Early this morning, we were greeted with a beautiful rainbow as soon as we opened our drapes. Of course that meant there was rain close by, but normally as the day advanced, the showers went away. Within minutes, the rainbow disappeared as well.
Today ended the first segment of this grand cruise. Some folks had put their luggage outside their rooms before retiring for the evening. Everyone received stickers with the first segment's itinerary which we put in a small souvenir booklet. As the future segments end, we will get more stickers.
First things first…..we had a notice that the maintenance team will be working on the air-conditioning unit that takes care of our deck or section. That would occur between 8am and 11:30am, and we were asked to be patient for the rooms to get to the normal temperatures. Ample time could mean all day. While we were working on completing photo work, we did notice that the temperature was rising. Sure hope it was not a repeat of the last time it failed. As it turned out, the outage was for only an hour or so, then it resumed working well.
The next job was a thorough balcony-washing from 9am to 3pm. This time all of the balcony partitions would be unlocked and a worker would come through with a hose. Then someone would follow up and wipe down the veranda glass and windows. Before we went to breakfast, we took in all of the chair and lounge pads so everything could be cleaned well. There was salt built up on the ceiling and walls, but the majority of it was on the floor. Now it is clean for a while.
There were a few tours today that covered most everyone's needs. There were two choices of ho-ho buses. One was a day pass for $75 and included the red, pink, and green lines. The other option was $90 for the blue line, which included admission to one of the main attractions. The most popular excursions took the folks to Pearl Harbor and the Mighty Missouri for 6 ½ hours for $210. Another popular but strenuous tour was a climb to Diamond Head, a 763 foot steep climb. It was 3 ½ hours for $220. We heard through the grapevine that if you wanted to do this on your own, you had to get tickets ahead of time. Out of town, the tours were a rainforest walk for 4 hours at $220, or a ride to the North Shore for 6 ½ hours at $240. The easiest excursion was a circle the island drive for 8 hours and $140. Another shorter tour for 4 hours was monarchs and missionaries for $190. And since we were not scheduled to stay overnight, there was no dinner luau or a sunset cruise.
Even though there was an early morning shower, the weather cleared up and was just about perfect. Three months ago, it was near 100 degrees when we visited Honolulu, so today with the temps in the low 80's, it was nice. And there was a breeze that never stopped. Great walking conditions.
We left the ship by 11am, and headed for the main street out of Pier 2. Turning right, we hiked past the car dealers, and many other businesses. We had two choices today, since we had only one day here. Normally we walk to Waikiki, then on to have lunch at the Hard Rock Café. Did you know that the name Waikiki means "spouting water"? It seems that this beautiful beach with turquoise water used to be a swampland. In 1901, the first hotel, the Moana Surfrider was built here. That marked the beginning of the massive tourist industry. Here's another little thing we learned. Diamond Head got its name from the calcite crystals in the rocks that early explorers in the late 1700's mistook for diamonds. We always take photos of the famous lookout when we get to the beach. However, to go there and also go to Ala Moana Center would take too much time and energy today.
So the second option was to walk through Ala Moana Beach Park spotting birds all the way. There are some mighty fine banyan trees as well as baobab trees planted there. Unfortunately, there are some homeless people there living in tents. Most of the day, they sleep, but do not bother people in the park. Except for one fellow in his twenties that was ranting and raving for no reason. We guess that all big cities in the US have this problem, but more so where the weather is warm most of the year.
Crossing the street, we entered the world's largest open-air shopping mall – Ala Moana Center. If you cannot find things there, you never will anywhere else. It is so huge, it is easy to get lost. One of our destinations at this mall was Macy's, where we recalled they had an instore watch shop. One of us had two watches that needed batteries, so we located the shop, and they had both watches running within 10 minutes.
Then it was time for lunch and we had our minds set on pizza. One of our favorite restaurants at home is California Pizza Kitchen. Lucky for us, there is one here. We got one of the last booths, surprised at how busy they were for a Thursday afternoon. We shared a BBQ chicken chopped salad, and a pizza with the same toppings. The French bread slices and seasoned olive oil came right before the salad. We had forgotten to bring our CPK member card, but using our phone number, the waiter discovered we had $5 credit to use. Adding a couple of Coke Zeros, we were happy campers.
The last job of the day was a trip to Target for some room snacks. Funny thing…..on or way out of the terminal this morning, we saw a couple coming back to the ship loaded with big bags of crackers, chips, and other snacks. They probably made a trip to Walmart or Costco. All of us like our little snacks, not only the crew members. We did notice that the Shops onboard were selling saltine crackers, something we have never seen. So we loaded up on chips, pub mix, some blocks of cheese, pretzels, and popcorn. We looked all over for bean dip, but all they had was cheese and salsa dips. It will be hard to find any of these favorites in Japan or China.
Taking our time going back, we noticed that every bus passing us was full of folks going to Waikiki or the Ala Moana Center. Since all aboard was 10:30pm, we think a lot of people will go for cocktails and dinner in town. We got back by 4pm, and used that time as we always do. Keeping up with the photos every day really helps. So does relaxing on the veranda watching the harbor traffic. The sunset was really pretty tonight, and went down very fast.
Time for dinner, we noticed that there was only one entrée with beef. That was the alternate steak. There has been a lot of pork, some fish, a little chicken or duck, and more than one vegetarian choice. A new appetizer with skewered shrimp and onion with soy sauce and peanut dip was excellent. Instead of one wonton in the clear broth, we asked for two wontons. Great choice, even with the one drop of some spicy oil that burned the lips. Our entrees were one lasagna and the alternate steak. Both were surprisingly good. A lemon meringue slice of cheesecake and a plate of pineapple were the desserts. We do know that some big loading happened today, so we shall see if the menu improves.
There was a special show this evening featuring a local group called Kauvaka. The group included singers, dancers, and drummers from the island of Oahu. The costumes were worthwhile to see as was the performance of Polynesian and Hawaiian dance. Always nice when they have a local group like this one.
Another plus was finding out we had another hour back on the clocks tonight. As we head west, this will happen every few days now. Fine with us.
Bill & Mary Ann
