Saturday Oct 13, 2007 - the end

This was a very sad day indeed. I was trying to survive on approximately 4 hours of sleep. Steve M set the alarm for 5 so we could grab a bite to eat, make it through customs and leave the boat by 7:30.

Most of us actually made it off the boat by 8:00 (due to customs not being quite ready) but there was some sort of mixup with the crew as to how we were to get off the boat so we lost one couple for about 15 minutes. But after a tour of various areas of the ship, they made it off in time for us to catch the 8:30 shuttle. And we did make it to the airport in lots of time to meet our flight at 11:25.

I did kind of feal sorry for the guy who was trying to get his family to the airport for a 10 am flight though.

The time change is really getting to me. Thank goodness we had 3 days to try to absorb the first 3 hours of time shift but this day was especially brutal because I had to absorb 3 hours time difference between home and LA. Think of it this way. We boarded our flight somewhere around 11:25 am and we were in Buffalo at 10:30 pm. And we still had the drive home! I think we made it to bed by about 2 am on Sunday and I was wide awake. Sigh.

But we all made it home safe and sound. I don't think there was too much lost - except for a pound and a half of chocolate we left in the stateroom refrigerator... Hopefully the room attendants had a great feast on it!

This will be my last post for a while. We have booked a cruise for next October though. So I may add some general information to the blog about that one. Now I have to start scrapbooking all the pictures that I took on this trip.

See ya soon!

Friday Oct 12, 2007 - last day at sea

It's a pretty sad day around here. We have to say goodbye to all our new friends. And everyone is packing up their things. Luckily we don't have that big of a rush as we carried our luggage off. Which means we didn't have to put the luggage out in the hall on the last night of the cruise.

And yes, I did remind everyone NOT to pack all of their shoes...

We played bingo, and one of our table mates actually one not once but TWICE in a row! Those Scottish people are always so lucky.

And here's our favourite band again. It's a group of Hawaiian guys and they can sing! And I'm not talking about ancient Hawaiian songs either. Steve asked if they had a CD (which the don't - sigh!). We really enjoyed listening to them!

And we had one last visit with Matt Yee. We probably didn't get to bed until around 1:00 am and we had to be up around 5:00 am so we could make our shuttle to the airport.

Thursday Oct 11, 2007 - at sea

It was another lazy day again. Just the usually eating, sleeping, shopping, piano bar visiting and so on.

But it was a formal night so we had to get dressed up too!

Oh, and I how could I forget: this was the night of the gala buffet. Here's a couple of the best pictures:

look at those chocolate covered strawberries!

Believe it or not Steve M and I abstained from eating this time. (Well, it could have something to do with our supper finishing up around 10:00 pm).

And then we were off to the piano bar. That Matt Yee guy is really a character. We'll miss his ancient Hawaiian sing a long songs! We bought one of his CDs to help us remember. The fun times we had staying up late and listening to him.

And dare we forget the cheer:

OI, OI OI, OI OI OI, MMMMMMMM

Wednesday Oct 10, 2007 - at sea

This was the big day for the Slot Tournament and Steve entered! While I was waiting for his turn I dashed out to the centrum and discovered the captain, a chef, and a passenger were making black forest cakes. I don't think the captain should quit his day job.

Back to the slots... After 5 minutes of diligently hitting the button, Steve was almost up to 3000 credits. The unfortunate thing is we didn't know how much 'money' he had actually spent because it the machines were set to just roll over when all the credits were used up. It's an interesting thought though. Next time I think I'll count how many times it rolls over.

Since he didn't make it into the next round we took a walk and found some of our party playing mini-golf. I don't think it was going to well because it was a very windy day and the wind was blowing the golf balls around. Aw well, at least Steve H had something to blame his golf score on!

Oh yeah, there was a scrapbook day so I went in and grabbed the goodies. I wish I had some pictures that I could have scrapbooked with!

Tuesday Oct 9, 2007 - at sea

Today we're a little more active. We earned lots of ship shape dollars!








Here's the Bean bag throw




And while that was going on a pod of dolphins decided to swim by







(ok Cathy I know you won't see them, but they really were there!)

And let's not forget about the ring toss

I think Karen was the only one (of the gals) who managed to get a ring on. That's ok. The guys didn't do so well either.

Monday Oct 8 2007 - at sea

This was a definite sleep in LATE day. I know I didn't get up much before 11 am. And it probably would have been longer if I didn't think I'd get razzed. And this was the day we had to start dealing with the time change moving forward. (remember that there's 6 hours time difference between Hawaii and home. And just flying to LA is a 3 hour time difference so jet lag became a major factor for our trip home. So we were lucky that the ship changed it's clock by 1 hour for 3 days instead of doing all 6 hours at once.


No pics from this day. It was a pure rest and relaxation day. Oh, and I think we cleaned up our cabin a bit. We didn't have much time for putting away clothes and stuff the past 5 days.

Sunday Oct 7, 2007 - Oahu

This was our last day of cruising. But we're up bright and early for our last day in Hawaii. Today it's a Dolphin Excursion and we have to meet just off the boat at the 'Hula girl' statue. Just Sue, Steve H and Debra.

It was about a 45 minute drive from the port and I kept thinking we were in Toronto.

This excursion didn't involve touching, swimming or riding the dolphins. So if that's what you're looking for this isn't the excursion for you!

It was just as I'd hoped. We were in the water and the dolphins were swimming around us. Including babies. It was an honour just to share the water with them. And there were a lot of them. The pictures don't begin to show what we saw that day.

And the snorkeling was great too. We saw some turtles doing there thing as well. Again no touching etc. After all, these are wild animals. And really, isn't it best to let them do their thing? We're only visiting them.

The website for this excursion is
www.dolphinexcursions.com

The rest of the bunch went to see the Pearl Harbour Monuments. Sorry, I don't have any pics of this yet. This tour was another excellent pick. They even showed us where Snorkel Bob's was so that we could return the gear that Steve and Debra had rented for the day. (Snorkel Bob's will rent you a prescription mask! So there's no excuses for anyone not wanting to snorkel because they can't see anything without their glasses)

The unfortunate thing was that by the time we got back from the excursion it was after 3:00 pm. And personally I was just a bit tired. And when Steve M returned from Pearl Harbour he didn't feel too much like touring around. So the two of us chose to walk around the Aloha Marketplace and 2 other couples made their way down to Wakiki Beach. I heard it was neat.

Another couple climbed diamond head and yet another couple toured around the island and saw a lot of beaches and surfers along the way.

I did catch a great sunset on my little walk.

And then it was back to the ship to see the kids hula dancing - they were fantastic too. It's too bad my pictures didn't turn out well!

Saturday October 6 2007 - Maui day 2

As we learned on the 5th, it turns out the tenders DO run all night! They ran every hour from the ship all night long and returned every 1/2 hour. Don't know why RC couldn't have told me this when I asked. Surely they knew when the tenders were scheduled to run. Sigh! I guess they were worried about the possibility that it would be too rough to tender.

Anyhow, I missed my first awesome choice for an early early morning snorkel with Blue Water Rafting,

but instead I chose the Hawaiian Ocean rafting http://www.islandstarexcursions.com/rafting.html

And here's what we saw as the raft passed our cruise ship:

If you look really carefully you can see the back corner of the cruise ship in the top right hand corner. But look at those dolphins!

And just a few miles from that spot we encountered some more dolphins. I couldn't get a really good shot of them but this pic shows one of them jumping out of the water. WAYYYY better than anything you'd see at Seaworld.

And we're only on our way to the snorkel site.

and imagine my excitement when i saw this spotted eagle ray. I overheard someone saying they saw one, but I figured there was no way it would swim towards me.

Dad: Don't worry I'm sure he would not have harmed me. I stayed at the top of the water and he stayed well below me so there was absolutely no danger.

We didn't make it to Kaanapali for snorkeling, as we decided to do some shopping at the shops right around the pier. It was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of art galleries. We had to make sure we could get back to the boat and cleanup from snorkeling and then head back to shore for the 'old lahaina luau'. Karen found this one for us. Here's the website http://www.oldlahainaluau.com/index_main.html

It was a great show. The food was great and the drinks were great and plentiful! And the entertainment was FANTASTIC! And the Steve and Ron had their pictures taken with the hula girls to torture Ron (their boss) with. I guess calling and have the 4 of us saying 'Aloha Ron' just wasn't enough.

We stayed out for some more walking around of the shops before heading back to the ship.

Friday October 5, 2007 - Maui - day1

It's a big day for the birthday boy - but he didn't know it yet! And in honor of the big day there's no snorkeling today either. I'm going through withdrawal and every time I see water, my mind starts thinking about what I'm missing just under those waves. But sometimes you just have to sacrifice!

It was a mite rough tendering from the ship to the dock. The tenders moved 3 feet up and down as we were boarding. A little scary, but we made it. Other couples in our group had some unfortunate timing issues with the tenders, but Steve and I seemed to get lucky and not have any difficulties at all.

Another quick shuttle (provided by the rental company) to the rental car and we were once again on our way. When Steve found out that the rental company had only 2 cars that weren't booked for rentals yet and one of them was a crossfire he was thinking about ditching our car and switching to that. But it would have been 3 times the price of the cost to rent the car I had reserved for BOTH days. So we had to make do with an HHR. I'm SOOOO glad we didn't buy one when Steve was looking at cars a couple of years ago!

Next stop was the ocean center. It's a very nice aquarium but we were a little short on time due to my Birthday surprise for Steve. But I didn't manage to get some great pics. I especially liked this one of the sea turtle (left). Unfortunately I actually had to pretend I was rushing out of there to get to the scrapbook store i REALLY needed to see in Kahului - most times i would have spent all day in a place like this, but time was ticking away.

Incidentally i was really impressed with the selection at this store and the Hawaiian diecuts is to 'die' for. (sorry, i couldn't resist). Here's the website - you can order via the internet. http://www.islandpaperie.com/ I definitely wish I could have spent more time here! I only had about 15 minutes, so it was a good thing I took a list. This time Steve decided to look around in the store too. (even though they have a 'penalty box' for the guys to kill time in).

So now it was time for the big surprise. I had booked him a helicopter ride in Maui! Yes dear, this was why I had to leave the Canada Day celebrations early - so I could try to nab a 1/2 price deal on the Hawaii gold card website at 12:00 noon Hawaii time. But wouldn't you know it. Even though I was at home and at the computer at 6:00 pm our time, the deal was snatched up at the last second. So I missed it. And a repeat performance happened the following month. At exactly 12:00 pm Hawaii time, the tickets disappeared. Sigh! And by this time I had myself convinced this was a GREAT birthday present idea. So I just went to the website and booked the internet rate there. Yes, it was pricey, but I was pretty sure he'd love it. I should have remembered he doesn't like surprises and he doesn't like to be rushed. After all we did have the zip-line excursion booked for 3 and the helicopter ride was booked for 12:45. So he wasn't too impressed at first, and we thought we had gotten lost on our way to the airport - there was a detour for construction. We were about 15 mins late because there's a safety briefing and they had no way of knowing we had been through the exact same safety video the day before, so even though we were there exactly at 12:45 we did hold them up in doing the safety video. Once we got in the air things turned out wonderful. We were able to see an aerial view of Hana which were were going to have to miss since it would have taken us all day to drive there and back. And we didn't have to drive the zig zap roads to see Hana. I'm sure we missed lots, but I heard that even though the road to Hana is a coastal road, You don't see much of the ocean on the drive there.

And, we still had lots of time for the 30 minute drive to the Zip line excursion. I don't have enough words, thumbs etc. to describe how exhilarating and just plain, fun, this was. Here's the website http://www.skylinehawaii.com/ But book early - it fills up fast. And save yourself some money by booking it online. I used my Hawaii gold card and saved a bit more, but booking it online, you save more than 1/2 of what you'd pay booking it through the cruise ship. We booked the Haleakala Skyline Tour and it was an absolute BLAST. And the drive up and down the volcano was pretty scenic too. A little difficut to get pictures, but very nice all the same.

When we go back to Hawaii we'll be doing the Kaanapali Skyline Adventure for sure!

We parked the car in a parking lot not far from the pier. We did go a couple of blocks further away and it cost us only $12. The ones closer were running $20 or more. And we only about a block away from these. In hindsight we probably could have dropped the car back to the rental agency. It turned out that we didn't really need the car the next day. But more about that later.

We did do a little shop hopping once we parked the car. (This was Steve's idea actually - honest) There is a multitude of little galleries etc. lining the roads around the pier. There's even a Wyland gallery there. But we've been finding Wyland very expensive and somewhat out of our budget range. But we did find a gallery for Chritian Lassen (i hope I spelled that write). And I fell in love with a particular piece of art. Oh let's face it, I fell in love with most of his pieces. But more about that later too.

There was no rush to get back to the ship this time, because we were in port over night. But we headed back in time for our scheduled late seating for dinner and enjoyed a good meal on the boat. There are some neat looking restaurants around the port, but since the price of the cruise included meals, we figured, why bother paying for another meal. Not to mention that the days activities had pretty much tired us out!

Thursday October 4th 2007- Hilo

We docked in Hilo, so none of that tendering stuff!

Yeah!!! It was a short drive to the airport and we were ready for adventure!

We went to see Akaka (right) and Kahuna Falls (left). Very awesome. But it really would be best to go to see Kahuna fall first and then see Akaka falls. But, we couldn't do this as the pathway from the main entrance to Kahuna falls was under repair.

Both falls are a must see. But Kahuna is smaller than Akaka so it doesn't seem as great once you've seen Akaka. It's about a 30 minute trek to see both, with a rough pathway. Not bad, but you should be prepared for some uneven ground. And take water. It's hot!

And then we were off to find the zoo. Which turned out to be an adventure of a different type. The address given on Google maps '25 Aupuni Street' is incorrect. This is closer to downtown Aupuni. I suspect it's the administrative offices for the zoo. The Website is http://www.hilozoo.com/Z_home.htm and the instructions on the website indicate Pana`ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens is located off Hwy. 11 in Hilo. But it's past the airport a bit. (if you're coming from the downtown area you have to pass the airport before you start seeing signs for the zoo).

Very much worth the visit. The animal habitats are fine meshed cages although it's not difficult to get good pictures of the tiger as his area is somewhat larger than the majority of the enclosures. All of the animals appear to be well cared for and the pens were clean with water available for all. And, for those botanical buffs, there are lots of flowers and foliage to be seen. And there's lots of peacocks too (had to add this for my uncle who used to raise peacocks)

There is no admission charge. So remember that the zoo relies on donations etc. to keep it going! So the more donations, the more can be used on keeping the animals happy!

And now for the much anticipated Helicopter ride over the volcano! For this excursion we booked it on the internet at the Blue Hawaiian Helicopters website http://www.bluehawaiian.com/ . We booked the 'Circle of Fire' tour. It was 50 minutes long.

The pilot narrated it and we got a good look at a lava fall. (flowing like water) Plus we got some good views of even more waterfalls and our cruise ship. They will even sell you a DVD of your trip which includes shots of all of the passengers. A very nice souvenir.

This one was an all thumbs up excursion too!

Now for a stop at the Big Island Candy factory http://www.bigislandcandies.com/. They gave us free samples of chocolate chip shortbread and a chocolate crunch. Both were delicious. I even tried the Kona coffee. And although I've never been able to take more than one sip of a cup of coffee, this stuff was very good. No bitter taste at all! It hasn't turned me into a coffee drinker but there is hope for me if there's Kona coffee around. This is not an inexpensive place to go. So don't be too surprised by the prices. Expect to pay gourmet prices. (and don't leave your chocolates in the cruise ship fridge. - we learned that lesson the hard way - oh well, I'm sure the housekeeping staff got an unexpected treat out of it).

Next stop was Hilo Hattie's. Definitely a tourist trap, but they did have some neat things there. There was a Hilo Hattie's in our other ports too. But this is the only one I got to. And we only had about 15 minutes before we had to head back to the ship. Again, a close call to make it back to the ship in time but we did it with 15 minutes to spare. I can't believe we packed this much stuff into 1 day. Wow.

We missed the scrapbooking store here, I guess there's another stop for our next trip to Hawaii!

Wednesday Oct 3, 2007 - Kona

We managed to get off with the first tender! And we grabbed a taxi to pick up the rental cars. And in just a few minutes after that we arrived at the Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park. It was HOT but well worth the trek.

Notice the striking Resemblance...

This is the shoreline part of the park.

And to the right is a picture of a little friend we found near the beach.

And now off to our Seaquest excursion.

I chose the seaquest excursion because it promised to have fewer people on the excursion and we got what I was promised. There were 6 of us on the raft, plus our guide. Bill, Karen, Steve and myself, plus 2 people that were staying nearby. We weren't really expecting to see dolphins, but we did. LOTS of them. These pictures are a bit out of order as the dolphins showed up AFTER our snorkel. I had to use the underwater camera, so they look pretty far away. But, as we stayed in one spot they came closer and closer to the raft until I was able to get this shot.

A really great time. We would highly recommend this excursion! Here's the website for Seaquest Adventures www.seaquesthawaii.com/

If I recall correctly Bill gave it a 3 out of 2!

The snorkeling was AWEsome too.

We rented a car and drove ourselves to the excurision which ended up costing us around 1/2 of what it would have cost to book it through the cruise ship. Plus the rental car allowed us to see some other sites that we wouldn't have been able to see.

We had planned to hit the Kona marketplace as well to check out an artist there. But we ran out of time. HOWEVER, the guys dropped Karen and myself off so we managed to find the Kona Scrapbook store -which any scrapper would be well advised to visit (here's the link http://www.konascrapbooks.com/). The website is not very detailed but when you visit the store there's tons of good stuff to build your Hawaii memories with.

And we found a Quilt shop (this one was Karen's idea). It's very close to the pier. In fact it's in a little mall just up the hill from the pier. Stay on the road that leads into the pier and walk up the hill. There's a little mall on the left hand side and the name was Quilt Passions (i think). We did get there just as it was closing so we didn't get to see much, but they had some really great looking patterns etc. If I was more of a quilter i probably would of purchased something. Guess we should leave something to do on the next trip to Kona.

We were pretty late getting back to the ship but I there was at least one more tender after the one Karen and I caught so we did manage to get back to the ship in time.

Tuesday October 2, 2007 - still at sea

Same stuff going on as yesterday. We did get some Euchre in but basically today was like the last 3 days. Eating, sleeping, wall climbing etc.

Monday October 1, 2007 - still at sea

Just a little more rock climbing.

This time it's Ron... and Steve M

Sunday September 30, 2008 - at sea

Now what?

Some more eating, drinking and even time for a nap.

And how about a Belly Flop Contest.

Some rock

climbing...

even I gave it a try -->

Saturday September 29, 2007 - at sea

So, what do you do while the ship is out to sea?

Well, we started with some eating, then some sleeping...
Then some of us played dodge ball...


Some of us golfed...
Hmmm...
Steve H's putting just wasn't up to ...
.......'par'


Then we ate ... again... and off to a show after dinner.

Friday Sept 28, 2007 - Leaving from San Pedro, California

Ok, so it's really Monday Oct 15, 2007. But I ran too short of time on the cruise to keep updating. So I'll start them now while I have a bit more time.

We left the San Pedro holiday inn around 1:00 pm on Friday and arrived at the port very shortly thereafter. We had to stand in line a bit to get on board the ship, but it really didn't take all that long.

When we did get on board we were able to go to our room right away and then headed for a bite to eat and listened to this band called Musik Express for a bit. The members of the band are Hawaiian and they really can sing! And not just Hawaiian songs either.

But let's not forget what we really came here for...that very First drink! CHEERS!

and here's the very first sunset...

So, yes, I've been appropriately lamb basted. I confess that I did not have time on my 15-16 day vacation to keep my blog updated. There just wasn't enough time. So I'll start updating the pictures today.