windy!

https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/dsp/parks/oahu/nuuanu-pali-state-wayside/

After Nu’uanu Pali we headed to Waimanalo Beach and our lunch stop at Ono Steaks and Shrimp. Shack. This is a tiny place with a deservedly stellar reputation for the food. They were very busy when we were there, and there were few places to sit inside. I also thought it was uncomfortably warm inside.

Jim and I ordered their smallest steak and shrimp plate to split (no appetite due to Da Loco Moco!) and happily grabbed a place to sit outside where there was shade and a slight breeze.

Makapu’u Beach Lookout was our next stop. We spent a few minutes looking out over the stunning views of the coast. This was the only stop where I heard our guide make a comment about our photos. She pointed out her favorite view on the island.

Finally, we went to the lookout at the Halona Blowhole (not blowing when we were there) and Eternity Beach.

It was a pretty long drive back to Waikiki Beach through heavy Friday afternoon traffic. I might have caught a little nap on the way back!😴

I spent a couple hours reorganizing things for the cruise, then we were off to dinner at Roy’s. We had been trying to get back to Roy’s since our spectacular dinner overlooking one of the greens at Pebble Beach in 2009. For the most part the food didn’t disappoint, but I don’t think we will ever match the magic of the evening we spent at Pebble Beach. The only negative of the evening was a large, extremely loud, drunk group at a nearby table who seemed to think the entire restaurant wanted to hear their opinions on politics and women’s rights.🙄

We both chose the Prix Fixe menu, and had this meal including subbing the Hot Chocolate Melting Soufflé for one of the cheesecakes:

We walked around a little bit after dinner and I finally picked up a couple magnets, but a Christmas ornament for our travel tree was avoiding us. Since we still had more than a week to take care of that I wasn’t too worried.

Something I haven’t mentioned that shocked both of us is how BUSY Waikiki was. When we were walking around at night we were amazed at how many people there were. It was a lot like being in any world-class city with great restaurants and hotels, interesting people, and high end shopping. The thing that set Waikiki apart and made it not like the others was the beach.

We didn’t linger on the Streets of Waikiki too long. We had packed a lot into 3.5 days, and we would have another day to explore Oahu before we flew home. I was ready to finish packing up to get on a cruise ship the next day! It would be the first time since we left the Ruby Princess on August 31, 2019, and I was more than ready!

Links:

Oahu Photo Tours — https://www.oahuphotographytours.com/tours/beautiful-hawaii/

Roy’s Waikiki — https://www.royyamaguchi.com/roys-waikiki-oahu#roys-waikiki-menus-1

We slept in on Thursday…all the way until 4:00! Darn jet-lag! The only positive was that we were going to bed so early we were still getting a decent amount of sleep.

We had planned something completely different for the morning — an e-bike ride and climb of Diamond Head. I was a little apprehensive about both activities but we put on workout clothes, grabbed a quick breakfast, and headed out. We had arranged a ride to the starting location with Charley’s Taxi, and were glad we did. It was a little further than it seemed on the map. It would have been a long walk trying to follow the blue dot on my phone to our destination in an unassuming building a few blocks away from the major hustle and bustle of Waikiki Beach.

The e-bikes took some getting used to, but they were a lot of fun! I thought the experience was kind of a cross between a bicycle and a moped, and I appreciated the assist on some of the hills! Most importantly, neither of us fell off, so that aspect alone made it a great day!😂

We started out riding along Waikiki Beach, stopping at places of interest for pictures.

Ryan, the owner of 808 eVentures was great! He was very patient while we learned to ride the bikes, and very patient with my pathetic, plodding pace while we climbed the volcano! He took lots of pictures along the way.

I really enjoyed the bike part of this tour. It was fun zipping up the hills with ease! We arrived at the base of Diamond Head in one piece and got ready to start our climb.

I’ll tell you right now that this was more difficult than I anticipated. The climb isn’t overly steep, but the terrain is very uneven and it was HOT!🫠 Add to that I should have chosen different shoes (I wore regular tennis shoes and had a hard time with my feet moving in the shoes) and the climb kind of kicked my butt! There really is no correlation between walking on a treadmill at an incline in air conditioning (my preparation method) and climbing an extinct volcano in full on sunshine!

Still, I persevered and the views on the way up and at the top were well worth it!

What goes up must come down, and we were no exception! I thought the downhill hike was easier physically but a little more treacherous if that makes sense. There were lots of places where I thought it would have been easy to lose my footing or twist an ankle. Since I’m a klutz and I’ve had vacations impacted by my klutziness before I was extra careful. I was amazed at the people doing the climb in flip flops while I was wishing I wore hiking shoes!

We left Diamond Head and rode through some residential neighborhoods on the way to our reward for our efforts…a shave ice! We went to a tiny but popular place away from the tourist areas and all 3 of us had a delicious treat for less than $10 total. Most of the shave ice I saw in the tourist areas was at least double that!

Back at our hotel (we took an Uber) we decided on a light lunch at the Kani Ka Pila Grille. Unfortunately the concept of a “light” meal is foreign to them. I had an appetizer portion of coconut shrimp and a side salad, and even after some pretty strenuous morning activity I still thought it was too much food. Jim had what he called his first Poke Bowl of the trip, but I’m not sure he ever had another one so maybe it was his first and last!

This would have been a great time for laundry! Alas, the laundromat at the Outrigger Reef was taken out during the recent renovations, and taking an Uber or a taxi seemed like too much effort. We draped our hike and bike clothes on every available surface to let them dry before we banished them to sealed ZipLoc bags🤧, and decided a nap was in order.

I don’t think I slept, but I did rest for a while and I went through pictures, so I guess that counts as down time.

At 4:30 we were off to our next event, the Aha’aina Luau at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. It was a fairly easy walk from the Outrigger Reef — about 10 minutes or so.

The luau was pricy, but they all are. We debated a little, but finally decided since we hadn’t been to Hawaii before we needed to splurge.

We chose this luau for a couple reasons, and we thought we made a good choice. First and foremost, we wanted to attend a luau outside by the ocean, and the Aha’aina delivered. We also wanted something close to our hotel, so that eliminated a lot of the big names that required an hour on a bus in each direction. Hmm…walk vs. take a bus? It was an easy decision for us.

I thought the event was very well done! The luau takes place out in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel with a view of Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head in the background.

The food was good, not great. They no longer have a buffet. Instead you are served a pre-plated meal. Three drinks each were included, and we both thought two was plenty.

The show was very entertaining. All in all it was a great way to spend the evening.

Once the luau was over we were done for the night. We walked back to the hotel and did a little souvenir shopping along the way but we didn’t find anything we liked, so we decided to save that for another day. We were looking forward to “sleeping in” since we had a later start to Friday’s Tour — a “Beautiful Colors of Oahu” photo tour with Oahu Photography Tours.

Links:

Charley’s Taxi — https://charleystaxi.com

808 eVentures — https://808eventures.com

Waiola Shave Ice — https://www.facebook.com/WaiolaShaveIce/

Aha’aina Luau at the Royal Hawaiian — https://www.royal-hawaiian.com/dining-overview/ahaaina-luau/

We had plans for all our days in Honolulu, starting with a Pearl Harbor and Honolulu tour on our first full day. In hindsight what I should have scheduled for the first day was something involving sunrise because we were up at 3:00, but I wasn’t thinking about jet-lag, just about fitting things in.

I guess one advantage of having jet-lag is you’re awake for sunrise. Actually we were awake for several hours of darkness before sunrise, but we were finally in Hawaii and didn’t really care. I peeked at sunrise from our balcony and sent Jim out to the beach alone to take some pictures. I decided a shower was much more important than sunrise!

After a quick breakfast in the club lounge at the hotel we were off to meet our guide for the day, Kirk Hendricks.

We had a wonderful tour of the Honolulu area. Our tour guide, Kirk, was friendly and very knowledgeable. We went to numerous scenic overlooks, the National Cemetary of the Pacific, Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial, and then to some neighborhoods for local snacks. I highly recommend Kirk! It didn’t hurt that Kirk has an amazing, super comfortable car (2022 Audi Q7) and we travelled in style all day!

We drove through some neighborhoods and downtown after Pearl Harbor, debating what to do about lunch. In the end we decided we weren’t very hungry so Kirk took us to Chinatown where we wound up at Sing Cheong Yuan Bakery. We got some delicious and very inexpensive savory pastries to tide us over. Jim had Pork Hash, and I think what I had was called Char Siu Manapua which translates to pastry with barbecued pork inside. In other words, I had a kolache!

We made one stop that wasn’t on a list of sights to see. We stopped at the grocery store so I could get a bottle of creamer for my coffee. That was where my jaw really hit the floor at prices…a bottle of Carnation creamer was SEVEN DOLLARS!😳 Ouch! I know groceries are high everywhere, but that’s more than $3.00 higher than the current inflated price at H-E-B!

We got back to the hotel around 3, which meant we had a very little down time before our dinner reservations. It felt good just to sit in one place and not be moving for a while!

We ate at Orchids at the Halekulani, which was an easy 2 minute walk from our hotel…right next door!🙂 One of the reasons I chose the Outrigger Reef was that we could walk everywhere in the evenings…no taxis, rental cars, or Ubers required.

This is probably a good time to mention I was surprised by how hot it felt to me in Hawaii. I thought it would seem like nothing after a Houston summer, but the difference is almost everything (restaurants, hotel lobbies and corridors, stores) is open-air or not air conditioned. I’m used to cooling off when I get inside, but that didn’t happen in Hawaii. I only remember one air-conditioned restaurant the whole trip. Anyway, back to dinner…

We have mixed opinions about Orchids. I thought it was great, but there was something about it that Jim didn’t love. I don’t think it helped that it was hot, we were very jet-lagged, and I insisted that Jim wear jeans because I thought Orchids enforced their dress code. At any rate, we had a very nice meal in a beautiful setting, but we sweated most of the way through dinner! It got better once the sun went down.

Links:

Kirk Hendricks — https://www.toursbylocals.com/Private-Guide-Hawaii-Oahu-Honolulu-Top-Rated-Best-Spanish

Orchids at the Halekulani — https://www.halekulani.com/dining/orchids/