Trip to Hawaii - Day 9 Thurs Dec 9

We managed to be off the ship by 9:00 am! A pretty good feat considering the ship wasn’t to start docking until 9:00.

We had no trouble finding our pickup spot. Partly because I’d done it before and partly because they were a little more specific as to which hula girl statue they were meeting us. The van was full so we had to crawl to the back of the van. Unfortunately, that also meant we had a crowd with us. And there were more at the harbour. Oh well, it’ll still be fun.

The experience was a bit difference this time. It seemed more stressed. They seemed so concentrated on finding the dolphins that the opportunities to snorkel were short. They’d tell us to get in the water and then change their minds. It seemed we spent a lot more time getting on and off the raft, then we did actually in the water.

But we did see some dolphins. Not as many as the last time, and the visibility was reduced, but I did get some good shots. Even saw a turtle down deep. He was a bit hard to see so I’m not sure how the pics will turn out.

It's too bad the visibility was so poor - must be the time of year.

I even got to spend some time in the water with the dolphins by myself! I guess I was the only one who wanted to go back into the water when a pod of dolphins came around. They served us lunch and then drove us back to the cruise ship by 4:00.

So we headed back to the room and got cleaned up for our trek to Waikiki beach. Problem was I didn’t have a bus schedule because I didn’t think Steve would do the bus. But we tried it. And it did take a while. But we finally made it down to the strip.

Imagine: the Beach walk didn’t have anything to do with the beach. It’s actually just a strip of stores. But eventually we found our way down to the beach. It was dark by then, so the pics aren’t the greatest.

Our supper ended up being a shared slice of Upside Down Pineapple Cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory! Very Very Very Yummy.

We jumped in a taxi to get back. I think it ran us around 16. We again got asked if we were on our honeymoon. I wonder if that’s a new line they use on the tourists.