Day 13 January 29, 2013 Monday
3rd Formal Night At Sea
At Sea
________________________________________
It was pretty cold on deck today but the boat is not swaying so much. Tonight is the 3rd Formal night on the Golden Princess. Its the night of Lobster and giant Shrimp.
I discovered that I packed the wrong blue shirt to go with the suit attire. Luckily, I had done laundry and so the red satin shirt was pressed back into action... It certainly fits better than the blue one that was at least 12 years old. I love the Goodwill silk tie that I bought for it.
Our dinner table Brit friends, the Bulmans had beef wellington instead of the Lobster because of allergies. Pheasant was also a choice at this dinner. Our Desert Springs fellow dinner couple were ready for the lobster and shrimp as we were.
This is also the dinner that the cooks get introduced and cheered. So everyone stands up and waves their dinner napkins as the chefs with the tall hats and the cooks parade through the dinning halls. Our assistant waiter got us baked Alaska for desert. They used to come in flaming... not anymore. There are battery operated votive candles that illuminate the frozen cake ice cream and whipped egg white creations. Baked Alaska is not my number one desert... its okay. I would really prefer a good apple pie slice. I ordered and got one those too. It was a night in the dinning room that everyone looked like they were having fun.
During the day we got ready for the performance on the ship of the ukelele songs we were practicing and the hulas that others were practicing. We had a couple of new songs as the hula class was going to perform to our music at least for one of the songs. Our new chords (D) and (D7) were integrated into Aloha Oui and Little Grass Shack. These songs were pretty tough for beginners.
Some people had taken the hula lessons and the ukelele lessons as well. They ahd to choose which group they wanted to be with for the performance.
Sue went with me to listen to the ukelele lesson . She was going to get some help with her heirloom lei. She bought a couple of kits and some pointers from Lilanan the hula instructor that was also doing the lei kits.
We started to experience playing our ukeleles standing up. That was a new experience.
Unlike guitars, there is no neck strap because ukeleles are so light, they can be held and played without support while standing up.
There didn't seem the push push to buy extras on this ship. That is a good thing because most of those on this ship are older there might have been a backlash for an economic push.
According to our ukelele teacher he sees familiar faces on this cruise from people who take this cruise a couple of times a year, Their are some who take this cruise and his lessons once a month where this cruise is offered to Hawaii. Its what they want to spend their money on. They take ukelele lessons each time and have a really nice instrument and like to be in the classes to meet new people and to practice their skill.
After lessons, Sue went back to the room to rest.
The formal lunch in the dinning room is the one that is used for anytime dining. People who use this option, call in a reservation as to when they want to arrive for dinner. They have no particular waiter and could be seating anywhere throughout the dinning room. They trade this for being able to choose when and with whom they will eat with between 5:30 and 10:00 . If they don't call in, they have to wait outside until they can be seated in the dining room or use the buffet.
We generally pick the later traditional dining time at 7:45 seating. This is not the time that most people choose if they are older or have young children. the earlier seating is at 5:15 each night. There are assigned tables in traditional dinning and dinners eat with the same people and are served by the same waiter and assistant waiter each night.
Tips for the waiters and the assistants and the stateroom stewards are automatically charged to each person's ship card at the rate of 12 dollars a day. Passengers can reduce this amount or add to it by going to the front desk and requesting the charges be reduced or adjusted. We always give more. Our room steward usually gets $50 additional from us on the 15 day cruise and I always tip the waiter and additional 30 dollars for the head waiter and 20 dollars for the assistant.
Cash is not handled on the ship except when additional tips are provided. The passenger cruise card is used to pay for everything on the ship. The only exception being the casino. Here US dollar bills and up to 20 dollar bills may be fed into the machines. Winnings are collected as they are earned on the players casino portion of the cruise card. The casino bank is utilized with a pin number. It allows authorization right at the slot machine. When you are ready to "cash" in your winnings, the casino as a cashier booth where you show your ID and your cruise card and they pass over the cash you won. Passengers can have the "bank" transferred off their cruise card account that is secured with a credit card. If you overspend you limit on the credit card on file , the hotel desk will call and ask you to put up another card or make arrangements to pay.The run balances on the card as you are traveling. We did not have to reassign to another card on this trip... but on one Alaska cruise I had to put up another card mid cruise.
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Monday, April 1, 2013
Day 12 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 12, January 27, 2013 Sunday
Partly Cloudy, Rain Showers High 70 Low 63
Sunrise 6:45 Sunset 5:26
________________________________________________
ProBowl game at 3 pm on the Movies at Sea Screen above the Pool
It was pretty cold and windy outside today. The ship had just a little roll. Overall the ship movement is very tolerable. Its just enough to rock you to sleep at night, sue comments.
The naturalist covered a great deal on oceanography today. Tsunamis and Hurricane Mapping the ocean floors, and tides.
I learned why the tides are so large in Alaska. Apparently there are more SAT points where very little tide changes (in Hawaii) and those areas with far away from the SAT points like the Bay of Fundy (41 feet) of difference and Alaska (28 feet of difference). Hawaii has as little as 2 feet difference because they are new the SAT points. SAT points are the places on the earth where the waves begin.
He also talked about the company that he owned and sold that mapped ports and designed "wave breaks" for the marinas. They did the work involving diving to meet the Edison Power Company in Southern California. His company was often called to scuba through the inlets of the power plants to check for damages ... which required them to swim for 1/4 mile . There were often fish that got in. They would scoop them out and return the unharmed back to the ocean. One time they call was different. A small sea lion had made its way up the inlet. He was having a great time as the fish were stuck in the tank. He called the UCLA ocean team and they pulled the sea lion out. They transferred him to Doheney beach down by San Clemente Beach, about 35 miles a way. The release worked except that in 2 weeks he was back to the power tank with 3 girl friends.
_______________________________
The lunch set up that was on deck was a stir fry Mongolian thing. People could pick their ingredients and it was cooked with Asian oils in a couple of woks one veggie only and the other with meat. Also away from the station was a place to get Thai green soup, seafood stew, sushis, beef and greens and four pre made stir fries. They replaced at different times, different dishes in replenishing the tables set out by the covered pool area. The RCMP wife felt that she was cheated and pleaded for a cut backwards in the line to pick up the duck instead of the chicken... I let her cut. I said they had heard there were Albertans in line, so they changed it right after in her honor. We had a laugh and she cut back in front of me.
_________________________
They introduced a new song at ukulele lessons today and a new chord. I think that most of the people in the class now have learned another lesson with cords so..... with practice it should all work out.
_________________________
Sue wasn't out of bed today. She is not too concerned about pain pills arthritis but the inclement weather sure aggravates it. She thinks that she will be able to dress for the 3rd formal night tomorrow.
We got fruit delivered to us again this afternoon. They call first on the phones to make sure you are there to receive it.
_______________________
The probowl ws shown on the big screen outside. It was really too cold for comfortable viewing. It was pretty dramatic to see the players on the screen 4-5 times bigger than they actually are.
Only about 35 passengers watched from the outside. It was also shown below in the pub which I am sure had many more. There was a fairly decent group watching in the Princess Theater.
____________________________________________________________________
Dinner: Chef's Honor:
Pat's
Appetizer: goat cheese souffle and shrimp coctail
gnocchi, (potato pasta with red sauce)
Entree: 3 meats... chicken kabobs, veal in a roll, and a lamp chop with mashed potatoes
Desert: 3 Chocolates, a small triangle of cake, a scoop of chocolate pudding, and a tiny chocolate brownie
A scoop of amaretto ice cream
Sue: Hamburger with fries
_________________________
We watched "We bought a Zoo" on the in room TV
Moongold Kingdom was playing on the outdoor theater
I watched an illusionist perform in the small stage above the dinning room
Partly Cloudy, Rain Showers High 70 Low 63
Sunrise 6:45 Sunset 5:26
________________________________________________
ProBowl game at 3 pm on the Movies at Sea Screen above the Pool
It was pretty cold and windy outside today. The ship had just a little roll. Overall the ship movement is very tolerable. Its just enough to rock you to sleep at night, sue comments.
The naturalist covered a great deal on oceanography today. Tsunamis and Hurricane Mapping the ocean floors, and tides.
I learned why the tides are so large in Alaska. Apparently there are more SAT points where very little tide changes (in Hawaii) and those areas with far away from the SAT points like the Bay of Fundy (41 feet) of difference and Alaska (28 feet of difference). Hawaii has as little as 2 feet difference because they are new the SAT points. SAT points are the places on the earth where the waves begin.
He also talked about the company that he owned and sold that mapped ports and designed "wave breaks" for the marinas. They did the work involving diving to meet the Edison Power Company in Southern California. His company was often called to scuba through the inlets of the power plants to check for damages ... which required them to swim for 1/4 mile . There were often fish that got in. They would scoop them out and return the unharmed back to the ocean. One time they call was different. A small sea lion had made its way up the inlet. He was having a great time as the fish were stuck in the tank. He called the UCLA ocean team and they pulled the sea lion out. They transferred him to Doheney beach down by San Clemente Beach, about 35 miles a way. The release worked except that in 2 weeks he was back to the power tank with 3 girl friends.
_______________________________
The lunch set up that was on deck was a stir fry Mongolian thing. People could pick their ingredients and it was cooked with Asian oils in a couple of woks one veggie only and the other with meat. Also away from the station was a place to get Thai green soup, seafood stew, sushis, beef and greens and four pre made stir fries. They replaced at different times, different dishes in replenishing the tables set out by the covered pool area. The RCMP wife felt that she was cheated and pleaded for a cut backwards in the line to pick up the duck instead of the chicken... I let her cut. I said they had heard there were Albertans in line, so they changed it right after in her honor. We had a laugh and she cut back in front of me.
_________________________
They introduced a new song at ukulele lessons today and a new chord. I think that most of the people in the class now have learned another lesson with cords so..... with practice it should all work out.
_________________________
Sue wasn't out of bed today. She is not too concerned about pain pills arthritis but the inclement weather sure aggravates it. She thinks that she will be able to dress for the 3rd formal night tomorrow.
We got fruit delivered to us again this afternoon. They call first on the phones to make sure you are there to receive it.
_______________________
The probowl ws shown on the big screen outside. It was really too cold for comfortable viewing. It was pretty dramatic to see the players on the screen 4-5 times bigger than they actually are.
Only about 35 passengers watched from the outside. It was also shown below in the pub which I am sure had many more. There was a fairly decent group watching in the Princess Theater.
____________________________________________________________________
Dinner: Chef's Honor:
Pat's
Appetizer: goat cheese souffle and shrimp coctail
gnocchi, (potato pasta with red sauce)
Entree: 3 meats... chicken kabobs, veal in a roll, and a lamp chop with mashed potatoes
Desert: 3 Chocolates, a small triangle of cake, a scoop of chocolate pudding, and a tiny chocolate brownie
A scoop of amaretto ice cream
Sue: Hamburger with fries
_________________________
We watched "We bought a Zoo" on the in room TV
Moongold Kingdom was playing on the outdoor theater
I watched an illusionist perform in the small stage above the dinning room
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Day 11 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 11, January 26,2013 Saturday
Partly Cloudy, Rain Showers
High 72 low 64
Sunrise 7:23 Sunset 6:01
At Sea Headed North East
_________________________________________
Breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet smoked mahi mahi instead of the salmon for the lox.
Sue got up and traded a couple of clothing items that she had bough previously for ship credit.
_________________________
Cassie and Newsome
I went to the uke lessons. The two younger girls were late (see below)... but it was good that they kept coming. We learned the notes on the frets. We also worked to hit each string individually in arpeggios of scales to go with the chords that we were pressing ion the neck. My barre chords are getting better. One guy behind me said the sound from ukelele sounded so much better than his. I told him that I had pulled several ukuleles down from the wall when I was choosing mine. The one I bought had the best tone of the ones I was shopping. Mine had better tone than many that cost more. I checked the price of mine in Lahaina ukulele shop in Lahaina and they wanted twice the price for the same one with the "islander" brand on it. Later I think that there was a cost difference because mine is laminated wood and the one I was looking at in Lahaina was solid... both made in Indonesia with supervision from a very respected Hawaiian ukelele company. It was nice to hear that from my fellow student. One of the ones in Lahaina was a dread naught with a front cutaway so that the very highest notes could be played with ease.
The girls borrowed my snark (tuner) to tune their ukes after the lesson. Its hard to practice with a ukelele out of tune.
They said their names were Newsome and Cassey. Newsome was a psychotherapist and Cassie was working as a rec specialist with the same degree as Lindsay's.... planner. They were both from LA. I told them about my daughters. They wanted to know why they were not with us. Newsome was 29 and Cassie is 5 years older. They said that they had not planned on taking lessons on the ship but they were happy to "fall into them" Cassie has natural blond hair and had it up in a French braid. Newsome is a dark brunett with black rimmed glasses. They were also doing the hula lessons.
_________________
Sue bailed for lunch but had been up the whole morning working on the heirloom lei.
She settled for the 5 cheese pizza and headed back to the room for some rest.
I walked into the dinning room restaurant and had lunch in a "made up table" with a couple from Las Vegas.
________________________________
Steve and Connie from Las Vegas
Steve stumbled into the restaurant with a major hurt foot. He had worn a pair of shoes that was not broken in on a hike prior to getting on the ship. Steve was a 42 year old that was a major baseball fan with red hair. Connie, Steve's wife is a 4 foot eight inch asian wife who was having difficulty with her stomach. Steve had been leaning on her when ever they traveled so that he would not need a crutch. She had no problem with that as long as he didn't grab her by the neck to support him.
They were the only couple I met that said that they really would have preferred flying to Hawaii and spending more time on the islands.
Steve presented himself as a 240 pound red haired meatball. He thought that the SF Giants were the best. He was looking forward to seeing a couple of games in Spring Training when he meets up with his friend from Indy who is a Cubs fan. So we talked pitchers and those dreaded Dodgers. he mostly sees Dodger games on TV although he would rather see Giants games. He said that he was not much of a football fan... although he is cheering for Colin Kaeperneck. He has followed his career since he college career in Nevada.
______________________
I have been working on some watercolor illustrations of ukelele and lei maker couple on a card. I was hoping to give it to them as a thank you. Its really pretty far from representation. Sue says that the most distinguishing feature of Ural (the female of the group) is her artificial eyelashes.. they are gigantic.
__________________________
I left my 4 boys in Alberta
A very attractive 43 year old burnett with a gold stud in her nose aske if she could sit down in front of me and drink her coffee and eat her pastry. I said sure.
She told me that it wasn't easy to get a spare seat at the Piazza and that some guys had turned her down. She just shook her head in disbelief. She continued,"Maybe they were afraid of what their wives would say."
She said that her husband and her were from Alberta, Canada. She had left 4 boys with her sister who assured her that she would not do that again. She had been to Alaska with her elderly father when she had lost her sister and her mother 3 months prior. When they finished the land route.. which took them through Canada and back down from Alaska on Holland America, her dad turned to her and asked, When do we do it again?
Her husband who works for the Royal Canadian Police, told her she wasn't going on another until he had gone on one. They figured out a trip to Hawaii but it didn't work out for his cobbled vacation time, but the princess one worked out... so here they are. They have anytime dining but have started to "collect" people from traditional dining spots to join their table. They were collecting people that were closer to their age groups and and little more lively than most of the older set that was on the ship. I told her our number and she said that many people from around us were at their anytime dinning. In our dinning room, room and entire table has disappeared from getting service at their appointed time. Some people did the buffet each night. Some people are not ready to sit through the courses and the social exchanges that are included in the assigned table.
The RCMP dispatcher showed up and I was happy to relinquish my seat to him at the piazza. He had been checking the kids via email and had been making arrangements for pick up in Alberta . They were amazed at the number of people that were from their province on the ship. I told them that I suspected there would be many as they were well represented in the roll calls in the social media forums for this ship. Both Princess through Facebook and Cruise Critic maintain these social blogs and people are happy to meet up with others before getting on the ship. She wasn't too familiar with these venues. She wanted to know what they were saying on them. I said that they were grouping up to save transportation costs on the LA side to get to the port from LAX. She said that they used the Princess connection. I said that I used it to find out information regarding renting a car since most of the information on the corporate websites were for renting a car for 24 hours or more. I didn't know whether they would send a shuttle for ship people or if a taxi call as needed. The roll calls netted someone that had been on this trip before and had all of the answers.
Dinner: Italian
Pat's
Appetizer: Eggplant Parm
Penne Pasta
Entree: Roast Beef with a carrot cooked through the center
Desert: Tirmasau
Sue:
Appetizer: Shrimp coctail
Fettuccine Alfredo
Desert: Limoncello sorbet
______________________________________
Sue made it all the way through dinner . We watched "Safe House" a movine on the in room TV before going to bed.
Partly Cloudy, Rain Showers
High 72 low 64
Sunrise 7:23 Sunset 6:01
At Sea Headed North East
_________________________________________
Breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet smoked mahi mahi instead of the salmon for the lox.
Sue got up and traded a couple of clothing items that she had bough previously for ship credit.
_________________________
Cassie and Newsome
I went to the uke lessons. The two younger girls were late (see below)... but it was good that they kept coming. We learned the notes on the frets. We also worked to hit each string individually in arpeggios of scales to go with the chords that we were pressing ion the neck. My barre chords are getting better. One guy behind me said the sound from ukelele sounded so much better than his. I told him that I had pulled several ukuleles down from the wall when I was choosing mine. The one I bought had the best tone of the ones I was shopping. Mine had better tone than many that cost more. I checked the price of mine in Lahaina ukulele shop in Lahaina and they wanted twice the price for the same one with the "islander" brand on it. Later I think that there was a cost difference because mine is laminated wood and the one I was looking at in Lahaina was solid... both made in Indonesia with supervision from a very respected Hawaiian ukelele company. It was nice to hear that from my fellow student. One of the ones in Lahaina was a dread naught with a front cutaway so that the very highest notes could be played with ease.
The girls borrowed my snark (tuner) to tune their ukes after the lesson. Its hard to practice with a ukelele out of tune.
They said their names were Newsome and Cassey. Newsome was a psychotherapist and Cassie was working as a rec specialist with the same degree as Lindsay's.... planner. They were both from LA. I told them about my daughters. They wanted to know why they were not with us. Newsome was 29 and Cassie is 5 years older. They said that they had not planned on taking lessons on the ship but they were happy to "fall into them" Cassie has natural blond hair and had it up in a French braid. Newsome is a dark brunett with black rimmed glasses. They were also doing the hula lessons.
_________________
Sue bailed for lunch but had been up the whole morning working on the heirloom lei.
She settled for the 5 cheese pizza and headed back to the room for some rest.
I walked into the dinning room restaurant and had lunch in a "made up table" with a couple from Las Vegas.
________________________________
Steve and Connie from Las Vegas
Steve stumbled into the restaurant with a major hurt foot. He had worn a pair of shoes that was not broken in on a hike prior to getting on the ship. Steve was a 42 year old that was a major baseball fan with red hair. Connie, Steve's wife is a 4 foot eight inch asian wife who was having difficulty with her stomach. Steve had been leaning on her when ever they traveled so that he would not need a crutch. She had no problem with that as long as he didn't grab her by the neck to support him.
They were the only couple I met that said that they really would have preferred flying to Hawaii and spending more time on the islands.
Steve presented himself as a 240 pound red haired meatball. He thought that the SF Giants were the best. He was looking forward to seeing a couple of games in Spring Training when he meets up with his friend from Indy who is a Cubs fan. So we talked pitchers and those dreaded Dodgers. he mostly sees Dodger games on TV although he would rather see Giants games. He said that he was not much of a football fan... although he is cheering for Colin Kaeperneck. He has followed his career since he college career in Nevada.
______________________
I have been working on some watercolor illustrations of ukelele and lei maker couple on a card. I was hoping to give it to them as a thank you. Its really pretty far from representation. Sue says that the most distinguishing feature of Ural (the female of the group) is her artificial eyelashes.. they are gigantic.
__________________________
I left my 4 boys in Alberta
A very attractive 43 year old burnett with a gold stud in her nose aske if she could sit down in front of me and drink her coffee and eat her pastry. I said sure.
She told me that it wasn't easy to get a spare seat at the Piazza and that some guys had turned her down. She just shook her head in disbelief. She continued,"Maybe they were afraid of what their wives would say."
She said that her husband and her were from Alberta, Canada. She had left 4 boys with her sister who assured her that she would not do that again. She had been to Alaska with her elderly father when she had lost her sister and her mother 3 months prior. When they finished the land route.. which took them through Canada and back down from Alaska on Holland America, her dad turned to her and asked, When do we do it again?
Her husband who works for the Royal Canadian Police, told her she wasn't going on another until he had gone on one. They figured out a trip to Hawaii but it didn't work out for his cobbled vacation time, but the princess one worked out... so here they are. They have anytime dining but have started to "collect" people from traditional dining spots to join their table. They were collecting people that were closer to their age groups and and little more lively than most of the older set that was on the ship. I told her our number and she said that many people from around us were at their anytime dinning. In our dinning room, room and entire table has disappeared from getting service at their appointed time. Some people did the buffet each night. Some people are not ready to sit through the courses and the social exchanges that are included in the assigned table.
The RCMP dispatcher showed up and I was happy to relinquish my seat to him at the piazza. He had been checking the kids via email and had been making arrangements for pick up in Alberta . They were amazed at the number of people that were from their province on the ship. I told them that I suspected there would be many as they were well represented in the roll calls in the social media forums for this ship. Both Princess through Facebook and Cruise Critic maintain these social blogs and people are happy to meet up with others before getting on the ship. She wasn't too familiar with these venues. She wanted to know what they were saying on them. I said that they were grouping up to save transportation costs on the LA side to get to the port from LAX. She said that they used the Princess connection. I said that I used it to find out information regarding renting a car since most of the information on the corporate websites were for renting a car for 24 hours or more. I didn't know whether they would send a shuttle for ship people or if a taxi call as needed. The roll calls netted someone that had been on this trip before and had all of the answers.
Dinner: Italian
Pat's
Appetizer: Eggplant Parm
Penne Pasta
Entree: Roast Beef with a carrot cooked through the center
Desert: Tirmasau
Sue:
Appetizer: Shrimp coctail
Fettuccine Alfredo
Desert: Limoncello sorbet
______________________________________
Sue made it all the way through dinner . We watched "Safe House" a movine on the in room TV before going to bed.
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Day 10 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 10 January 25,2013-- Formal Night Dress
Partly Cloudy/ Sunny High 75/Low 68
Sunrise 7:35 Sunset 6:38
At Sea
_______________________________________________________
All night we had more rocking than in travel through the islands. However, it was still not as bad as a couple of days getting to the islands.
I fell back into my usual ship routine:
Breakfast at about 7:30. (We gained an hour going East ... So we were working on ship's time. We eill do this one more time before we get to LA, since Mexico is not on Daylight Savings Time.
Today, people seem a little less frenetic. I met the naturalist in the morning in the elevator. He was headed off to give a lecture on endemic- vs indigenous plants and animals and their migration to Hawaii.
I went to the lecture. It was a good talk with lots of photos on the big stage of the Golden Princess.
_____________________
Ukulele Lessons
I went back to the room to get the ukulele. In class I met a man and his wife who lives in Tampa Bay. He bout a new ukulele on board and paid as much as I did for the one on shore. His had more veneer. He was having difficulty tuning his with the tuner that he bought. I couldn't get his tuner to work either. It had a little light that flashed when the proper note was reached. It went crazy with all of the ambient sound that was in the room as people fired up their ukuleles. Two 20+ year old girls had brought me their ukes too. The instructor had gone over tuning the ukes twice but new ukuleles were hard to maintain a tune since the new strings had not been stressed and then tuned again. They had not bought a tuner like the snark, so I was happy to show them how it worked and passed it to them to get their ukuleles in tune.
We started to work with some of the the songs that will be played for the performance on the night before the last day on the ship. They are pretty difficult and will need some practice. Pearly Shells, Little Grass Shack and Aloha Oui. It will be interesting to see how many of the 50 people taking lessons will show up to perform. There were some new facees in the group at this stage of the lessons. Some people had picked up ukuleles on shore and some wanted to start from the beginning. This could not happen... so the instructors had to give the disclaimer... you can stay and learn as much as you can but they really could not go back and pick up all the basics that were taught as we headed to the islands. They stayed and stumbled along.. no worries. The lessons were provided in the wheelhouse bar on the 6th deck... the promenade, which is L shaped and has large high back upholstered chairs. We kind of had to sit on the edge of the chairs to have room for our ukes and see the sheet music. This led to some players developing what the instructor called the "chicken wing". The instructors did not want people to throw their elbows in the air at an angle as they tried to play the new chords.
Today was the first day back at the lessons after 4 days of on Hawaii port landing. Its been fun to jump in and learn a new instrument while on board. There are lots of people taking lessons that are were interesting to talk to and together we worked out what we needed to learn to play.
The instructors liked the set up in this bar because it is close to the music synthesizer which can slow down a background rhythm. Everyone can work the chord changes. They are always good about counting down 54322 in rhythm when a chord needs to change. The instructors would teach from the center of the L shaped room and people from both sides of the L could see and hear.
________
Laundry
I thought that 2 hours would be plenty of time to do laundry- well--- on the ship not. I thought that I could do laundry before getting dressed for the second formal night. I found the laundry on the 10th deck. It was 3 floors down from our (14th really the 13th deck.. there is no 13th deck on the ship because of superstition). When I checked there was one washer open and one dryer. By the time I had the washer load done, there were no dryers. Some guy came in and was drying in three of them. Then he reupped the money in them and used the fourth. I waited until it was ready and finally a lady from Ohio was finished. they live 10 minutes from where Bob grew up in Columbus. As always in laundromat situations, there is an unequal time that it takes to dry clothes vs wash them. There are 8 different laundromats scattered throughout this ship. This one looked like the closest one with availability. It is really worth the time to take fewer clothes and spend more time getting them washed and reintegrating.
The flat screen TV was playing Sleepless in Seattle was almost finished before I could pull the clothes out and hand the pjs and the cottons around the room to finish drying. $2.00 to wash in quarters and $2.00 to dry. Both were sturdy Maytag units..
Dinner:
Overall I just was too full to eat dinner tonight... so it all worked out with the timing.
Partly Cloudy/ Sunny High 75/Low 68
Sunrise 7:35 Sunset 6:38
At Sea
_______________________________________________________
All night we had more rocking than in travel through the islands. However, it was still not as bad as a couple of days getting to the islands.
I fell back into my usual ship routine:
Breakfast at about 7:30. (We gained an hour going East ... So we were working on ship's time. We eill do this one more time before we get to LA, since Mexico is not on Daylight Savings Time.
Today, people seem a little less frenetic. I met the naturalist in the morning in the elevator. He was headed off to give a lecture on endemic- vs indigenous plants and animals and their migration to Hawaii.
I went to the lecture. It was a good talk with lots of photos on the big stage of the Golden Princess.
_____________________
Ukulele Lessons
I went back to the room to get the ukulele. In class I met a man and his wife who lives in Tampa Bay. He bout a new ukulele on board and paid as much as I did for the one on shore. His had more veneer. He was having difficulty tuning his with the tuner that he bought. I couldn't get his tuner to work either. It had a little light that flashed when the proper note was reached. It went crazy with all of the ambient sound that was in the room as people fired up their ukuleles. Two 20+ year old girls had brought me their ukes too. The instructor had gone over tuning the ukes twice but new ukuleles were hard to maintain a tune since the new strings had not been stressed and then tuned again. They had not bought a tuner like the snark, so I was happy to show them how it worked and passed it to them to get their ukuleles in tune.
We started to work with some of the the songs that will be played for the performance on the night before the last day on the ship. They are pretty difficult and will need some practice. Pearly Shells, Little Grass Shack and Aloha Oui. It will be interesting to see how many of the 50 people taking lessons will show up to perform. There were some new facees in the group at this stage of the lessons. Some people had picked up ukuleles on shore and some wanted to start from the beginning. This could not happen... so the instructors had to give the disclaimer... you can stay and learn as much as you can but they really could not go back and pick up all the basics that were taught as we headed to the islands. They stayed and stumbled along.. no worries. The lessons were provided in the wheelhouse bar on the 6th deck... the promenade, which is L shaped and has large high back upholstered chairs. We kind of had to sit on the edge of the chairs to have room for our ukes and see the sheet music. This led to some players developing what the instructor called the "chicken wing". The instructors did not want people to throw their elbows in the air at an angle as they tried to play the new chords.
Today was the first day back at the lessons after 4 days of on Hawaii port landing. Its been fun to jump in and learn a new instrument while on board. There are lots of people taking lessons that are were interesting to talk to and together we worked out what we needed to learn to play.
The instructors liked the set up in this bar because it is close to the music synthesizer which can slow down a background rhythm. Everyone can work the chord changes. They are always good about counting down 54322 in rhythm when a chord needs to change. The instructors would teach from the center of the L shaped room and people from both sides of the L could see and hear.
________
Laundry
I thought that 2 hours would be plenty of time to do laundry- well--- on the ship not. I thought that I could do laundry before getting dressed for the second formal night. I found the laundry on the 10th deck. It was 3 floors down from our (14th really the 13th deck.. there is no 13th deck on the ship because of superstition). When I checked there was one washer open and one dryer. By the time I had the washer load done, there were no dryers. Some guy came in and was drying in three of them. Then he reupped the money in them and used the fourth. I waited until it was ready and finally a lady from Ohio was finished. they live 10 minutes from where Bob grew up in Columbus. As always in laundromat situations, there is an unequal time that it takes to dry clothes vs wash them. There are 8 different laundromats scattered throughout this ship. This one looked like the closest one with availability. It is really worth the time to take fewer clothes and spend more time getting them washed and reintegrating.
The flat screen TV was playing Sleepless in Seattle was almost finished before I could pull the clothes out and hand the pjs and the cottons around the room to finish drying. $2.00 to wash in quarters and $2.00 to dry. Both were sturdy Maytag units..
Dinner:
Overall I just was too full to eat dinner tonight... so it all worked out with the timing.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Day 9, LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 9 Thursday January 24, 2012 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Lahaiana, Maui, Hawaii
Sunny High 79 Low 66
Sunrise 7:05 Sunset 6:12
_________________________________
We had excursion tickets for this day to be on the first whale watching excursion trip of the morning.
Sue was up and ready to go. We met in the theater except those that had movement challenges. We were allowed to stay in the adjacent casino to wait rather than wrestle with the limited seating for mobility challenged people in the theater. There is only one half of row in the back of the theater that is devoted to such passengers. It really was more pleasent to wait for the call in the casino on the promenade deck on seven. The casino was not in service because we were in US waters . It completely shuts down until the ship is in international waters and then springs to life.
The ship personnel got us into groups to use the elevator down to the 4th deck where a 150 pasenger boat pulled up beside the ship. Sue and I chose the lower deck even though it had a sort of diesel vapor running around. We had a perfect seat as teh table and chairs configuration of the boat provided great views along its sides right near the waterline. There was an open door on each side that opened to allow passengers to access the rail that ran around the bottom deck. The walkway all around the deck was available for people to stand out there and shoot their photos.
The boat pulled away from the ship and we saw two male whales within 5 minutes who were in competition mode to win the approval of the female whale. The female whale was teaching her new baby. There were all kinds of activity on the surface. I was pretty happy to have the big 300 mm lense on the nikon to see the action and hopefully we will get some good photos. Those running the ship and the commentary over the loud speaker were very well versed in providing us commentary and at the same time opportunity to get as close as we could to the humpback whales as they surfaced.
After two hours of chasing the whales, the boat dropped us on the shore in the same place the tender boats from the ship were dropping off the passengers.
Maui is a tender boat port for the cruise ships. These little orange and white tender boats were continually going back and forth from the ship carrying the ship's passengers and some of its crew to shore.
Sue and I got on the Hilo Hatties shuttle bus once again and it took us to their store on Maui. It was about a 10 block shuttle ride. We decided to walk back from the store to the park with the huge Banyan tree and the dock where we could get a tender ride back to the ship. When we decided to walk back, I pushed Sue in the manual wheelchair along the narrow sidewalk that runs along the front of the Lahaina Bay. We came across Elizabeth and Frank, our dinner table partners on the streets of Lahaina. They asked us directions to Hilo Hatties.. We pointed over our shoulders and they were off.
Elizabeth and Frank had taken the excursion that included a trip to the aquarium on Maui. They had been before and together they encouraged us all to go. They said that it was as wonderful as the last time they had been to the aquarium.
Elizabeth and Frank live near Palm Springs. Our other shipmate couple, Deb and Dave live near Yorkshire/Leeds. Its about a 2 hour drive from where they live to London.
When we got near the courtyard center, we shared a hamburger with Swiss cheese and mushrooms at the restaurant named Cheeseburger in Paradise. Its a gracious place with a menu that is not too expensive. It provided a spectacular view of the harbor and the surfers in the distance that were surfing the reef. The one giant burger was just right for both of us.
Our next stop was the famed shaved ice place that was proudly displaying its honors on Yelp and Trip Advisor as the best place for shaved ice in Hawaii. I think its name is Uluani's. We each had a small. Mine had macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom wand then mainly condensed milk and coconut flavoring for the top. Sue got the 1/2 mango and 1/2 coconut one. The flowers and textures were divine the day temps were in the high 70's and low 80's. A breeze coming down from the mountains made it pretty comfortable.
We found restrooms in the Island Whaler Center. Its an outside mall with many restaurants and jewelry shops adjacent to the Banyan Tree Central Park. The restrooms were on the third floor and we had to go all the way in the back to get to the service elevator that took us up to the third floor. When we were done we headed over to the courthouse park. I got some more photos of the huge banyan tree and the people that were resting under it on the benches... many with the ubiquitous blue bags.
No rainbows were spotted on this cruise, unlike the last cruise to the islands where we had at least one rainbow at each of the ports. A beautiful reflection off the clouds on the mountains as we left was pretty special. The town high up on the mountains provided a pleasant scene for our sailaway from the islands.
_______________________________
Dinner:
Pat:
Appetizer: etouphic crawdads and thinly sliced raw salmon (like lox)
Coconut soup
Entree: Turkey Pot Pie
Desert: Frozen cake (layers of Praline brittle, Chocolate Cake with chocolate ice cream spread between the layers
Sue: 2 slices of cheese pizza and one slice of veggie combo pizza with artichoke hearts on it
__________________________________
We watched the Girl with the Pearl earring movie . It starred Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. Thie story is of girl who signs on to be a domestic helper for the family and ends up becoming an artist's assistant, perparing the paint and then she become the model for the famous painting.
____________________________________
Service at the table has been great. Stephan, our head waiter is from Grenada. Before every dinner meal he explains to the table all of the menu items on the menu. He has sampled them and gives us an opinion concerning whether or not they line up or live up to their titles. The night that the Stiffeild
mousse was served, The Brit, (Deb) asked if she could have some of the real thing beside the made up mousse. She and her husband Dave live within three miles of where the Stillton cheese is made. Our head waiter made it happen, not just for her but for the rest of the guests around the table. Elizabeth said that she missed mashed potatoes with the courses. Stephan said that they are always available... to we had mashed potatoes at every meal there after... amazing.
Our cabin steward, Abdul, was very non intrusive. This style really pleased Sue. When she wants to sleep she dosn't want to be awaken to have her room redone. So it really worked out.
Lahaiana, Maui, Hawaii
Sunny High 79 Low 66
Sunrise 7:05 Sunset 6:12
_________________________________
We had excursion tickets for this day to be on the first whale watching excursion trip of the morning.
Sue was up and ready to go. We met in the theater except those that had movement challenges. We were allowed to stay in the adjacent casino to wait rather than wrestle with the limited seating for mobility challenged people in the theater. There is only one half of row in the back of the theater that is devoted to such passengers. It really was more pleasent to wait for the call in the casino on the promenade deck on seven. The casino was not in service because we were in US waters . It completely shuts down until the ship is in international waters and then springs to life.
The ship personnel got us into groups to use the elevator down to the 4th deck where a 150 pasenger boat pulled up beside the ship. Sue and I chose the lower deck even though it had a sort of diesel vapor running around. We had a perfect seat as teh table and chairs configuration of the boat provided great views along its sides right near the waterline. There was an open door on each side that opened to allow passengers to access the rail that ran around the bottom deck. The walkway all around the deck was available for people to stand out there and shoot their photos.
The boat pulled away from the ship and we saw two male whales within 5 minutes who were in competition mode to win the approval of the female whale. The female whale was teaching her new baby. There were all kinds of activity on the surface. I was pretty happy to have the big 300 mm lense on the nikon to see the action and hopefully we will get some good photos. Those running the ship and the commentary over the loud speaker were very well versed in providing us commentary and at the same time opportunity to get as close as we could to the humpback whales as they surfaced.
After two hours of chasing the whales, the boat dropped us on the shore in the same place the tender boats from the ship were dropping off the passengers.
Maui is a tender boat port for the cruise ships. These little orange and white tender boats were continually going back and forth from the ship carrying the ship's passengers and some of its crew to shore.
Sue and I got on the Hilo Hatties shuttle bus once again and it took us to their store on Maui. It was about a 10 block shuttle ride. We decided to walk back from the store to the park with the huge Banyan tree and the dock where we could get a tender ride back to the ship. When we decided to walk back, I pushed Sue in the manual wheelchair along the narrow sidewalk that runs along the front of the Lahaina Bay. We came across Elizabeth and Frank, our dinner table partners on the streets of Lahaina. They asked us directions to Hilo Hatties.. We pointed over our shoulders and they were off.
Elizabeth and Frank had taken the excursion that included a trip to the aquarium on Maui. They had been before and together they encouraged us all to go. They said that it was as wonderful as the last time they had been to the aquarium.
Elizabeth and Frank live near Palm Springs. Our other shipmate couple, Deb and Dave live near Yorkshire/Leeds. Its about a 2 hour drive from where they live to London.
When we got near the courtyard center, we shared a hamburger with Swiss cheese and mushrooms at the restaurant named Cheeseburger in Paradise. Its a gracious place with a menu that is not too expensive. It provided a spectacular view of the harbor and the surfers in the distance that were surfing the reef. The one giant burger was just right for both of us.
Our next stop was the famed shaved ice place that was proudly displaying its honors on Yelp and Trip Advisor as the best place for shaved ice in Hawaii. I think its name is Uluani's. We each had a small. Mine had macadamia nut ice cream on the bottom wand then mainly condensed milk and coconut flavoring for the top. Sue got the 1/2 mango and 1/2 coconut one. The flowers and textures were divine the day temps were in the high 70's and low 80's. A breeze coming down from the mountains made it pretty comfortable.
We found restrooms in the Island Whaler Center. Its an outside mall with many restaurants and jewelry shops adjacent to the Banyan Tree Central Park. The restrooms were on the third floor and we had to go all the way in the back to get to the service elevator that took us up to the third floor. When we were done we headed over to the courthouse park. I got some more photos of the huge banyan tree and the people that were resting under it on the benches... many with the ubiquitous blue bags.
No rainbows were spotted on this cruise, unlike the last cruise to the islands where we had at least one rainbow at each of the ports. A beautiful reflection off the clouds on the mountains as we left was pretty special. The town high up on the mountains provided a pleasant scene for our sailaway from the islands.
_______________________________
Dinner:
Pat:
Appetizer: etouphic crawdads and thinly sliced raw salmon (like lox)
Coconut soup
Entree: Turkey Pot Pie
Desert: Frozen cake (layers of Praline brittle, Chocolate Cake with chocolate ice cream spread between the layers
Sue: 2 slices of cheese pizza and one slice of veggie combo pizza with artichoke hearts on it
__________________________________
We watched the Girl with the Pearl earring movie . It starred Colin Firth and Scarlett Johansson. Thie story is of girl who signs on to be a domestic helper for the family and ends up becoming an artist's assistant, perparing the paint and then she become the model for the famous painting.
____________________________________
Service at the table has been great. Stephan, our head waiter is from Grenada. Before every dinner meal he explains to the table all of the menu items on the menu. He has sampled them and gives us an opinion concerning whether or not they line up or live up to their titles. The night that the Stiffeild
mousse was served, The Brit, (Deb) asked if she could have some of the real thing beside the made up mousse. She and her husband Dave live within three miles of where the Stillton cheese is made. Our head waiter made it happen, not just for her but for the rest of the guests around the table. Elizabeth said that she missed mashed potatoes with the courses. Stephan said that they are always available... to we had mashed potatoes at every meal there after... amazing.
Our cabin steward, Abdul, was very non intrusive. This style really pleased Sue. When she wants to sleep she dosn't want to be awaken to have her room redone. So it really worked out.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Day 8 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 8 Wednesday January 23, 2013
Partly Cloudy, Sunny
High 77 low 70
Sunrise 7:17 Sunset 6:21
Nawilliwilli, Kaui, Hawaii
_______________________________________________
We had reservations to rent a car. Sue's back was pretty wipped out. She encouraged me to go ahead without her.
The Thrifty shuttle to the airport rental office was pretty painless. I had reserved on-line the same SUV category. Again we scored another Chey Traverse. It was completely tricked out and a pleasure to drive.
I asked the county lady how long the drive is to Wiamea Canyon. She said that it was 2 hours. She was right. The drive one way is about 40 miles. The first part, getting out of lihue, the major city on Kaui was pretty easy and fast. After that the roads are not divided and only 2 lanes. The speed limit is 35 miles an hour for most of the trip. There was plenty of traffic and the speed limit is appropriate.
As the road enters the little towns along the way, the speed drops down to 25. At many intersections the speeds drops down to that too. There are many well groomed houses with big lawns on this side of the island. People have little fruit boxes where they give away the extra fruit they have on their property. Papayas, oranges, and other tropical fruits. The foliage was very green on this side of the island. It changed and became much drier as the road got closer to Wiamea.
Wiamea on Kaui is a thriving little sea coast town. It was the entry spot because of its great natural harbor for Captain Cook. It was a lot of sea port (small boat) attributes.
From the middle of the town of Wiamea is a nondescript sign in a rural residential section that points to the Wiamea canyon road. Its 13 miles of 2 lane was not dissimilar to the road to Lick observatory out of San Jose, California. On several turns you could see yourself coming from where you had been. The elevation gain to the first overlook was 3500 feet. A careful eye had to held for the tourists buses coming at you. It seemed like this is the one destination on everyone's plate. The lookouts dubbed this place the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. They were a part of the state park system and had restrooms and plenty of room to see over the edge. I had to drive around the parking lot twice at one of the spots to find a place to park.
The feral chickens were out in force. They looked a lot like domestic chickens. They scoured the parking lot . One parking lot had a mother hen and four little baby chicks gathering all the cell phone attention that they could muster out of the cell phone photographers.
The view was really worth the drive especially if you are not prone to car motion sickness.
I stopped on the way back in the little town of Eleele. It had a McDonalds and a pork rib sandwich waiting for me. The rain started to come down about half way back to Lihue. The return canopy was welcome and made returning the car painless. I filled it up in Lihue where gas was $4.45 a gallon. I had comsumed $22.00 worth of gas at the 76 station. The shuttle took me back to the ship was provided by Thrifty rent a car. I waited about 5 minutes to catch it.
The navigational system in these rental cars is a must if you do not the roads and where you need to go. The signs and the location of the airport in Lihue is pretty obscure and without confirmation with the navigational system I would not be sure that I was on the right road for the return. The Lihue airport is situated on a long plateau. The turn offs before getting on this plateau could provide some confusion as they look very similar. The navigation was also great for the blow by blow commentary as I traveled across this rather small island. It pointed out history and interesting places to stop and look around. I was pretty sure that that navigation add on was leading me astray but it wasn't. It would be really nice to have a human beside you to help read what the navigation system was broadcasting so that you would not have to take you eyes off the road to anticipate its messages.
______________________________
Dinner:
Pat
Appetizer: ceviche scallops and fanned avacado slices
Soup: lamb and vegetable
Entree: Prime Rib
Desert: Grand Marnier Souffle (another person at our table ordered the black forest cake with cherries
Sue:
Rolls with cheese, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberries, eclair, and a slice of papaya
____________________________
Our dinner table friends from England had never heard of shaved ice. We were looking forward to our day on Maui. Debra ordered a cup of Irish coffee as an after dinner drink. She was sort of shocked in disbelief when the waiter brought her the drink. It is essentially coffee with a shot of whiskey in it. It has an inch or two of whipped cream on top of this not coffee drink. This drink came in a parfait like clear mug with a side cup of whipped cream. on the whipped cream was a maraschino cheery. In our discussion we realized that there were more classes of cream in the UK than in our culture. This would not fly if you ordered it in the UK. But what could you do... this probably was okay for most Americans.
Partly Cloudy, Sunny
High 77 low 70
Sunrise 7:17 Sunset 6:21
Nawilliwilli, Kaui, Hawaii
_______________________________________________
We had reservations to rent a car. Sue's back was pretty wipped out. She encouraged me to go ahead without her.
The Thrifty shuttle to the airport rental office was pretty painless. I had reserved on-line the same SUV category. Again we scored another Chey Traverse. It was completely tricked out and a pleasure to drive.
I asked the county lady how long the drive is to Wiamea Canyon. She said that it was 2 hours. She was right. The drive one way is about 40 miles. The first part, getting out of lihue, the major city on Kaui was pretty easy and fast. After that the roads are not divided and only 2 lanes. The speed limit is 35 miles an hour for most of the trip. There was plenty of traffic and the speed limit is appropriate.
As the road enters the little towns along the way, the speed drops down to 25. At many intersections the speeds drops down to that too. There are many well groomed houses with big lawns on this side of the island. People have little fruit boxes where they give away the extra fruit they have on their property. Papayas, oranges, and other tropical fruits. The foliage was very green on this side of the island. It changed and became much drier as the road got closer to Wiamea.
Wiamea on Kaui is a thriving little sea coast town. It was the entry spot because of its great natural harbor for Captain Cook. It was a lot of sea port (small boat) attributes.
From the middle of the town of Wiamea is a nondescript sign in a rural residential section that points to the Wiamea canyon road. Its 13 miles of 2 lane was not dissimilar to the road to Lick observatory out of San Jose, California. On several turns you could see yourself coming from where you had been. The elevation gain to the first overlook was 3500 feet. A careful eye had to held for the tourists buses coming at you. It seemed like this is the one destination on everyone's plate. The lookouts dubbed this place the Grand Canyon of the Pacific. They were a part of the state park system and had restrooms and plenty of room to see over the edge. I had to drive around the parking lot twice at one of the spots to find a place to park.
The feral chickens were out in force. They looked a lot like domestic chickens. They scoured the parking lot . One parking lot had a mother hen and four little baby chicks gathering all the cell phone attention that they could muster out of the cell phone photographers.
The view was really worth the drive especially if you are not prone to car motion sickness.
I stopped on the way back in the little town of Eleele. It had a McDonalds and a pork rib sandwich waiting for me. The rain started to come down about half way back to Lihue. The return canopy was welcome and made returning the car painless. I filled it up in Lihue where gas was $4.45 a gallon. I had comsumed $22.00 worth of gas at the 76 station. The shuttle took me back to the ship was provided by Thrifty rent a car. I waited about 5 minutes to catch it.
The navigational system in these rental cars is a must if you do not the roads and where you need to go. The signs and the location of the airport in Lihue is pretty obscure and without confirmation with the navigational system I would not be sure that I was on the right road for the return. The Lihue airport is situated on a long plateau. The turn offs before getting on this plateau could provide some confusion as they look very similar. The navigation was also great for the blow by blow commentary as I traveled across this rather small island. It pointed out history and interesting places to stop and look around. I was pretty sure that that navigation add on was leading me astray but it wasn't. It would be really nice to have a human beside you to help read what the navigation system was broadcasting so that you would not have to take you eyes off the road to anticipate its messages.
______________________________
Dinner:
Pat
Appetizer: ceviche scallops and fanned avacado slices
Soup: lamb and vegetable
Entree: Prime Rib
Desert: Grand Marnier Souffle (another person at our table ordered the black forest cake with cherries
Sue:
Rolls with cheese, fruit salad, chocolate covered strawberries, eclair, and a slice of papaya
____________________________
Our dinner table friends from England had never heard of shaved ice. We were looking forward to our day on Maui. Debra ordered a cup of Irish coffee as an after dinner drink. She was sort of shocked in disbelief when the waiter brought her the drink. It is essentially coffee with a shot of whiskey in it. It has an inch or two of whipped cream on top of this not coffee drink. This drink came in a parfait like clear mug with a side cup of whipped cream. on the whipped cream was a maraschino cheery. In our discussion we realized that there were more classes of cream in the UK than in our culture. This would not fly if you ordered it in the UK. But what could you do... this probably was okay for most Americans.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Day 7 LA to Hawaii Cruise
Day 7 Tuesday January 22,2013
Honolulu, Hawaii
High 77 low 69 F
Sunrise 7:11 Sunset 6:15
________________________________________
The morning started with a waram start. The sun was bright but he wind was there to cool you off.
About 10 o'clock we cleaned up the cabin and realized we needed a nap at nap around noon. We put it together and got the manual wheel chair ready to go. When we got down to the port terminal the Hilo Hatties van was ready to transport us to the store. We had a great shop including a new pearl pennet and earings that matched for Sue. I got two new Hilo Hatties shirts. The Honoulu Hilo Hattie's is know for its exclusive Elvis Presley collection. In the lobby going in, there is a gigantic red shirt of the same fabric design as the red Elvis Presley one. People stop and take photo of their loved ones in from of the world's largest Hawaiian shirt.
Talking with our return driver from Hilo Hattie's, she mentioned how cold it was the week before we arrived. It was so cold that no one wanted to get out of bed. They just tried to stay warm under their covers. Not now.. the temperature was hovering around 80 degrees. The curise before ours had a very rough trip probably due to the weather front that made the island so cold.
When we got out of the store and were waiting for the shuttle back to the ship, I looked at our four bags we brought in and thought for sure that we had left the backpack in the store. I backtracked through the store and their lost and found with no luck. Finally I went back out to where the bus would pick us up. Sue had "found" the backpack hung on the handles of the manual wheelchair. The driver had collapsed the wheelchair and so some very nice people got up out of the front seats of the bus so that sue would not have to walk the length of the bus to find a seat. In the mean time the people just kept loading on to the bus. It looked like there was over 100 people and their Hilo Hattie treasures that climbed on board.
Sue had had enough of the heat and the crowds. When we got back to the ship, I was dispatched to do room service at the Lido buffet.
Our current docking in Honolulu is 1/2 mile from where we docked the last year at the Aloha Tower shopping center. When we came in this morning a large fuel tanker pulled up beside is to download some more fuel. I think that was the reason for the change of location. It allowed us to be closer to Waikiki (still at least 3 miles away) and closer to the China town portion of Honolulu. The Chinatown section was basically just on the other side of the freeway.
I remembered that there was a music shop selling instruments at the end of the Aloha Tower Mall adjacent to the docking site last year.
I was on a quest to get a nicer ukulele. When I walked back to this shopping mall I expected to see that store. It was not there. I asked a stall owner about where it might have moved and all she said was the music store owner had died.
I decided to ask a taxi driver where I could get one. He was a young Asian driver wearing a suit and a spiky hair cut. He said sure.. he got on his cell phone and asked a couple of his friends and they came up with the location of a uke shop. The answer was a shop in the Marriott Hotel compound on Waikiki. It took $19.50 to get here because of the traffic... it was 4pm and like many big cities, the rush hour was on. When we got there he jumped out of the car and ran into the Marriott Hotel ground floor to look for the store. The Marriott had a small grouping of stores on its ground floor. One was even under construction as it look out on the main street.... one way of course. He ran back to tell me that it was there. So I tipped him and headed in.
His directions to me were, "Its right beside the ABC store."
When I got there, the store was closed. There was a sign on the door that said that it would reopen at 5:00pm. I walked out across the street and used my Starbucks card. At 5:05 I walked into the store and it was open... yeah! The name of the store is "Bob's Ukulele"
An older brown skinned man was manning the store. It is hard to know what the protocol is for shopping in a ukelele store could be. The lessons on the ship said that the only way to know what the instruments sound like is to play them. The store had about 10 to try in my range.. up to $225. There was one at 145 that had a very nice sound even to my inexperienced ear. I bought it and the store clerk pulled it out the cardboard box and tunned it and asked if I wanted a case for it for 25 dollars.. yes.
I left along the beach and looked for a bus going back. I realized that the busses were going the wrong way and the whole street was a one way street headed for Diamond Head.
I walked up toward the mountain and a couple of blocks North the street was one direction going the other way.
I was glad that I had bought the soft case for the uke. It made moving it around the streets of Honolulu so much easier.
I could not believe the number of stores along the streets of Waikiki. There were huge crowds of people too. Everyone seemed pretty mellow in their swim suits.
I found a group of people waiting to get on the bus too. About half of them had the classic free bag that Princess gives to each cabin. The looked like people from small towns in Iowa... and indeed they were. The big city was a bit puzzling for them. After a couple of buses passed in from of them that were totally loaded to the gills with commuters they looked a little desperate. One told them not to get on because it was too loaded.
An enterprising van driver with an independent excursion van to airport shuttle service type approached the group. He offered to take the whole group including me for 4 dollars a piece, right to the ship. That was too much for the Iowa Nebraska farmers of the group. Plus it was a little risky because he wasn't a regularly scheduled entity. The bus charged $2.50. Finally the van driver offered to do it for 3 dollars apiece. I gave the driver a $5 dollar bill when I got out and thought it was a good deal.
Another great day in paradise.
Honolulu, Hawaii
High 77 low 69 F
Sunrise 7:11 Sunset 6:15
________________________________________
The morning started with a waram start. The sun was bright but he wind was there to cool you off.
About 10 o'clock we cleaned up the cabin and realized we needed a nap at nap around noon. We put it together and got the manual wheel chair ready to go. When we got down to the port terminal the Hilo Hatties van was ready to transport us to the store. We had a great shop including a new pearl pennet and earings that matched for Sue. I got two new Hilo Hatties shirts. The Honoulu Hilo Hattie's is know for its exclusive Elvis Presley collection. In the lobby going in, there is a gigantic red shirt of the same fabric design as the red Elvis Presley one. People stop and take photo of their loved ones in from of the world's largest Hawaiian shirt.
Talking with our return driver from Hilo Hattie's, she mentioned how cold it was the week before we arrived. It was so cold that no one wanted to get out of bed. They just tried to stay warm under their covers. Not now.. the temperature was hovering around 80 degrees. The curise before ours had a very rough trip probably due to the weather front that made the island so cold.
When we got out of the store and were waiting for the shuttle back to the ship, I looked at our four bags we brought in and thought for sure that we had left the backpack in the store. I backtracked through the store and their lost and found with no luck. Finally I went back out to where the bus would pick us up. Sue had "found" the backpack hung on the handles of the manual wheelchair. The driver had collapsed the wheelchair and so some very nice people got up out of the front seats of the bus so that sue would not have to walk the length of the bus to find a seat. In the mean time the people just kept loading on to the bus. It looked like there was over 100 people and their Hilo Hattie treasures that climbed on board.
Sue had had enough of the heat and the crowds. When we got back to the ship, I was dispatched to do room service at the Lido buffet.
Our current docking in Honolulu is 1/2 mile from where we docked the last year at the Aloha Tower shopping center. When we came in this morning a large fuel tanker pulled up beside is to download some more fuel. I think that was the reason for the change of location. It allowed us to be closer to Waikiki (still at least 3 miles away) and closer to the China town portion of Honolulu. The Chinatown section was basically just on the other side of the freeway.
I remembered that there was a music shop selling instruments at the end of the Aloha Tower Mall adjacent to the docking site last year.
I was on a quest to get a nicer ukulele. When I walked back to this shopping mall I expected to see that store. It was not there. I asked a stall owner about where it might have moved and all she said was the music store owner had died.
I decided to ask a taxi driver where I could get one. He was a young Asian driver wearing a suit and a spiky hair cut. He said sure.. he got on his cell phone and asked a couple of his friends and they came up with the location of a uke shop. The answer was a shop in the Marriott Hotel compound on Waikiki. It took $19.50 to get here because of the traffic... it was 4pm and like many big cities, the rush hour was on. When we got there he jumped out of the car and ran into the Marriott Hotel ground floor to look for the store. The Marriott had a small grouping of stores on its ground floor. One was even under construction as it look out on the main street.... one way of course. He ran back to tell me that it was there. So I tipped him and headed in.
His directions to me were, "Its right beside the ABC store."
When I got there, the store was closed. There was a sign on the door that said that it would reopen at 5:00pm. I walked out across the street and used my Starbucks card. At 5:05 I walked into the store and it was open... yeah! The name of the store is "Bob's Ukulele"
An older brown skinned man was manning the store. It is hard to know what the protocol is for shopping in a ukelele store could be. The lessons on the ship said that the only way to know what the instruments sound like is to play them. The store had about 10 to try in my range.. up to $225. There was one at 145 that had a very nice sound even to my inexperienced ear. I bought it and the store clerk pulled it out the cardboard box and tunned it and asked if I wanted a case for it for 25 dollars.. yes.
I left along the beach and looked for a bus going back. I realized that the busses were going the wrong way and the whole street was a one way street headed for Diamond Head.
I walked up toward the mountain and a couple of blocks North the street was one direction going the other way.
I was glad that I had bought the soft case for the uke. It made moving it around the streets of Honolulu so much easier.
I could not believe the number of stores along the streets of Waikiki. There were huge crowds of people too. Everyone seemed pretty mellow in their swim suits.
I found a group of people waiting to get on the bus too. About half of them had the classic free bag that Princess gives to each cabin. The looked like people from small towns in Iowa... and indeed they were. The big city was a bit puzzling for them. After a couple of buses passed in from of them that were totally loaded to the gills with commuters they looked a little desperate. One told them not to get on because it was too loaded.
An enterprising van driver with an independent excursion van to airport shuttle service type approached the group. He offered to take the whole group including me for 4 dollars a piece, right to the ship. That was too much for the Iowa Nebraska farmers of the group. Plus it was a little risky because he wasn't a regularly scheduled entity. The bus charged $2.50. Finally the van driver offered to do it for 3 dollars apiece. I gave the driver a $5 dollar bill when I got out and thought it was a good deal.
Another great day in paradise.
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