LIVE! Crown Princess Hawaii/South Pacific 10/17 - 11/14

[IECalCruiser]

traveling1969, I am one that also liked the 50th Anniversary dinner menu. I started with the risotto on the anytime side and it was one of the best dishes I have ever had. On my recommendation, DW and our two friends added to their order and everyone enjoyed the dish. The osso bucco ravioli was also a winner. The only week spot in my opinion was the dessert. Looking forward to having it again on our 50th Anniversary cruise on the Pacific in December.

Edited October 21, 2015 by IECalCruiser

[SoCalTraveler]

CCrain:

Loving your updates (was on this cruise last year)

 

Question: I just bought the Surface Pro also to take on my cruises. When you download movies to it, can you watch them without Internet?

(Like you can on the Kindle Fire)

 

Content which is truly downloaded to your device can be played back without internet connection, unless the license for the download requires you to have a connection. (Think of content that has a time limit or a usage limit.)

[FoghornLeghorn]

Content which is truly downloaded to your device can be played back without internet connection, unless the license for the download requires you to have a connection. (Think of content that has a time limit or a usage limit.)

 

Thanks! That's the way it works on my Kindle Fire, was hoping the Surface was the same.

 

Sent from my KFTT using Forums mobile app

[traveling1969]

Internet has been down all morning but is painfully slow. Will post later and hopefully it will speed up.

 

Harry

[senior lady]

I'd love to do this cruise, but the 8 days at sea coming home is the deal breaker.

5 days at sea is about all I can handle.

 

Sounds like everyone is having a fantastic time.

[ccrain]

The stabilizers are vibrating this morning. The Hurricane to the WSW is generating swells, wind and rain. In fact it rained out the stargazing last night and almost the first movie showing.

 

But before we go anywhere, two very important things:

 

1) To the Princess Personnel who monitor live froms – Memo Direct to Jan – Keep Brian and Rowena Vasquez on the ship to Tahiti. EOM. (Hint – Hawaiians are descended from Tahitians therefore the “cultural” experience they provide goes beyond HI. Besides I want to learn a Samoan Haka.)

2) I will never, ever, EVER make fun of or think little of a Ukulele. Think the aforementioned Brian doing Santana on a Ukulele is some kind of joke? It wasn’t and it was darned GOOD - along with the Rolling Stones, Eagles and the Beatles. I have never heard anyone pick and make a Ukulele sing like that before.

Oh yeah, I also wasted two hours of my life at MUTS last night watching a movie, and wishing I wasn’t, called Into the Woods, which appeared to be a musical Monte Python trying to be a Disney flick. And the really bad news was that I couldn’t fall asleep until the last 10 minutes.

 

But overall, yesterday was a great day at sea. No Zumba so I hit the gym at 0900 and actually got an elliptical right away. Watched an episode of NCIS New Orleans (bring headphones or ear buds with you for a better experience), did about 2 miles, sweated out all the booze from the night before and got that all important endorphin kick and guilt free lunch feeling.

 

After a refreshing shower, our shower head is GREAT with lots of water volume, cold water and the shower curtain is keeping to itself, I went to see Joe’s lecture on Ships and Legends. More like little known facts about the Titanic and other large liners from the Golden Age of Cruising. Interesting. Wish they could have fixed his powerpoint screen resolution so we could read the screens.

 

I wanted to stay for the Second Attack On Pearl Harbor lecture but promised Judy lunch. Pizza, chicken sandwiches, soup. After a great nap we did our light snack/dinner in Vines, trying to pick out a good white wine for Crab Shack tonight. We usually do the Stainless Steel vatted pinot grigiot. But we found something new and different last night which we will try tonight.

 

Did one of our favorite activities. Sat with Paul and Elizabeth at the Elite Lounge and talked for a long time. Just chatting. Had a great time over drinks. Then came the wasted two hours of movie time, but Judy liked it and was happy so it wasn’t a total waste. Judy tried the pork ribs at the smokehouse BBQ after the movie. (The Trident grill has several “smokehouse” BBQ items like wings, ribs and brisket from 1800 to 2200 at night.) She did not like it. They were too dry. We have Rudy’s in Colorado Springs, and Famous Dave’s. So we will be skipping the Smokehouse BBQ – although I would like to try the brisket or pulled pork at least once.

 

Then after the movie and rib fiasco, we ended up in the Wheelhouse to hear Brian do Santana on a Ukulele. That was incredible. He put on a great show for over an hour and a half. No little 50 minute shows for us. He gave us his all and it was really, really good. We also tried out the BOGO $1 special in the Wheelhouse as well. Got in a few dances as well.

 

All in all a great day and night at sea.

 

So, the Patter for the day.

 

Zumba is on at 0900. There is a whale lecture, Joe has a WWII lecture about Pearl Harbor. A Kauai lecture. A lecture on sub and float plane attacks on North America. Line dance, ballroom, hula dance classes. Rowena has a feather lei class and there is a makeup ribbon lei class.

 

Tonight is a rerun of Magic to Do for two shows. Karaoke and remember the lyrics is the main game show. McFarland USA is on MUTS. Dan Horn has a show in Explorer’s. We have Crab Shack at 1800, and then will probably do dancing and listening the rest of the night. Tomorrow is Hilo and we have some shopping to do for sure.

 

Sorry to be short and sweet but the coffee klatch is gearing up. And the internet is extremely slow, so I have had to delay posting until later.

 

Later…

[Pia1913]

Charles, don't waste your time trying the brisket. If you thought the ribs were dry.............. :eek:

[ccrain]

So the Hurricane pretty much missed us. We got just a little wind, a little light rain, and very little motion. Still dark. Woke up at 0400, but coffee was calling me by 0500. Still dark outside, but there is already a line at the IC for coffee. Lots of people up early this morning. Judy chose to sleep a little while longer.

 

Zumba was fun. Sasha announced he was staying on past HI. I think only he and Nicole are certified Zumba instructors. Judy tried to make it to feather leis and hula, but there was just enough motion to get her to retreat to the cabin and to lay down horizontally.

 

Since I couldn’t get onto the internet all morning, I retreated to Skywalkers to read after brunch. Very nice and quiet up there. Still could not get onto the internet up there.

 

We crashed very early last night. Crab shack plus wine does not make for a very late night, but we both needed a solid long night’s sleep. So we don’t have a lot to say about the goings on last night.

 

Jasper Wolthuls, the hotel general manager, stopped by and chatted with us during the Elite lounge. That’s a nice touch. In June, the Captain’s Circle lady would make it a point to wander through and chat with a lot of us during the Elite lounge. We like providing feedback, both positive and negative. Not a lot of negative on this cruise. The first couple of days the crew seemed tired, a little flat. That has now changed and they have gotten into a rhythm for this cruise. 7 day cruises are hectic with complete turnarounds every 7 days. While this cruise has a lot of sea days, it does offer a more consistent schedule. But all of the crew are looking forward to the next four port days to catch their breath.

 

Crab Shack was a mixed bag. The food was good, shrimp not overcooked at all. I had the mussels, clams and shrimp in a white wine ju. Judy and Elizabeth had the King Crab boil and Paul had the mixed boil. Everybody loved the food, but the service was rushed. Not bad service, just that she was very rushed and there was not enough servers for the 25+ tables. There was at least 75 covers in the 1800 first seating with a large number of 4 and 6 tops. It was packed. Quite frankly that makes for more a Chesapeake Bay Seafood house atmosphere than a quieter type atmosphere. I did go to Vines and get the white wine of choice. It was a very good accompaniment to the boil.

So today is Hilo. This is probably our 5th trip to Hilo, so the big adventure for us will be a trip to Wal Mart to stock up on stuff. We need more candy for Halloween, water and to look around for some more HI wear. Tonight is our UBD. We picked out our food and drinks yesterday. We have to spruce up the cabin for guests. According to the Navigator’s little blurb in the Patter, we will leave Hilo and travel up the Northern Coast toward Kona, rather than around the southern end and the lava fields. But that does give us a good view of the coast from our port side balcony. We plan to walk up to Wal-Mart. It’s about 1.5 miles. Then take the shuttle back to the ship. That usually works very well.

 

Tonight’s headliner is Tricia Kelly, a vocal impressionist. Not really our cup of tea. Feet allowing, we will be doing some dancing after our UBD. Brian and Kevin Philip are doing a kind of duo in the Wheelhouse at 2200 – Happy Hour! If it’s anything like the last show with Brian, this ought to be good. The Blankety Blank match game show is in Explorer’s tonight. Followed by Do You Want To Be a Rockstar – where’s Ally when we need her! Tri tone duo is in Fusion. Fusion starts off in Explorer’s early but looks like they have the night off. Thursday night football is on MUTS this afternoon, with the Rewrite on MUTS later.

 

Something new on the menu tonight. A Mongolian Stir Fry in Café Caribe starting at 1800. A good Mongolian Stir Fry can be a lot of fun, but I just don’t see how they are going to duplicate those huge flat gas powered flat tops in a typical Mongolian BBQ. Too bad we have the UBD tonight, otherwise I would have tried it.

 

That’s it for the morning…

[Baatman]

Looking forward to following your journey!:)

[XBGuy]

These reports from the various travelers are amazing. Thank you, very much.

[RetiredNTraveling]

So good to hear all about the cruise. Keep the reports coming. Remember you are cruising for us also! ;)

Just Mike

ps. Got Betty out of the hospital today.

[ccrain]

So good to hear all about the cruise. Keep the reports coming. Remember you are cruising for us also! ;)

Just Mike

ps. Got Betty out of the hospital today.

 

Thanks again Mike for all the work on the shutterfly site and getting us off to a great start. We're in Hilo today doing the Wal Mart run for consumables and Aloha wear. Raining this morning as we pulled in, mostly sunny and hot/steamy now with a cooling breeze from the ocean. Our balcony is in the shade and we're looking out over the beaches to the south and east of the harbor, sipping our adult beverages and toasting to Betty's quick and full recovery.

 

Traffic was a real challenge. We walked up to Wal Mart for our morning's exercise. Lots more port traffic and just all around traffic in the area compared to the last couple of times we were here. The Hoppa On, Hoppa Off bus is pretty full. $20 and its right outside the port gate. You can also pick up tours there as well. Lots of taxi's available.

 

Judy and I are having dinner with Paul and Elizabeth on our balcony this evening as we cruise around the island. Let's hope the rain holds off!

 

Anyway, great to hear about Betty. Thanks again for all of your hard work on the site and this cruise. Hope to run into you again on a cruise in the future, and the drinks are on me...

 

See ya!

[donnavwg]

Harry, I know how you always like to be at the front of the line...sorry you had to wait three minutes for someone while in Hawaii .... I feel really bad for you.. LOL Glad Joyce went to the Hula dance in the piazza!

[ccrain]

Well the IC coffee tables were full this morning – at 0530. Had to shift over to the food area to have my coffee. Just a plain latte this morning. Nothing fancy. So yesterday started off rainy, then hot and steamy, then blue sky. In fact I could not think of a time when it wasn’t raining or overcast coming in to Hilo.

 

We walked to Wal Mart. Yes we did. Put 4.5 miles on the pedometer. A lot of people may wonder why we come all the way to Hawaii to go to wal mart. Well, we’ve been here a lot, seen the volcanoes, done the touristy thing and Hilo happens to be on the way to the South Pacific. And we needed water. And some additional clothes, and some more candy, and Judy broke her glasses. So it was a multipurpose stop.

 

It was a very hot and steamy walk up the hill for sure. The rain basically turned everything into a sauna. And traffic! There was a lot of traffic on the streets. We got everything on the list and only screwed up one purchase we have to return in Honolulu today, along with getting more water.

 

The highlight of last night was a fantastic Ultimate Balcony Dinner (UBD). Could not have been more perfect. The foods was excellent, the service was fantastic and the weather held off until after dinner. We sailed as the sun went down, getting a good view of all the telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea. Went through a couple of light rain showers as the ship rounded Hawaii along the north east. Our balcony had a great view of the coast and a half moon.

 

For those of you who haven’t done a UBD yet, it’s still one of the best dining bargains for romantic dinners or just having some quiet quality time with friends. Paul and Elizabeth joined us and there was plenty of room on the Caribe balcony for the four of us. The wind was perfect. Just a slight breeze. We had canapes, with a cocktail, prepared especially for Judy – no mayo. Then a crab quiche, a salad, surf and turf main course ( a perfectly cooked lobster tail and a perfect medium rare filet), dessert (a chocolaty tweely moussey goodie with raspberries) and gormandizes. And a half bottle of Champagne. Everything was just really, really good. But the best part was being able to sit in a quiet spot and have normal volume conversations with no distractions. The service was impeccable. Very professional. You have a waiter and an assistant waiter taking care of you with the Room Service supervisor stopping by every now and then to make sure everything is just right. You also get a rose and a picture from the ships photographer. For $50 pp it’s still very reasonable.

 

We did have one light shower come through during dessert, so we have to squeeze under the overhang, but it passed quickly, the moon shone, the stars came out and the lights of Kona could be seen in the distance. All in all, just very, very nice. Highly recommended.

 

Needless to say, after a UBD, you don’t do a lot of anything except groan.

 

The plan for the day is to return one of the shirts from yesterday to the big Ala Moana Wal Mart, and snatch up some more water. I hear there is a smaller Wal Mart closer to the ship, but their selection in Aloha wear will most likely not be as good as the big Wal Mart. I have a couple of tripadvisor places for lunch marked as well. Honolulu is one of those places I’ve spent way too much time in. Working. A lot of you might think that’s so cool to work in HI. Nope. Not even close. My foreman got his rental car broken into three times in Home Depot parking lots, the traffic sucks big time, we had to FedEx common little parts from ABQ, which actually takes two days, and in one week I broke very piece of test equipment I had – twice – and to top it off I had a test equipment malfunction that wasn’t electrically or physically possible. (I attributed it to the red volcanic clay on the test cable.) So me and Oahu are old friends.

 

The Passenger Services desk called while we were out and left a couple of messages. I like the fact that they are getting back to us about things. Jasper called us and let us know that Jamie, ACD extraordinaire, is coming on board at 1000 this morning. We will probably be gone by then, but we will see him at the deck party tonight for sure. We’re hoping Sam, his better half, gets on in Samoa or Tahiti. Jamie was on our Golden cruise to Alaska in June of this year. The other message was weird. We had written to TPTB about keeping Brian and Rowena on board through the rest of the cruise. But when they called, the message said they could not stay because of a prior commitment. Not sure if the prior commitment was their’s or Princess’. Oh well, in any event, we will have to learn a Haka on our own I guess.

 

Tonight is the deck party at 2100. They are also having the Halau Hula Olana show in the theater. Those kids are so cute. It’s always a great show.

 

For those of you thinking we are going to be spending this cruise at Wal Mart – take heart! Although we have nothing scheduled for Lahaina, we have a fixed wing air tour scheduled in Kauai with Wings Over Kauai. Then the fun begins in the remaining ports. We have a tour to Manano Island planned for Apia, $2 beach, now $5, in Pago Pago, Patrick’s Tour in Bora Bora, Hiro’s tour in Moorea and a La Roulette crawl and market visit in Papeete. The rollcall tour coordinators have done a great job in putting together these tours and we look forward to all of them. One of this days, when I grow up, I want to be just like Mike and put together a Shutterfly site for a cruise just like him!

 

A couple of other tidbits. We do have an Elite tender lounge for this cruise – which is one of the midships dining rooms. Hopefully that gets us off early enough to enjoy some of these tours. The other thing is the laundry. With 800 elites, you can imagine, and that’s why we needed more clothes. It’s been 4 days on the last load. I had calculated for 3 max.

 

Well we are just now pulling into Honolulu. Off to the races!

 

Later!

[ccrain]

Let me echo Harry here. Coming back into the port they required picture ID and the cruise card. Everyone was told getting off the ship several times. In fact it is a standard spiel. And yes, sometimes they do not require looking at it. But at times they do.

 

So come on folks. Carry a picture ID with you. You end up holding up everyone while they call the ship and confirm you are a passenger, and that's just not fair to everyone who thoughtfully did take their picture IDs with them...

[IBsaved]

Well the IC coffee tables were full this morning – at 0530. Had to shift over to the food area to have my coffee. Just a plain latte this morning. Nothing fancy. So yesterday started off rainy, then hot and steamy, then blue sky. In fact I could not think of a time when it wasn’t raining or overcast coming in to Hilo.

 

We walked to Wal Mart. Yes we did. Put 4.5 miles on the pedometer. A lot of people may wonder why we come all the way to Hawaii to go to wal mart. Well, we’ve been here a lot, seen the volcanoes, done the touristy thing and Hilo happens to be on the way to the South Pacific. And we needed water. And some additional clothes, and some more candy, and Judy broke her glasses. So it was a multipurpose stop.

 

It was a very hot and steamy walk up the hill for sure. The rain basically turned everything into a sauna. And traffic! There was a lot of traffic on the streets. We got everything on the list and only screwed up one purchase we have to return in Honolulu today, along with getting more water.

 

The highlight of last night was a fantastic Ultimate Balcony Dinner (UBD). Could not have been more perfect. The foods was excellent, the service was fantastic and the weather held off until after dinner. We sailed as the sun went down, getting a good view of all the telescopes on the top of Mauna Kea. Went through a couple of light rain showers as the ship rounded Hawaii along the north east. Our balcony had a great view of the coast and a half moon.

 

For those of you who haven’t done a UBD yet, it’s still one of the best dining bargains for romantic dinners or just having some quiet quality time with friends. Paul and Elizabeth joined us and there was plenty of room on the Caribe balcony for the four of us. The wind was perfect. Just a slight breeze. We had canapes, with a cocktail, prepared especially for Judy – no mayo. Then a crab quiche, a salad, surf and turf main course ( a perfectly cooked lobster tail and a perfect medium rare filet), dessert (a chocolaty tweely moussey goodie with raspberries) and gormandizes. And a half bottle of Champagne. Everything was just really, really good. But the best part was being able to sit in a quiet spot and have normal volume conversations with no distractions. The service was impeccable. Very professional. You have a waiter and an assistant waiter taking care of you with the Room Service supervisor stopping by every now and then to make sure everything is just right. You also get a rose and a picture from the ships photographer. For $50 pp it’s still very reasonable.

 

We did have one light shower come through during dessert, so we have to squeeze under the overhang, but it passed quickly, the moon shone, the stars came out and the lights of Kona could be seen in the distance. All in all, just very, very nice. Highly recommended.

 

Needless to say, after a UBD, you don’t do a lot of anything except groan.

 

The plan for the day is to return one of the shirts from yesterday to the big Ala Moana Wal Mart, and snatch up some more water. I hear there is a smaller Wal Mart closer to the ship, but their selection in Aloha wear will most likely not be as good as the big Wal Mart. I have a couple of tripadvisor places for lunch marked as well. Honolulu is one of those places I’ve spent way too much time in. Working. A lot of you might think that’s so cool to work in HI. Nope. Not even close. My foreman got his rental car broken into three times in Home Depot parking lots, the traffic sucks big time, we had to FedEx common little parts from ABQ, which actually takes two days, and in one week I broke very piece of test equipment I had – twice – and to top it off I had a test equipment malfunction that wasn’t electrically or physically possible. (I attributed it to the red volcanic clay on the test cable.) So me and Oahu are old friends.

 

The Passenger Services desk called while we were out and left a couple of messages. I like the fact that they are getting back to us about things. Jasper called us and let us know that Jamie, ACD extraordinaire, is coming on board at 1000 this morning. We will probably be gone by then, but we will see him at the deck party tonight for sure. We’re hoping Sam, his better half, gets on in Samoa or Tahiti. Jamie was on our Golden cruise to Alaska in June of this year. The other message was weird. We had written to TPTB about keeping Brian and Rowena on board through the rest of the cruise. But when they called, the message said they could not stay because of a prior commitment. Not sure if the prior commitment was their’s or Princess’. Oh well, in any event, we will have to learn a Haka on our own I guess.

 

Tonight is the deck party at 2100. They are also having the Halau Hula Olana show in the theater. Those kids are so cute. It’s always a great show.

 

For those of you thinking we are going to be spending this cruise at Wal Mart – take heart! Although we have nothing scheduled for Lahaina, we have a fixed wing air tour scheduled in Kauai with Wings Over Kauai. Then the fun begins in the remaining ports. We have a tour to Manano Island planned for Apia, $2 beach, now $5, in Pago Pago, Patrick’s Tour in Bora Bora, Hiro’s tour in Moorea and a La Roulette crawl and market visit in Papeete. The rollcall tour coordinators have done a great job in putting together these tours and we look forward to all of them. One of this days, when I grow up, I want to be just like Mike and put together a Shutterfly site for a cruise just like him!

 

A couple of other tidbits. We do have an Elite tender lounge for this cruise – which is one of the midships dining rooms. Hopefully that gets us off early enough to enjoy some of these tours. The other thing is the laundry. With 800 elites, you can imagine, and that’s why we needed more clothes. It’s been 4 days on the last load. I had calculated for 3 max.

 

Well we are just now pulling into Honolulu. Off to the races!

 

Later!

 

One of our favorite places to eat in Honolulu is Nico's at Pier 38....very yummy!

[ccrain]

One of our favorite places to eat in Honolulu is Nico's at Pier 38....very yummy!

 

We ended up in our first foray into Vietnamese Fusion food at the Pig and the Lady. More about that tomorrow!

 

Thinking seriously about Wings and beer for dinner, or sushi and Saki!

[ar1950]

...................

So come on folks. Carry a picture ID with you. You end up holding up everyone while they call the ship and confirm you are a passenger, and that's just not fair to everyone who thoughtfully did take their picture IDs with them...

 

Surprising to hear that some folks don't carry a picture ID off of the ship. Don't get it. How will their cruse card help them on shore....????:confused:

 

LOL :cool:

[Steelers0854]

Surprising to hear that some folks don't carry a picture ID off of the ship. Don't get it. How will their cruse card help them on shore....????:confused:

 

LOL :cool:

 

 

We always carry our passports every time we get off the ship. God forbid your in an accident or miss the ship somehow, life without a passport is not one I'm willing to roll the dice on.

[ccrain]

Headed into the anchorage for tendering. Yesterday was a fully packed day of highs and lows. We did make a fast run to Wal Mart to exchange a shirt for Judy, and found one that matched my new one exactly, picked up water and hot footed it back to the ship. Got back just in time to Jamie in the incoming crew line. Talked to him for a while to catch up, poor kid was operating on just a few hours sleep in the past couple of days. Sam, his better half, will be joining the ship on the 28th of November. There will be a major shift in personnel on the 28th. New CD, new ED, about half the cruise staff will change out.

 

After the first run to Wal Mart I wanted to try the Pig and Lady in downtown. Just a few blocks from the ships, it boasted Vietnamese Fusion cuisine, and it was known for Ban Mi’s and Pho. Talked to a very nice lady on the way to the place and got some recommendations on what to order. TripAdvisor reviews rated it very good as well. So we ordered the combo lunch sandwich and bowl of Pho. Judy had the pork belly sandwich, I had a fish sandwich and both of our bowels of pho were different. It was delicious. The pho was exceptional. A clear broth that contained a lot of flavor. The sandwiches were not typical Vietnamese with crusted French bread instead of sticky buns, but even the cole slaw was outstanding with fresh cilantro and cabbage and a dressing that was perfect. This was a real treat for us.

 

As part of my surveys of Wal Marts across the HI island chain, we had to stop by the downtown Wal Mart and pick up some more water. This is a small Wal Mart. Like a neighborhood Wal Mart, but with a better selection of sundries. This would be a great stop for cruisers as it is not far from the ship (5 blocks) and has the basics. For a more extensive selection, the Ala Moana Wal Mart has the largest selection of items in all the Wal Marts in the Islands.

 

I screwed up for dinner. Gordon Biersch is in the Aloha Tower complex and has a high rating on TripAdvisor, whereas Hooters has a lower rating. So we opted for Gordon Biersch. Big mistake. It was easily the worst food in many moons. Now in all fairness, the place was packed, and packed with at least a dozen groups above 10 covers each. So the wait staff was harried and there was not enough wait staff. The front desk hosts just did not care. Our waitress was nice, but only took our order and brought our check. Nothing in between. The draft beer had a tin can aftertaste, there was Garlic everywhere. The fries were done in low temperature fryer and underdone/very greasy. The salad was just thrown on the plate, very messy. Judy’s vinaigrette had too much garlic in it, the flatbread was undercooked and had too much garlic on it. There was no redeeming features what so ever. We didn’t even finish the food, and that is very rare for me.

 

Back to the ship and a toothbrush. Several teeth brushing later, we could at least speak to each other without cringing – which was important for the upcoming dance a thon. We had missed the Hula show for the dinner, so we hit Explorer’s to dance to Fusion, then moved down to Fusion and danced to the TriTone duo before heading upstairs and dancing at the deck party. Needless to say, the blister on my big toe really started talking to me after that. And Judy’s knees said enough was enough, so we headed off to bed. Tired and satisfied – although still smelling of garlic….

 

BTW – several people have complained about the HOHO in Honolulu. There was way too much waiting for a bus and waiting for a bus on the different lines. So basically it appears the bus frequency was not what it was advertised to be. There was a free wal mart shuttle to the Ala Moana Wal Mart, and a Maui Diver’s shuttle as well.

 

So today is Lahaina. Our first tender port. So this will be interesting to see how things fair with three different departure lounges. A good test for the crew and the upcoming tender ports. So we are kicking back for a while this morning, planning on heading in to shore a little later and find some Hawaiian shaved ice. The last time we were in Lahaina, we found a great place which is supposedly now closed, and also a little shack for lunch with some great street food.

 

Tonight we sail at 1800, so it’s a long day in port. Tonight’s headline entertainment is Comedian Steve Cauette. Looks like lots of dancing, but we have dinner at Sabbatini’s tonight. Not sure how these two will match up, but we shall see. Sabbatini’s is much more reasonable since they changed the menu structure.

 

So enough for the morning update…e’ya all later….

[pamandcookie]

Our last cruise we had to give the ship our passports at embarkation and they were not returned until just before disembarkation. Lots of stamps from the countries we visited. So, you would want to have some other form of picture ID to carry.

[JF - retired RRT]

We always carry our passports every time we get off the ship. God forbid your in an accident or miss the ship somehow, life without a passport is not one I'm willing to roll the dice on.

It has been reported here...if you miss the ship, security opens your safe and leaves your valuables (jewelry, passport, etc) with the harbor master (or whatever you call the person in charge in the port).

 

Not a good idea to carry your passport. They get stolen all the time.:eek:

[RetiredNTraveling]

As part of my surveys of Wal Marts across the HI island chain, we had to stop by the downtown Wal Mart and pick up some more water. This is a small Wal Mart. Like a neighborhood Wal Mart, but with a better selection of sundries. This would be a great stop for cruisers as it is not far from the ship (5 blocks) and has the basics. For a more extensive selection, the Ala Moana Wal Mart has the largest selection of items in all the Wal Marts in the Islands.

Is this the one that was listed on Shutterfly?

MapQuest Maps and Walking Directions from Aloha Tower to Closest Wal-Mart! This use to be the old Macy's store and has escalators & elevators to change floors.

 

I screwed up for dinner. Gordon Biersch is in the Aloha Tower complex and has a high rating on TripAdvisor, whereas Hooters has a lower rating. So we opted for Gordon Biersch. Big mistake.

So enough for the morning update…e’ya all later….

 

Charles, sounds like a good time overall, except for "Garlic" which I fully understand. Some people don't know when to leave well enough alone!

Keep these reports coming.

Just Mike

[ccrain]

Charles, sounds like a good time overall, except for "Garlic" which I fully understand. Some people don't know when to leave well enough alone!

Keep these reports coming.

Just Mike

 

The Shutterfly site Wal Mart is the one closest. Just had to check it out.

 

I love Garlic, but only when properly applied or cooked, not uncooked for sure...

[Pam in CA]

Our last cruise we had to give the ship our passports at embarkation and they were not returned until just before disembarkation. Lots of stamps from the countries we visited. So, you would want to have some other form of picture ID to carry.

That depends on where you're cruising. Countries require a passport to enter their country. To expedite passenger disembarkation and re-embarkation, passports are kept at the Passenger Services Desk and the country's officials process them on the ship. When you sail from a Schengen Agreement country to a non-Schengen Agreement country, same thing.

 

However, none of this applies when sailing to Hawaii as you're sailing within the US. Some Hawaiian ports require a photo ID to re-board the ship as a security measure. It's clearly noted in the Patter and in announcements. Honolulu is pretty strict about this. Not sure why anyone wouldn't pay attention unless they feel it doesn't apply to them.

Edited October 24, 2015 by Pam in CA