Location, at
Home, CA
We had way
too much fun on our cruise to Hawaii!
We were
greeted in our cabin by a bottle of champagne on ice, two red roses, a plate of
chocolate covered strawberries, and a gift card for a free photo and frame. We
also had a gift card from Mark and Candi for a bottle of wine.
It really
was fun and relaxing with almost 5 days at sea before stopping for the day at
Hilo on the big island. While there we took a tour to the top of Mauna Kea by
special 4 x4 vans equipped to make the almost 14,00 foot ascent. We stopped for
an hour at 9,000 feet at the visitor center to get acclimated to the altitude
before driving to the top.
I’m glad I
never tried this in a rental car as several rentals had problems with the climb
on this day. A tow costs $1200 according to our tour guide.
It was COLD
and WINDY at the top. Fortunately we had taken jackets just for this trip.
There a
dozen or so observatories at the top, most hidden in valleys so they are unseen
from below. The workers live down at the 9,000 foot level but many of the
observations are done from sites around the world linked by the internet to the
observatories.
The
buildings are kept cool to the nightly expected temperature so no condensation
forms when the observing window is opened. We did go into the Keck observatory
but didn’t remain long as it was very cold in the building.
Our total
time at the top was less than an hour and we were glad to get back into the van
and drop back down to the visitor center for a lunch provided by the tour
operator.
This tour
took most of the day and only 20 people from the ship or 2 van loads made the
trip.
Our second
stop was at Honolulu where we took a tour to the North end of the island. Even
though we had done this route on our own before, we had never done it with a
tour. A delicious lunch of shrimp was served as part of the tour. Clyda had
coconut shrimp and I had ginger shrimp. I was the only one in the whole bus
load that ordered ginger shrimp and it was good.
We made
several stops including one at Sunset Beach to see the big waves and green sea
turtles. A final stop was to the Dole Pineapple Plantation where we had
pineapple and vanilla ice cream swirls.
Our next
port was Kauai which Clyda and I had been to in February with friends. We took
a local trolley to a shopping center and walked to the Marriott Hotel and lay
on the beach in the morning. We returned to the ship for lunch.
Our final
stop was Maui where the ship anchored off Lahaina and we tendered in for a few
hours of t-shirt buying. Again, we had been here before so nothing was really
new to us.
A single Banyon tree which covers a large area at the water front in Lahaina.
From Maui we
sailed for home with again 5 days of relaxation to look forward to.
I have only
hit the high spots here as our days were filled with events on the ship while
at sea. We attended lectures, saw movies, ate, read, listened to music, ate,
played in the casino a little, ate, saw Broadway type shows, laid around the
pool ate, you get the picture.
On our first
morning at home I lamented to Clyda that we had to make our own bed again. It
is easy to get spoiled.
