The falls used in Fantasy Island
USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor...still leaking oil tears all these years later.
Surfing the reef at Bora Bora..yes, there is a man on this wave at the bottom. Zoom in.
Silversword plant, found only on Haleakala. And us with friends at the crater up top.
At Kona, on the glass bottom boat with the naturalist.
Coastline of Kauai
Tom at Tai Chi-he went every day!
King Kamehameha's last home at Kona.
Not the real Pacific Princess in our opinion, LOL.
Now that we are at the airport in between planes and with real wifi, here are some of the pictures described over the last four weeks:
We have spent the last eight days at sea; there have been no other ships seen and only very few birds as we were level with Hawaii and we saw a whale heading south today. That's it. Very isolated out here, and we are feeling very small. As much as we like lazing about the ship on sea days, we think that eight days is somewhere over our limit. It has not been awful by any means, and we certainly have been enjoying the sunny days on the balcony (although the last four were very overcast, so today was much appreciated), but it has become a routine...and we are ready to disembark. Of course, the 28 days might have something to do with that, too.
The ship is just short of 1,000 feet long, and 16 decks high. Decks 1-3 are off limits to passengers and deck 4 is only the medical center and gangways. Decks 8-14 are passenger cabins (for up to 3500 people) and there is no deck 13 by number. Deck 5, 6 and 7 are the main public areas indoors with restaurants, bars, service desks (excusions, internet, purser, etc.), shops and the casino and theaters. Decks 15-17 are more public areas, including a movie screen, pizzeria, buffet, more bars and more restaurants, sports courts, gym, spa, pools, loungers and wedding chapel. Despite all these places to go, and despite having had 28 days to do so, there are still places I did not venture on this ship. I did not go to the gym, the walking track or the outdoor sports spaces on deck 16 or 17, including shuffleboard and ping pong. Nor did I go to the Salty Dog, the Crab Shack, the Crown Grill or the Share restaurants. Other than walking past the door, I did not go to the medical center (whcih is also the morgue, and yes, it was used a couple of times on this trip). I did not go to the Lotus Spa, the steam or sauna, or in any of the pools or hot tubs (mostly because I was not interested in being exposed to whatever diaper contents had been in them-yuck). And despite my intentions to do so, we did not attend afternoon tea, play bingo or participate in any trivia. I also never quite found my way into any of the arts and crafts projects (leis from flowers, feathers or ribbons, necklaces from pearls and lava, boxes from paper, journals, etc.) or any of the ship building, horse racing or egg drop contests. With all that we didn't do, you might wonder what it is we did do???
What we did do was dine all but two nights with our table of friends in our assigned dining room and table, we ate lunch at various places, we attended the theater many nights, and the lounges and bar shows (singers, magicians, comedians and ventriloquists) on the nights we did not go to the theater. We went to the shops, but did not buy much...mostly a few souvenir tee shirts. We attended quite a few enrichment lectures, up to two or three a day in some cases...and they were all quite good....on everything from Lava and Volcanology, Hawaii Natural History, to Tahitian dancing to Navigation at Sea. Tom hit one or two Happy Hours every day, we watched a few Movies Under the Stars (blankets and popcorn and cookies and milk at night, too) and we read quite a few books on the balcony. And we visited with our friends. Talked a lot, ate too much and made plans for future trips together.
And now for a couple of pictures...
Our friend and travel buddy, Kathi, at Rainbow Falls near Hilo on a very rainy day.
Crossing the equator with Greg
New palms growing through the lava flow.
Dance group on Moorea
Our ship anchored in the bay at Moorea
Many more pictures to be added later.
