Hawaii Cruise Day 16 - Back to Los Angeles

Our day started slowly (which was nice!). After a while we walked off the ship to visit the local shops and take a few pictures.  There were a lot of sea lions resting on the rocks near the back of the ship.  They blended in with the rocks so well it was hard to spot all of them.  We did not walk far from the ship, but did enjoy being off the ship for a while.  

After lunch we enjoyed sitting in the sun on the balcony, and found that they were doing maintenance on the life boat cables. They were lowering each boat and greasing the cables as they slowly raised them back up into position.   We heard quite a rumble when they extended the one under our cabin.  

This afternoon was time for packing suitcases.  We accomplished that unfortunate but necessary task, and everything did fit.  

Not much going on around the ship tonight.  A classical music trio was playing in the main atrium so we listened to them for a bit while waiting for our cabin to be cleaned.  

Tomorrow we lave the ship and fly home.  It's been a great trip and a restful and relaxing vacation.  

Hawaii Cruise Day 14 - Fifth of Five At Sea

The excitement started early this morning as a Coast Guard helicopter arrived at 6:45 to take a sick passenger off the ship.  We got up at 6:15 to go and see it.  The entire operation took about 40 minutes from when they dropped a medic to the deck until they lifted the patient up in a basket and retrieved the medic.  It turns out they came right over our balcony, but no one was permitted to be outside during the operation due to safety concerns (helicopter down draft) and it was rasnig lightly.  It was very interesting to observe, but also unfortunate that it was necessary.  This was nothing we ever expected to see while on a cruise. 

After breakfast we started our normal morning activities (exercises, zumba, etc) then went to the culinary show hosted by the Executive Chef and the Maitre'd.  While part of it was a bit corny,  they did demonstrate how to prepare a couple of dishes.  The interesting part was the small choir made of up various cooks who sang three songs, one of which was "Leaving on a Jet Plane"!  Each dining room also presented a musical number by various staff members (two were soloists and one was an ensemble) which was something we had not seen at other shows.  After this, we did a kitchen tour, but the galley was not preparing anything during the tour so they just had some food carvings on display. 

At lunch today was the Dessert Extravaganza, a display of specially prepared (and very fancy) cakes as you can see in these pictures.  They tasted as good as they looked!

In the afternoon I played bridge while Mary caught some rays, then we watched Greek Wedding 2 before heading to dinner.  Looks like movie night in our cabin for this evenings entertainment.  Ensenada tomorrow, then back to Los Angeles 8-(

Hawaii Cruise Day 13 - Fourth of Five At Sea

We had a busy day today with lots of onboard activities. I won a Princess pen at a golf putting contest and participated in a paper airplane toss, while Mary and I both enjoyed a Navigation at Sea lecture by the Captain.  The captain announced this evening that we have a sick passenger on board who will be airlifted of the ship by the Coast Guard at 7:00 am tomorrow morning.  So we are setting our alarm to go and see the helicopter basket retrieval.  

Tonight was the last formal night and had a great menu!  Lobster and king prawns for the main course with Mary's favorite crab and caviar appetizer.   And they had her favorite dessert, Floating Islands, as well.

Tonight's production show, Born to Dance, was fabulous!  It's a new show that is only running on three ships. It featured continuous movement between dances and used video clips to talk about the life of a dancer, as well as highlighting famous Broadway choreographers. 

Hawaii Cruise Day 12 - Third of Five At Sea

Our smooth sailing came to an end as we had some fairly rough seas last night and into today.  Guess we have caught up to that big storm.  We heard a lot of flights at LAX were cancelled, but hopefully that will clear up by Wednesday when we fly home.

The big event of the morning was a live taping of "The Wake Show",  a daily TV show listing events of the day, hosted by the cruise director with guest visits from various Princess personnel.  You can answer a "Question of the Day" and include a shout-out on the form.  Mary submitted one for my buying John Denver tickets a few days ago, and yesterday asked the host to sing "Country Roads", which he did! Normally the show is taped in private, but today it was hosted in the main atrium with a live audience.  It was neat to see, and Mary and I were shown on camera a few times.  Hopefully we won't end up on the cutting room floor.

We enjoyed a British Pub Lunch today (fish and chips) but did not have many afternoon activities so it was very quiet and restful.  The evening meal was Italian night.  I had a delicious pot roast while Mary had shrimp and scallops.  No theater show this evening so we'll watch a movie or two in our cabin. 

Hawaii Cruise Day 11 - Second of Five At Sea

Today was a mostly quiet day as we settle into our "sea day" routine.  I went to Zumba in the morning while Mary went to a back stage tour.  Here is a picture of some of the dresses from the dancers' backstage changing room.  In the afternoon I played bridge while Mary went to a jewelry show where she found out her Alexandrite set is very valuable due to its scarcity.  The ship only has 3 Alexandrite rings in the jewelry store onboard.  

As to cruising, overall the sea has been rather smooth.  Plenty of "normal" ship movement but nothing drastic.   I heard about a big storm approaching southern California today and tomorrow, and figured we might catch the edge of that, but so far it's been smooth sailing, 

Tonight's entertainment was a pianist playing Elton John songs followed by some classical music by a Hungarian trio. It was all very enjoyable.

Three more sea days to go! 

Hawaii Cruise Day 10 - First of Five At Sea

Lots of onboard activities today.  After Zumba I went to the bean bag toss, then met Mary where she was reading, before heading to lunch.  After lunch I went to play bridge, but no free players so I went to water volleyball instead.  With the majority of passengers on this ship being in our age group (or older!), I wasn't sure if we'd have enough players, but we had 7 so it worked out. Speaking of working out, when players were on one side of the net, they had to tread water, while on the other they could be on tip-toes.  The activitiy director had us switch sides every 5 minutes, but playing that way for 40 minutes was quite the work out!  Maybe I lost some of the weight I gained at that Crown Grill dinner last night!

We went to the Captain's Circle party (given for frequent cruisers) before dinner this evening.  Our captain is quite the joker, so instead of doing the corporate prescribed speech he talked about how he likes to do different and unexpected things at these parties.  He showed pictures of the party on the last cruise where, when he was introduced, he had a young girl come down the aisle wearing his white jacket with captain's bars!

Going to watch a movie tonight.

Hawaii Cruise Day 9 - Hilo (Big Island)

We both enjoyed today's excursion  very much, first visiting Mauna Loa Macadamia Factory and Store, and then on to Volcanoes National Park.  At the park we saw  some steam vents followed by the Kilauea Caldera (crater) with volcanic lava spouting up!  It's rather difficult to see the lava on the photo, as it appears as just a fiery dot, but it was amazing to see in person.

Our next stop was a 1974 lava field, followed by a walk-thru a lava tube.  The tube was over 75 meters long and quite dark (with just a few lights to show the way) 

We got back to the ship by 1:30 for a quick lunch before I tried my hand at bean-bag toss (came in second with 10 points) and basketball shooting (I won a water bottle by making 5 hoops!) After returning to our room we spotted some whales in the distance which we enjoyed seeing.

We had dinner this evening is in the Crown Grill, Princess' onboard steak house, courtesy of my travel agent.  Mary enjoyed a lobster tail dinner while I had an excellent ribeye steak.  

The desserts were fabulous as well, from Mary's 7 Layer S'mores to my Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie.

Hawaii Cruise Day 8 - Maui

Today was our second full day excursion, to see the Road to Hana which was recommended by several people.  We had to get up very early to be ready by 7:00AM but we checked in in plenty of time.   Overall the excursion covered some very scenic vistas including stopping at this black sand beach, but it was a very long bus ride.  The first half was not too bad since while the road was curvy  it was smooth.  It would have been nice to have an extra photo stop or two, but with the time constraints that was not possible. 

After lunch we headed down a very rough, single lane road with a top speed of 20 mph.  We saw some pretty waterfalls and Charles Lindberg's grave on this section of the tour, but the rough ride and distance we had to cover, had us questioning the wisdom of this excursion choice.  We did arrive back at the town with plenty of time to catch the tender to the ship so that worked out well.

Tonight we saw a musical performance by the Hawaiian Ambassador on board. The show was titled "Jukebox of our Lives".  He's been giving lectures on the islands and teaching ukulele lessons but in this show surpised us with a lot of oldies and had great audience participation.

Hawaii Cruise Day 7 - Kauai

We booked an all day excursion today to see Waimea Canyon,  Fern Grotto, and a short boat ride on the Wailua river.  Most of it worked out....

Our day started early since we had to meet for our excursion just 20 minutes after we were schedule to dock. And we were glad we arrived at the port on schedule since we did not leave Oahu last night until 1:30 am, well after our 11:00 pm scheduled departure time. About 9:30 pm last evening a barge docked and an oil spill prevention line was deployed around the ship.  So we're not sure what was wrong, but obviously some repairs were needed.  The good news is that the captain made up the time and we did arrive on schedule.  We even saw some whales in the distance as we pulled into the port!

Our excursion left on time and we had a 2 hour ride to the canyon, up a very narrow and twisty road. Once there, it was spectacular! I took a video of it, but it's a bit large to upload onto the blog. You can see Opaekaa Falls in the distance.  It is amazing how deep this canyon is.

After seeing the canyon we had a Hawaiian buffet lunch at a restaurant called Keoki's Paradise.  They served crusted mahi-mahi, barbecue chicken pieces, and shredded pork with cabbage, over rice.  It was a very elegant place with very good food and excellent decor. 

After lunch we headed to a short photo stop called Spouting Horn where waves come through tubes under the rock and shoot into the air. We enjoyed seeing these, and trying to get good pictures.   Here's a video of one.  After re-boarding our bus, our driver discovered he could not put it into reverse.  He tried several things and was even assisted by a former bus driver who was on the tour.  Eventually he called for a replacement bus, but it took 45 minutes for it to arrive, so there was no time for the boat ride, and we headed back to the ship instead. 

This evening we went to a performance by a group called These Guys, and it was great!  They sang a lot of oldies including songs from The Temptations and Jersey Boys and even did one barbershop quartet number.  Give hem a listen sometime.  

On to Maui tomorrow and riding the Road to Hana. 

Hawaii Cruise Day 6 - Oahu

We arrived in Honolulu to sunshine this morning.  Our excursion went to Pearl Harbor, to tour the USS Arizona memorial and the USS Missouri, the ship on which Japan surrendered to end WW II. So many pictures to go through to select these.  The Arizona memorial was, understandably, quite somber.  Before heading out to the site we had time to tour some displays about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor and the actual planning and execution of the attack. We then took a short boat ride to the site.  I was surprised to see that part of the wreckage was above the surface, and that the sunken ship is still leaking fuel after 75 years.  

The picture on the right shows how the memorial fits over the sunken ship without touching it.

Next we took a bus to the USS Missouri.  It was a very impressive ship, with nine large 16" guns.  We took a tour and had a very knowledgable guide.  It's amazing that it could fire a 2800 lb shell up to 23 miles away with near pinpoint accuracy.  It served in the Pacific Theater in WWII, provided firepower for the Pusan landing in Korea, and after being reactivated in 1986, fought in the first Gulf War.  

Afterwards we did some shopping in town, then enjoyed a wonderful surf 'n turf dinner. 

Hawaii Cruise Day 5

Today is our last sea day before we visit Hawaii. One nice aspect of this trip is being completely isolated from all the political brew-ha-ha on the news channels.  To date we have avoided watching either MS-NBC or Fox News even tho both are available on our room TVs.  The only news I heard in passing is that Mrs DeVos was confirmed and it took the VP to cast the deciding vote - more political history in this turbulent year.

We had a nice morning.  We went to "Coffee with the Captain" where the captain was asked a number of questions including some from the audience.  This is one of the more personable captains we've even had.  After that I went to ring toss but only got 8 points while the top two had 10. At least I came close!  No bridge today.  I showed up as did the partner I played with yesterday, but no other twosomes, so we left. This way I was able to try my hand at the champagne ring toss; it was fun, but I failed to win a bottle. 

We enjoyed a very funny piano comedian this evening.  This guy was a riot -- at first he played the piano while facing away from it, then he even played a song while standing on his head!  He went on to play songs from Billy Joel, Ray Charles, and other artists, and had the audience singing along.  

We see land tomorrow as we arrive at Oahu and visit Pearl Harbor.

Hawaii Cruise Day 4

We woke up this morning to sun and calm seas.  Quite a change from the rough seas of yesterday and the fog and grey skies. The temperature is also rising - will be over 70 this afternoon.   Nice to finally have some great weather!

My morning was filled with ship board activities: Zumba, croquet, and Wii bowling while Mary had an information session about Lahaina.  I played bridge in the afternoon while Mary read using deck chairs on the promenade deck before we both enjoyed the 2016 remake of "Pete's Dragon".  

(show px)After enjoying Bavarian night in the buffet (kielbasa, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut!) we went to the production show "Starlight".  It was an interesting show, with singing of many old time songs, a few of which we recognized. 

One more sea day and then Hawaii!

Hawaii Cruise Day 3

Another restful sea day. We slept in a bit, then I headed to Zumba and to a bean bag toss (I tied for second) then on to goofy golf where my team won and we each received a magnetic clip for our prize. Mary and I both went to the shopping show to learn about the upcoming ports.

This afternoon Mary went to a class to learn how to make a lei with real flowers. It can last up to 1 week.

It's the first formal night on this cruise, but the dining room menu does not have anything too appealing on it so we plan to enjoy dinner in the buffet, then watch a movie in the evening. This ship has a separate dessert bar from the main area. It's rather elegant as you can see.

Just another quiet day away from the stresses of the world and my work....

Hawaii Cruise Day 2

Our main activity of the morning was buying tickets for Aspen in October. concerts, since they went on sale today.   We had some concern about ship internet connectivity and speed, but it worked out OK and we got our tickets.  3rd or 4th row for both Tribute concerts plus two other events.  

After that we basically enjoyed a quiet day at sea.  In the afternoon, I played bridge while Mary got her ticket for Lei making  (with real flowers!) tomorrow, and went to a hula class.  We had an enjoyable supper (chilled coconut soup and spaghetti carbonara) and watched "Bridget Jones's Baby" on my iPad. 

On to tomorrow! 

Hawaii Cruise Day 1

Embarkation Day is always such a thrill, especially when coming on board a new (to us) ship.  We had scheduled an 11:00 shuttle from the hotel to the ship so we had a very relaxing morning.  We had a short wait after checking in and receiving our cruise cards, but were on board the ship and in our cabin by 11:55.  Our mini suite is very spacious.

After lunch we walked around the ship, then enjoyed complementary champaign (from Princess) and canapés (from our travel agent) while waiting for our suitcases to arrive.

Sail Away was a bit late since we had to wait for a supply barge to be picked up, but we departed before subset so we could get good pictures as we sailed past the USS Iowa, a famous WWII battleship.  

After an enjoyable supper, featuring our favorite Pina Colada chilled soup, we have the Welcome show, then time to call it a night.
On to our 4 days to Hawaii!