An OCD review of Golden/Hawaii-Pictures!!

Loving the reviews and pictures. It brings back great memories that I'd already forgotten about. When we went Hubby bought a uke, bag, & tuner at Hilo Guitars and Ukulele in downtown Hilo that was said to be good. They were great. Even though he'd only had a couple of those beginner classes they let him play with everything. Did you get your uke at the shop in the Aloha shopping area? We went in there and got a book on chords but they weren't that friendly compared to the Hilo store. That ukulele playing is addictive, isn't it? I ordered one for myself last month so I could see if I'll be able to play it when we go April 13th with all the family. Okay, I find I can do great if I only need a C or C7 cord. (For those who don't play, they only use 1 finger) After that things get scrambled. Thanks for the posts.

 

Cruisin Oldies:)

Those classes are addicting! I like stuff like that, but husband usually doesn't. Or he will like it in the moment, then completely give it up the next week. he wanted to buy a uke, but I knew he would not use it past the cruise. Past behavior is the best predictor of futire behavior, after all. So i was not going to let him buy it unless it was fairly inexpensive. Which it was, so we got it and i will use it. We did buy it at the aloha shop. I thought the woman there was very nice and friendly. She also gave good recommendations and didn;t try to pressure us at all. She recommended getting books off the internet and taking lessons for free off of You Tube! I think I will. Well, happy playing to you! i am sure it will come back and you will have to take the intermediate class on the ship!

I am soooo enjoying your review. Thanks for all your time to do it.

 

I do have one question. We are sailing on the Golden for our first Princess. We are very near the Vista Lounge. Do you have any idea how late the shows usually run? Like do they have midnight comedians and such? Wondering how late we could possibly hear noise, although we are thinking positive.

 

Just preparing ourselves... :)

No, there is not much of a night life on the ship! Everyone is too tired. The late shows tend to start at 10:15 or 10:30 and usually end at 11:00 or 11:30. So, i would not be too concerned with noise from that area.

Have a great time!

Also I noticed you mentioned how some people were sneaking sandwiches to take off the ship. I can't remember if it was mentioned in the Patters in December' date=' but I do know it was emphasized on our 2005 cruise not to take off food into the ports. In Hawaii, they are very concerned about their agriculture (just like we are in California). And purses and backpacks were searched. Some Caribbean ports also have this rule.[/quote']

We've had the same experiences with agricultural limitations in some foreign ports particularly on islands. I checked my December Golden's Patters & surprisingly not one of of our Hawaiian ports said it was prohibited to take food from the ship. I don't recall if there were signs as we exited the ship but generally my experience has been that it will be prominently displayed in the Patter if prohibited.

 

We enjoy sampling food in ports...particularly those in Hawaii. We enjoy their plate lunches with some ono-licious grindz in the Islands. :cool:

3/23/11- Kauai

We woke up at 6:45AM to get ready for the day! We have had no problems with the wake up service at all in that the phone rings when it is supposed to, it is loud and therefore wakes us up, and it is easy to set up. However, it does not always register that you have picked up the phone and cancelled the alarm. Sometimes it will also ring 5 minutes later as well… It was a little bumpy last night while the ship was going. The weather around the islands is a bit unpredictable right now, and there are little storms and wind. So, there are some swells. But they are not bad. We went up to the buffet again. I am still glad they have the plain yogurt and bran cereal (I mix it together with some Splenda- it’s really good!). Yea for fiber!

Carnival basically only had kid type cereal and I have never really liked the sugared cereal. I am still collecting cereal boxes for our boat that we are making!

We went up on the deck to take some pictures of Kauai. Stunning!

By the time we got off, it was beautiful and sunny, and looked like it was going to be a wonderful day. Disembarkation happened quickly and we went to meet the shuttle for Enterprise. I had called ahead and there is a shuttle every 10 minutes. We only waited about 2 minutes before we saw one. There were a lot of shuttles for other companies as well. Since there were a bunch of people waiting to get on the shuttle, I let everyone ahead of me because they seemed like they were being a little pushy. That was fine because last on equal first off to rent the car! Sneaky. The ride to the rental agency was less than 10 minutes and it only took about 3 minutes total to get our reserved POS car. Chevy something or other that I have never heard of, with power nothing. I got the cheapest one. We had to roll the window down the old fashioned way! Some of our friends rented a convertible Mustang and enjoyed it, but had to keep putting the top back on due to rain and wind.

We thought about renting a GPS , it was only $11 for the day, but our phone GPS worked perfectly fine. I had printed out maps and directions before we left as well, but we didn’t need them. The staff at Enterprise also pointed us in the right direction to the freeway, and it was not that hard. There is really only one main road on the island, so it would be harder to get lost than stay on track. So, we were off to Waimea Canyon!

It took us maybe 40 minutes to get to the turn off for the canyon. This island just has simply lovely scenery throughout the drive. I kept taking pictures. There were mountains in the background, fields, and increasingly red dirt. Gas prices were up to $4.27 a gallon during drive (at home before we left it was $3.96, 2 weeks later the prices were about $4.08). Going up the mountain area there were some switchbacks we had to drive. If you get stuck behind someone slow it is pretty painful. There are many scenic stop offs, randomly off the side of the road.

It is just gorgeous here!

We loosely followed someone’s itinerary that they had posted on the Hawaii ports section of CC, but they had some mile markers wrong so we thought we had missed some lookouts until we saw them off the side of the road! Between mile marker 4 and 5 is a lovely one with dramatic view off to the right and a waterfall in red dirt to the left side of the road.

I am really glad I bought those cute little flowers for my hair when I was in Honolulu- best buy so far because I have worn them a lot and they help keep me in the Hawaiian mood. When I was working at a hopsital in San Pedro (CA), all the girls were wearing them in their hair.

We were excited to find this. The dirt is completely red:

We wanted to do this drive ourselves so we could stop at all these different points and so we could do it on our own time. We tend to be really quick with these type of things and we wanted to have some time to go to a couple beaches as well. Then we went to the first official and second official stop offs that the buses usually go to.

This looks like a painting to me:

Grand Canyon eat your heart out.

Second official look out:

The views were crystal clear and it was great. I read in the reviews that it tends to be pretty cloudy and overcast, so we lucked out here. If only our luck would transfer to snorkeling… We hardly encountered any large tour buses as it was still early and we were hauling pretty good.

And... it was pretty windy up here by the second lookout. So, he is another from my hair collection:

I think it looks like the hair is eating my face.

I made husband drive the rental car because he never gets any tickets… perks of the job and all. We did not drive the whole way up, as we were not interested in the museum and the road turns to dirt, so we were done by 1130AM.

We headed back down the mountain to go to Salt Pond Beach.

We went back on the main freeway (the 50) and then turned right on Lele. The beach was not crowded at all, though there were some people there.

If you listen to the beaches that are recommended by the ship, they are always the commercial ones that have lots of shopping and lots of people. We do like those beaches, but sometimes just want to get off the beaten path. I did a throughout search of beaches in the area and the ones we winded up going to sounded the most interesting to me for our time here. I also wanted to go to Poipu Beach, but we didn’t have time.

Weather was interesting at the beach. There were some showers and lots and lots of wind. It made for some good hair pictures. But it also got swelteringly hot at times. I felt like I was getting hot flashes early! There are bathrooms there and covered picnic areas. The water was calm, waves broke at the brick line, as there was a cove. But the water was super cold! Again!

There was a bit of a reef very close to shore, but minimal fish. Or so I was told, because I did not get in. We brought our snorkel gear just in case, but husband was the only one brave enough to get in. The water was a little murky due to weather.

We walked along the beach and got to these large black volcanic looking boulders. It was a pretty area with waves crashing in the background. There were also little tide pools with tiny fish in them, really interesting to look at. It was a beautiful beach, with nice swaying palms in the background. The wind made things really rough to lay out, but it was a nice day overall.

We left after a bit and drove to Glass Beach in Ele’ele (right on 154 I think and then a left at the gym and down a dirt road, it is near an industrial area). This beach was pretty cool.

Not good for swimming, at least when we were there. There were lots of waves that looked like they could be dangerous and there were also lots of rocks. There was a pretty stone cliff on part of the beach and the best part was that the sand was made of glass that had been polished by the waves.

It is all over and feet deep in some parts! The sad thing was there were some people there shoveling tons of it into bags to take home with them. But the area was nice and it was fun to try and find different colored glass.

At the far end there is this really cool cliff:

Thanks! That is a good idea. We bought some formal pictures on the cruise, so we got that scrapbook thing for free. I haven't started doing it yet, but I hope to be able to include a bunch of our pictures in that. But, I will probably need a bigger book! I really did take 3,000 pictures!

We've done the Panraven photo book for our last 3 cruises & really enjoyed them. With the last one, some of the rules had changed without them informing us. Thus after composing a 100 page book as with our other 2 books, we discovered at checkout that it was only 38 pages & $1/page extra. Also there's a time limit to get it done which has been 90 days for each of ours but some have said their limit was only 60 days. Until our December Hawaiian cruise on the Golden, any photos bought on the ship would automatically be available online while building an album but that's no longer the case.

We really enjoy them because many things are preset to get things started such as the itinerary, maps & port info. And you can change some or even all of them if you so desire.

Hubby's a cop...as I recall that came from old England's Constable on Patrol...as least that's what I heard.

We went back to the car and took it back to Enterprise at about 3pm, then caught a shuttle back to ship. The shuttle took us as soon as we had dropped the keys off- great service. Back at the ship we caught a free shuttle to the Anchor Cove shopping center (it is within walking distance, but the shuttle comes frequently) and went to the obligatory ABC store. We bought some more macadamia nuts (honey covered, they were really very good) and these yummy locally made bars that had chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, mac nuts, coconut, graham cracker, and sweetened condensed milk. We shopped a bit at other stores and bought some shirts, sugar cane, and macadamia nut oil marinade. We still had a little bit of time so we went to the beach behind the shopping to take some pictures.

The surf looked really rough here, but there were a bunch of people in the water. It looked like an ok beach, but not clear at all due to waves and the churning of sand. I don’t think I would recommend this beach. Only if you didn’t want to have to drive anywhere would it be convenient.

But if you are in Kauai, make the effort! It is beautiful here and worth getting out and about.

We saw the people we met on our tour in Hilo when we road back on the shuttle. It is amazing with so many people on the ship that we keep running into the same passengers! There was a really long line at 4pm to board ship. I had found a great stick at Salt Pond Beach for the boat we are building for the scrapheap competition, so I had stuck it in my bag. Our friend was able to get her stick on board earlier, so I didn’t think I would have a problem. But, they wouldn’t let me bring the stick on board. The woman asked if we wanted the stick. We said yes. She said “too bad, you can’t have it.” Mean and taunting! No, I just thought it was funny that she asked if we wanted it when she wasn’t going to let us have it anyways! Husband and I do a bit on this now. I will ask something like “Do you want the remote? Too bad! You can’t have it!”

We went to the room to drop off our stuff and then hit up trivia. I believe we have a trivia addiction now. I even brought some trivia card games on the ship for us to play, and we have been doing that as well. Husband wants to get one of those calendars with the trivia fact a day so that he can “practice” for next cruise. Well, it was especially hard today and we only got 11/20. Or maybe we are just tired. i think we will go with that... We changed for dinner and grabbed the library trivia to complete in the Piazza before dinner.

We did get our port picture from here as well, though we were disappointed overall by the port pictures. Carnival seems to bring out the party and costumed performers for their photos, which Princess doesn;t seem to bother. They just add flowers later:

Back on deck for some last pictures. My goodness, this island is beautiful:

The Bernini dining room had no wait at 6:15 for a shared table. We sat with a nice couple- the man related being on Royal Caribbean in the MDR when the pool pipe broke from above and rained down all over lobster night. He said everyone ran out of the dining room, but not before grabbing their lobster to take with them!

For dinner I had the salad and veal rack with a side of veggies. First time I have had veal.

I am such a hypocrite. I am totally against veal, those poor baby cows. But it looked so good and I didn’t want anything else on the menu. And the baby cow was really delicious. It was so tender, and had lovely sauce, it was served with zucchini and artichoke.

Husband got duck galantine (its a cold dish), the veal, and shrimp kebabs over bok choy.

For dessert:

I got a toffee bar for dessert that had a thick layer of fudge in middle.

I love when they have those chocolate rolls for garnish- they are yummy!

Husband had a scoop of rocky road and a scoop of pistachio ice cream, a vanilla sundae drenched in caramel and butterscotch, and an apple strudel with vanilla sauce (I thought it was yucky, he liked it).

He got quite a few looks and laughs from our dinner companions. And he is emabarassed when I take pictures of the food? Ha!

After dinner we chatted with a couple we knew that we happened to run into and then went to see Noodles Levenstein, the comedian in the Princess Theatre.

He was pretty funny, used lots of cruise ship jokes and polish jokes. Then we hit up David Moore, the pianist, afterward in the Promenade Bar. Ah, he is hilarious! Not the normal repeated jokes that other comedians use. He has some original stuff. Back to room to prepare for tomorrow! Don’t know what we will do yet, maybe whales. We are still sad about that cancelled Maui trip. We went to the excursion desk to inquire as to why it was cancelled. Apparently there are winds that make to water to rough where we would be going. The weather on the island proper is fine, so whale watching is still going.

Life as we Know it was the movie for MUTS today. 50 First Dates and Splash were on MUTS during the day yesterday.

We've done the Panraven photo book for our last 3 cruises & really enjoyed them. With the last one, some of the rules had changed without them informing us. Thus after composing a 100 page book as with our other 2 books, we discovered at checkout that it was only 38 pages & $1/page extra. Also there's a time limit to get it done which has been 90 days for each of ours but some have said their limit was only 60 days. Until our December Hawaiian cruise on the Golden, any photos bought on the ship would automatically be available online while building an album but that's no longer the case.

 

We really enjoy them because many things are preset to get things started such as the itinerary, maps & port info. And you can change some or even all of them if you so desire.

 

Hubby's a cop...as I recall that came from old England's Constable on Patrol...as least that's what I heard.

Thanks for the info! i had read on the boards that people had some problems with the book, but figured why not try it anyways. Even if it is an extra charge for more pages, it is probably still worth it. I am glad your seemed to turn out well!

Thanks for the info! i had read on the boards that people had some problems with the book, but figured why not try it anyways. Even if it is an extra charge for more pages, it is probably still worth it. I am glad your seemed to turn out well!

You cannot call them but they will reply quickly with answers to any questions. The first 2 were shipped in a cardboard shipping container however our recent one was merely shrink wrapped & thus damaged. Maybe they'll go back to the more secure shipping containers because now they have to send us another book. ;)

Since you've read other posts, you're probably already aware that after working on it for a long time during one session, it can lock up. It wasn'a big deal for us...we just refreshed the page or went back to the opening page & never lost any of our work. :D

Thanks! There are plently of spaces for the food- it all fits in there! Yum!

 

Have a great time on your reunion cruise! Are you going back to Hawaii?

I don't know WHERE you put it!!! I think I gained 5 lbs. just by looking at your pictures!!!:D:D:D

Yes, we are going back to Hawaii again. In the meantime, I have a Mexican Riviera, Pacific Coastal AND a Panama Canal cruise planned.

I can't stay home too much.

I know you mean 2012... otherwise you missed your boat! :p

LOL..you are so right!!! Thanks for the heads up...I can't wait for 2012 :)

I don't know WHERE you put it!!! I think I gained 5 lbs. just by looking at your pictures!!!:D:D:D

Yes, we are going back to Hawaii again. In the meantime, I have a Mexican Riviera, Pacific Coastal AND a Panama Canal cruise planned.

I can't stay home too much.

Wow! Envying your life right now!

3/24/11- Maui

We wanted to make the most of Maui, as I thought it would be our favorite island. Also, since this is a tender port, that process cuts into your day significantly. We were due to arrive at 7AM and depart at 6PM. Seems like a decent amount of time, but nothing is open at 7AM! The visitor center didn’t open till 9AM. And the last tender is supposed to leave at 5PM. You have to get in line by 4PM if you want to make that last tender time. Tender lines are always long, it is just the nature of the beast. But, I think Princess does the best with what they have. It is just a horrible process and it is what it is.

Well, we got up early due to the tender. There was an announcement that the tender line tends to back up around 9AM with passengers, so we wanted to avoid that.

Breakfast was at 7:30 AM in the buffet.

It was really crowded this morning with lots of people bumping into us. There was a shortage of available tables, so a nice elderly couple sat with us. They told us they envied that we started cruising so young, as they did not start until they were older. And they said we should be elite in no time! I hope that’s true… But, we might be taking a break from cruising for a little bit... I will be 29 tomorrow so we are both feeling a certain clock ticking. While at breakfast we thought we saw whales in the water, but far away. Breakfast is good. They still have fresh fruit, I am not sure if they get additional food once in the islands? After breakfast we headed with our stuff (we had to pack a lot because we were not sure what we were going to do since our excursion was cancelled) to the Bernini dining room to wait for our tender. We got there at 8:02 AM and headed out to the boat before 8:10 AM. We were on shore about 30 minutes later. They went out very slowly. It was a bit frustrating at times because the water seemed flat perfect. Once on shore a bunch of people just stood there, right in front of the exit from the tender. Maybe they were not sure where to go? It was hard to navigate around them. We walked over to the booths of things to do lined up right by the water. Husband maybe wanted to do a waterfall hike, but there was nothing like that available to book here. Just whale watching, dinner cruises, fishing… We talked to one of the companies and the guy said that they were the company that Princess does the snorkel tour with. They had cancelled Molokini because there was a wind tunnel effect from the storm and the water was dangerous and murky over by the crater. So, we booked a whale watching trip with them for about $30 a person for a 2 hour tour.

We had a little time to kill before the boat left and we decided to do a walking tour. I had printed out a Frommer’s walking tour of the city in case we had time, so we followed the directions and we able to read a bit about the town, which is historical.

The town area is really sweet, complete with charming buildings.

There is a large banyan tree, which looks like a collection of a number of different tress. But it is really just one.

An old fort that way destroyed:

The town is really just adorable, and they also had an ABC store of course. We went in to the whaling museum and poked around a bit, it was interesting.

Fossilized whale teeth:

Carved whale tooth:

The visitor’s center didn’t open till 9am though, and we had wanted to grab visitor’s brochures. Most people kept trying to get in and everyone thought it was silly that it was not open when a cruise ship was in port.

We went back to the pier to get ready for the whale watching trip. I had been trying to get husband to go on one for years now, as we live in CA. I had been on numerous trips with my schools while growing up, and they were always fun! Well, the boat was roomy and large. The tour left at 9:45AM. There were maybe 30 people, so it was largely undersold. This was great because it gave us more room to situate ourselves to better see the whales.

The boat:

Maui is beautiful:

The excursion thru Princess was a lot more expensive and those boats were packed and much smaller! Since it is prime whale season, all the boats were guaranteeing sightings. We found a nice seat on the top deck of the boat and started out. The weather was great! The breeze felt good, but when we stopped we felt like we were baking in the sun. I had to keep applying sunscreen since my skin tone is very light. But I am proud to say I didn’t burn at all this trip. Very soon we saw whales at 12 o’ clock and surprisingly there was enough room for everyone to have a good view. We saw a total of three pods of a mother, calf, and “escort.” Escort meaning a hopeful male tagging along. The mothers kept slapping the water with their fins because they were annoyed at the attention of the males. We were close enough to hear the sound- it was incredible!

There was also a pod that swam underneath our boat, giving up a great view of them.

We basically saw whales the whole time and it was a good trip with some nice people to talk to. We both bought a cute whale t- shirt as a souvenir from the tour company. They narrated the whole time and had bathroom facilities on board.

We also got a great view of the ship:

Lanie, my sweet child, you have absolutely the perfect attitude toward cruising, and probably life in general. This review is awesome, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Thanks for taking the time to share it.

Well, to each his own, right? I just read that review, and I agree with most of the points, but those things just didn't ruin the cruise for me. I agree that they did a lot of work on the ship while we were at sea- things like re-varnishing and painting and the like. I also saw them scrub the sides of the ship to remove rust stains while we were in Ensenada. But these things did not bug me. They make me appreciate that the crew is keeping up the ship. I did not notice much wear, so that must be why. It seems as if they do a great job keeping it up. There were some stairs outside that we closed so the varnish could dry... As for elevators, I am a firm believer in walking up stairs if one is able because it is great exercise and it allows me to eat more desserts (there were many people with canes and whelchairs on the ship and I figured they needed the elevators, so I wasn't going to add to their wait) and I used the elevator twice during the whole cruise- once to take our large scrapheap boat up a few floors and once when I had a headache. So, I did not notice if they were closed.

 

Children being noisy- yes, a little bit. But, kids are going to do that. I compare it to Carnival and found this cruise to be soooo much more quiet! There were some teenagers splashing in the spa once when I wanted to go in, so I just went to another spa. I saw some teenagers running up and down the stairs one day and overheard a girl say "why are we running up and down the stairs?" Well, it seems as if they are becoming more self aware. Good for them! But with only 98 children aboard during my sailing, it was pretty great! To tell the truth, I was more upset by the adults hogging all the good chairs in the sun, especially when they were sitting elsewhere in the shade. It rained a couple times and people left the open area in a hurry and in droves. But, the funny thing was seeing all the adults coming out from UNDER the covered area to run out to their hogged chairs to grab their stuff out of the rain!

 

 

Cruises are not going to give you the best cuts of meat- they are serving to the masses afterall. I had quite a few pieces with lots of gristle, but I just ate around it. They are also more than happy to bring you a new piece. The waiters are great. Food quality was a couple steps above Chili's or Applebee's.

 

 

I think that you have to do your research and know what to expect when going on a cruise, otherwise you may be disappointed. I had a really great time. But, everyone has different opinions! Sure, there are some things that I would change, or things that I might complain about, but overall I think Princess did a great job with this cruise and I was very happy with the outcome. In fact, I did not want to get off the ship. I planned to live in that tiny tiny stateroom until the end of time! Also, you have to take everything with a grain of salt.

 

But, it is interesting to hear other perspectives and expereinces as well. Thanks for sharing that link!

Lanie, my sweet child, you have absolutely the perfect attitude toward cruising, and probably life in general. This review is awesome, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Thanks for taking the time to share it.

Thank you! Eveyone has been so nice on CC! Thank you for reading.

After the tour we looked at the nearby shopping center across from the pier area for a bit and found the bus stop. We wanted to catch a bus to Kaanapali Beach near Whaler’s Village because it is supposed to have some good snorkeling. And we are determined to get some more in! But husband was hungry and the bus left every hour on the half hour, so we had to wait until 12. We went to that 50s hamburger Cool Cat Café to order some food because it smelled wonderful. We had time to grab a burger to go and decided to split. So, we got a Hawaiian burger with no sides… for $12! It was pricy! But at least it was tasty, very tasty and literally one of the best burgers I have had. We took it and went behind the shopping center to catch the bus, which just pulled up. After 2 stops we arrived, 20 minutes later.

There was a cool whale skeleton displayed outside Whaler’s Village, but we hurried to the beach to make the most of our day. It was beautiful.

And the water was very clear:

But my, it was windy! The sand kept blasting us- was pretty painful. It felt like someone was rubbing sandpaper on me or putting me in a wind tunnel and then releasing a handful of sand into the stream. We were unable to just lay out because sand literally kept covering our towels and there was no way to escape the sandblasting. We heard someone mention this was rare weather and it is almost never windy. Figures. The water was still clear though, and not very choppy with minimal waves that only broke close to the shore. Husband wanted to go snorkeling since our tour was cancelled. So, though it took me 20 minutes to get in because it was freezing, I did get in. I didn’t really have anything else to do… It was be cold or be blasted by sand. There were reefs within about 10 feet of shore, about 20-30 feet down. Perfect for snorkeling. The water was super crystal clear, just as I remember from my previous trips to Hawaii. Perfect visibility and a great place to snorkel!

We saw a bunch of fish and one kept swimming into husband’s face, I think it was territorial. Here is the little monster!

We stayed out for an hour, but I had goosebumps the whole time, so we headed back in to get blasted by sand. Some people we knew from the cruise said that earlier they swam with a turtle for 10 minutes and there were some over by the black rock portion of the beach. We wanted to go over to that area, but thought we did not have time. I guess you can also jump off that rock into the sea, which would have been fun too. So we rinsed off and headed to the bus. Pick up was every hour on the hour outside the shopping center and fare is $1 each way. It was so crowded with people wanting to get on the bus! Thankfully we made it back to the port and had a little time to go shopping. We ended up spending a total of $100 at all the ABC stores we went to and turned in our receipts for get a free mug. We also bought some Maui onion potato chips, which have always been our favorite. Yum. We found this lovely wooden carved picture frame that we decided we had to have and also bought a couple of shirts. It is our thing- we have to have a shirt from every port we visit. Why not? They are cheap.

I though husband would like to try the shaved ice, so we went to one of the shops. I talked him into getting the ice cream on the bottom, Hawaiian custom. He thought it would be strange, but I usually know what he likes. So he got vanilla bean ice cream on the bottom and raspberry, passion fruit, and grape up top. The thing was huge!

Not a wide selection of flavors, maybe 10-12, but the ice was the good kind- soft, not icy. The ice cream really makes it. We took it and began waiting in line for the tender at 4:30. We got back on board at 5:30, I believe and the ship sailed at about 6:08.

We got ready for dinner and headed down to the Piazza area at about 7:30PM. There was a naturalist that was going to do a talk and hopefully point our whales from the top deck, but we missed it. No big deal since we had done whale watching today.

Dinner:

There was no wait for a 2 top in the Bernini and we were seated immediately. I oerdered the Tom Kai Gai soup, which was waaaaay too lemony, pineapple with strawberry relish to split with husband for appetizers:

Chateaubriand with a side of veggies was my entree. I loved this dish, it was really tender and perfectly cooked!

OMG! I am looking at this picture right now and drooling!

Husband got potato soup to start with:

.

For his entree he got the pork belly:

He wasn't going to get it, but I thought he would really like it, so he got it. He loved it! It was great, but fatty of course.

Dessert was Oreo peanut butter and chocolate pie, which was fantastic.

Husband got peach daiquiri sorbet and Hawaiian pudding.

After dinner we snacked on a ricotta cheese pie from the international café. Yum! We listened to David Moore play piano for 45 minutes, still best entertainment on board! Then we headed to the ‘Fill in the Blank’ game show. Three crew members wrote down an answer to suggestive fill in the blank sentences. Husband answered every one with ‘turd’ or ‘wee wee.’ He needs some new ideas. Crew members kept switching back between the obvious suggestive answers (like turd or wee wee) and random inside jokes. So, not many people got many points! We played with our normal trivia partners. We will set our clocks forward one hour tonight, losing what we had gained. Boo, losing sleep now! On Maui we tried to pilfer some stuff for the boat competition. We bought duct tape to cover our cardboard swords with, bought a marker to color in our pirate flag, and swiped some toothpicks with red cellophane on the ends of them from a bar. Back when we bought our Uke in Honolulu, they came in these large cardboard cases. They had an extra one and gave it to us, so we will use that cardboard to cut out our pirate swords with.