Time to wrap it up ... last days aboard the Golden Princess

11/04 Friday --- At Sea. Enjoyed a room-service breakfast ... and our balcony, watching flying fish skedaddle from the ship waves and still seeing rainbows! Lazy day; watched part of the movie “Hawaii” on TV. No walking today; wind is Force 7 (near gale) and ship is “on the move.” Water temp is down to 77° and rain showers dot the horizon. Simple lunch at poolside. Jimmy read inside on the Sky Deck and I finished my book outside in sun. No swimming today either. We napped. Got all tidied up again for another formal night. After dinner, we enjoyed the production show “Caliente” in the Princess Theater. Guess we’re playing catch-up from four days of constant activity and are winding down. We were in bed 10ish and slept soundly till 7 the next morning.

Desserts, that's what I'm talking about!!

11/05 Saturday --- At Sea. Coffee in the room is the way to go! We’re on the windward side now and it’s cooler. @ 10, I went to hear Rachel speak about whales and rays. Sky is P/C and the wind is up. Can’t walk all the way around the deck – too windy forward – so I walked ¾ of Sky Deck and then doubled back. (Jimmy didn’t want to walk today.) Played Yahtzee for a while in the sheltered part of Lido Deck till time for Jimmy to watch the LSU/Alabama game on the big screen. Arranged to meet w/ Diane and Tim for dinner at Bernini restaurant, and the Maitre d’hotel got us a great table for four – spent three hours eating and visiting! Very nice. Watched the Source Code on TV in the room. Water temp down to 74.3. Too windy on our balcony to sit out or leave the balcony door open at night, but we can still hear the waves. Again: Set clock forward one hour before sleeping! Last time change this trip!

11/06 Sunday --- At Sea, and the days are flying past! Losing another hour is tough. Breakfast in the room, followed by our usual windy walk around the Promenade (7) deck. Rachel had her last talk @ 10 am. Jimmy read. Lunch was fish and chips in the Crown Grill. Watching the wave action in the pools is entertaining – like seeing tsunami’s! No pool time anymore. More "killer" Yahtzee on the Lido deck. After dinner we went to the Princess Theater for comedian and impressionist Jason Neistadt, who was hilarious. Seas are “moderate” today and winds vary from “strong breeze” to “near gale” – and the port side where our cabin is, is really windy. Walking on decks today was, uh, interesting, as in everyone moved like drunken sailors! Makes for fun sleeping…!

11/07 Monday --- At Sea. Life is good: Woke up to see a rainbow outside the balcony! Another relaxing day at sea; breakfast in the room, followed by our usual windy walk on the Promenade deck. Caught the cooking show@ 10:30 and bought a book; naturalist Rachel had a trivia quiz and video @ 11:15. Amazing how many steps we take daily, how many up and down the stairs… from Deck 5 to Deck 15. Lunch today was Panini and chicken and Waldorf salad at International Café. Jimmy read after and I worked on the computer, followed by another Yahtzee get-together in a sheltered cove. Seas are down to “slight” again and winds “strong breeze,” but we’re still rockin’ and rollin’ on board! Got all gussied up for our last formal dinner. Tonite’s menu: All the lobster you can eat… best we could do was one each (sigh!). Delicious. Baked Alaska (on parade!) for dessert. We retired to watch “The Help” on our room TV. Nice day. We’re in jeans and jackets now. Water temp down to 69.3.

11/08 - Tuesday --- At Sea. Another relaxing and oh-so-nice day. Sunny. Saw our first ship on the horizon off to the north, and sea gulls shortly thereafter, so land can't be too far. Spotted the Mexican coast shortly after lunch. The ship docked at Ensenada, Mexico (below) @ 4 pm for a few hours and some people disembarked, but not us. Listening to the sea lions barking was kinda entertaining! We packed up our stuff as we have to leave this marvelous cruise early tomorrow morning (boo-hoo!). After dinner, the ship set sail for Los Angeles, while we watched a fantastical production show, "British Invasion," in the Princess Theater. Peaceful waters now, light wind, big fat moon shining thru the window....

Back in the warm sun!

This cute li'l bird flew in from somewhere,

landed on our balcony railing, and rested there for a few minutes.

11/09 - Wednesday --- Los Angeles! We awoke at 5 am to see the moon set and watch our entrance to the harbor - a pretty scene. We disembarked our Golden Princess at 7:30 am and took the Super Shuttle to Matt's. No problems, which was nice. Had a bite to eat with him and then we drove Smartie to Ventura where we we'll hook up with our Tergel again... and we'll stay there for a few days.

Gorgeous moon setting as we entered Los Angeles Harbor on Nov. 9th.

We traveled round trip 5,007 Nautical Miles (5,785 Statue Miles) on our Hawaiian trip! On a scale of one to ten, we'd rate this 14-day cruise to Hawaii as a... well, about as good as it could get. A GREAT BIG TEN!

And, we made a deposit for a future cruise!

The Island of Maui - Nov 2011

Thursday, Nov. 3rd - Lahaina day! Maui is Hawaii's 2nd largest island. Our ship anchored off the coast @ 7 am, and we were tendered ashore. We’d arranged a rental car again as we weren’t thrilled with any Princess excursions. Jimmy picked up a ho-hum Nissan and we drove north along the coast, unsure of exactly where to go or what we wanted to do. 

Maui’s famous landmark, Haleakala volcano, towers 10,032’ above sea level and it’s usually covered in clouds as it was this day.  However, we’re drawn to the turquoise-blue water and Maui beaches. We drove to beautiful Honolua Bay where we watched snorkelers swimming with spinner dolphins, so that’s what we decided to do. Found a dive shop that rented snorkel gear and eased into the water at Ka’anapali Beach, just north of Lahaina. Immediately entered a wonderland of multi-colored coral and colorful tropical fishies, huge sea urchins, an eel or two, and octopus; in deeper water than our last snorkel on Kauai.  Fantastic! Prob spent an hour cruising in the water, faces glued to the beauty below. 

We changed out of wet bathing suits in the car and drove south toward Wailea, admiring beaches and water. Land on this side looks dry, but we don’t have time to drive inland to the volcano. This is another island we could spend a bunch more time at. We got caught in traffic again on the way back to our ship (she looks IMPRESSIVE sitting out there at her mooring!), but turned in the car @ 4ish and were shuttled back to the tender and our ship. Our ship weighed anchor around 6pm, marking the end of our 4-island adventure. Sure has been fun. Passed the Tropic of Cancer @ 7 pm and are now headed north-easterly towards Ensenada, Mexico. 

 

Golden Princess anchored offshore

The Golden Princess taken about five+ miles away (note SUP in foreground).

 

View of a Lahaina marina.

Catamaran full of lucky snorkelers at Honolua Bay.  Great idea!

Another marvelous double rainbow as we departed Maui.

We were in bed early.  As the ship pitched in the turbulent ocean, we slept like contented babies. But first ... it was time to reverse the process: Set our clock forward one hour before sleeping!

Hawaiian Flora & Fauna

A small sampling of Island color.

Yellow Hibiscus

Queen Emma's Lily

Red-crested Cardinal

Bird-of-Paradise

Black-necked swan and Hawaiian geese

(Nene - a species of goose endemic to the Hawaiian Islands)

Wild Ginger

Red Junglefowl (chickens!) - they're everywhere!

November 2011, aboard the Golden Princess

It's nice to dress up every now and then....

Happy Birthday dear Jimmy, happy birthday to you - from Princess, a bit early. Jimmy with our waiters, Ador and Archie.



Happy Birthday dear Nickie, happy birthday to you! (I'm singing into the "microphone!"). Both Jimmy and I got our own small, rich chocolate cakes on different nights. This is a neat thing Princess does for its guests.

Kaua'i -- Wednesday, 11/02/11

The Lush Island of Kaua'i!

We slept with our balcony door closed last nite because the outside air felt so hot and sticky. Arose at 6 when the sky lightened. After breakfast, we walked up to the Sky Deck and were greeted by a majestic rainbow over Nawiliwili, where we were to dock at approx 8 am. The shore mountains were shrouded in clouds and mist that soon dissipated.

We had to chop-chop to get ready for our beach snorkel excursion.  We met on the dock at 8:30, with 21 excursionists altogether, plus two guides.  We rode in two shuttle vans to their place to be outfitted with "shortie" wet suits, masks, fins, and snorkels.  Can I tell you that we all looked real cute!  Jimmy said I didn't need to post the picture of us in our outfits!

The vans drove south to Po'ipū, where we "explored the island's underwater wonderland on a guided snorkel adventure."  We must have spent an hour and a half snorkeling over coral in crystalline waters that were teeming with tropical fish!  As seen in the pictures below, I got to hold AND pet an octopus in my hand, which was simply over the top for me!  When Paul first picked it out of it's hole, she (it was a girl) emitted enough ink to fill an ink well, but she soon calmed down.

 

Above right, I held a giant sea cucumber (dumb-looking thing) and right away, I had bright yellow and black fish come to nibble on it; in effect, eating out of my hand.  We saw a variety of stunningly colorful fish, from tiny to big.  Jimmy and I and our guide, Paul, were the last ones out of the water.  This counts as one of THE best adventures of my life.  I'd never snorkeled before and was afraid to put my face in the water, till I could hold onto my rock (Jimmy), and then once I saw the underwater beauty, I could have stayed in all morning.  I absolutely loved it.  Rain showered down on us once or twice -- who cared? -- we were in the water, for Pete's sake.

Light snacks were served afterwards and we were shuttled back to our ship, everybody chattering on about how cool this excursion was.

After getting cleaned up, we took the free shuttle to the town of Nawiliwili.  Love the rainbows that seem to pop up all the time!  Jimmy and I walked the beautiful Marriott gardens and beach.  We even shopped a bit -- wow!

Ooooh, nice pool!

The Garden Island:  Colorful Hibiscus, Gingers,

Bird-of-paradise, Jungle Geraniums and hundreds more.

Hawaiian Geese (Nene) and Black-necked Swans.

We returned to our ship and watched her depart around 5 pm, dodging raindrops, of course and with an escort "doing donuts!"  Another flawless rainbow framed the mountains; we saw too many today to count.  Eventually we had a delicious dinner and we were hungry! Tired, too.  We could easily spend a week (or a month!) here, and hope to return someday. This was THE B.E.S.T. Day!!!

Next up:  Maui, mañana, approx 7 am. 

Tuesday, 11/01/11 -- Oahu Island

Oh, yay!  Our next island:  Oahu -- we were up early, of course, and excited to be coming into Honolulu! 

A fine "welcome-to-Honolulu" greeting!

As soon as we could disembark, we did ... beneath a gorgeous, full, double rainbow framing the ship! (and then a few raindrops began to fall, but nothing significant)  This is a great place to dock, right in the city at Aloha Tower, as opposed to disembarking in industrial Hilo.  We'd arranged to rent a car (picked up a swell red Jeep) and, with only this one day to explore Oahu, we struck off on our own on Hwys H-1 and H-2, heading north.

 The Golden Princess docked next to this Aloha Tower.

Jimmy on the Dole patio (just after a rain shower).

Our first stop was at Dole Plantation Pavilion (didn't buy anything), but we enjoyed poking around in their stuff and walking about their gardens. Amazed is the proper word to describe our reaction to passing acre upon acre of planted pineapples, but this IS Hawaii, after all, where pineapples come from. Loved traveling in and out of rain showers and rainbows.

At Waialua, we stopped at the Historic Waialua Sugar Mill, now a coffee and chocolate market. They grow, dry and roast their own coffee beans (and cacao for chocolate). Naturally, we bought coffee. (Rained hard while we were inside.) 

Continuing on, we drove to the western most end of Hawaii's famous North Shore – Ka’ena Point – where the wild blue Pacific, with great noisy breakers on one side, meets towering green-clad lava cliffs on the other. Quite a sight! (below)  The beach is a mixture of sand/pumice ... off came our sandals.  We climbed down onto the sand and stuck our feet in the clear, warm water (82.4°). Ah, I came close to getting soaked, too.  Right away we picked up lots of sea glass.

Ka'ena Point.

Toes in the water at Ka'ena Point on North Shore.

Back in the nifty red Jeep, we drove along the spectacular north coast, to the Bonzai Pipeline and Sunset Beach where big bad surfers reign supreme (below).  We picked up yummy shrimp lunches along the way. 

Further east, we stopped at Kualoa State Park for views of Chinaman's Hat (below) -- a conical island in Kaneoha Bay thought to resemble the hats worn by 19th century Chinese farm workers. I took plenty of pictures!

New birds to see:  Red-crested Cardinals (above) and Mynah birds, and they were everywhere!

We didn't want to, but it was time to head back to Honolulu.  The day just isn't long enough for touring an entire island!  Though I wanted to see Waikiki and even possibly Diamond Head, we got caught in a going-home-from-work traffic jam on Ala Moana Blvd that was really tough to get out of.  No big deal, I guess, to see more overdone hotel resorts anyway! No, we didn't visit the Arizona Memorial, either, but we had such an excellent day! We managed to return the Jeep and were back aboard the ship by 5ish! Showered, ate dinner, and fell into bed!  Sometime close to 11 pm, while Jimmy and I were snoring, the ship cast off her mooring lines and made for Nawiliwili, on the Island of Kaua'i.  We'll be there in the morning.

O boy - another new island adventure!