Today we’re invited to the fancy Mariner’s Luncheon, for individuals who are repeat offenders with Holland America. We counted and Mum’s been on 6 cruises with HA, and I’ve been on 2. Mum would like to note that we get the same luncheon as those who have been on dozens of cruises.
There was champagne. As you can see, I was SHOCKED and AMAZED!
My starter was poached lobster on cucumber and decorated with other little goodies (dairy free!) There’s just one left here, because I got excited and ate the others right quick.
Our filet mignon mains: mine on the right with extra veggies and mo dairy; Mum’s is on the left with how it’s supposed to look with hollandaise sauce.
Two desserts!Treat plate
I got two desserts! And Mum got a treat plate
We don’t think we’ll be hungry for supper later! So we have a plan to go for a walk before we go.
At this very minute Mum is waiting for me to finish this post so we can watch the last two episodes of the first season of West Wing.
I have gotten Mum addicted to “The West Wing” and we spent most of the day watching episodes. We’re on the first season. an interesting show, and also easy to nap with.
We also took an after-lunch constitutional around the Promenade deck.
Tomorrow we have to remember to go to the Mariner’s Lunch in the dining room we were invited to.
We’ve adapted to our at-sea routine again. Breakfast and a swim/hot tub to start, then yesterday we did some activities; today there’s nothing we want to do. We’re lying in our room after getting changed out of our swimsuits and going to decide the degree of lazy we will be today.
The activities yesterday were a talk about agriculture in Hawaii, followed by a Q&A session with the piano players from the piano bar. We’re big fans now, so that was interesting.
Being in the open sea means the boat is rocking, and which also means the water in the pool is swaying back and forth violently making big waves to swim through. Very fun.
Tonight is dress-up nice night in the dining room so I guess we’ll be prepping for that at some point. But not yet!
We got to spend two days in Honolulu, our last days in Hawaii. On the first day Mum and I went shopping and figured out the public transit system. On the second day, today, we used our knowledge of the busses to go to Waikiki to go swimming. Today we also decided we are going to move to Waikiki because it’s warm there, and we will go swimming every day.
Note 1: the public transit system if just like any other public transit system in the world, i.e. I figured it out with Google Maps. Except? that there was always a bus waiting for us when we wanted one, which is kind of weird, but certainly fortuitous.
Note 2: We went shopping at Walmart!
We are currently en route to Vancouver, having lifted off around supper time. We have plans for our final days at sea, including finishing our books, watching some dance shows, watching more piano shows, and we’re going for a swim tomorrow morning.
My supper was delicious tonight. I had some super rare beef with Thai sauce for a starter, and stuffed zucchini with tomato sauce and noodles for my main. Vegan choco cake for dessert. This dinner is in second place after the night of the filet mignon.
Hi. I didn’t update for a few days. I was tired. But Anyway. On day 9, which was Sunday, Mum and I did a bus tour of some of the things to see in Hilo, and we actually took some photos.
First up was Liliuokalani Park, where I explored some small bridges.
Then Rainbow Falls. I guess there’s a rainbow if you’re there at the right time of day. I didn’t see it.
Then a visit to Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Visitor Centre. We were given time to shop in their store but Mum and I chose to hunt for macadamia nuts in the wild, instead.
Our tour ended with a stop at a fancy chocolate candy store that had good coffee, too. Everyone was keen to sample all the treats.
We stopped at a black sand beach in there somewhere. The sand is black because of volcanoes. I have a video but it won’t upload right now.
You might be thinking that I have a lot of photos to share after my first day in actual Hawaii. But I only have one. And a video.
We went to the beach. There’s Mum in the water! And that’s our boat in the background.
The same as the photo only in video.
Oh and there were chickens wandering around.
I slept in this morning, which is remarkable considering time zones (addendum to that, BTW, we were in Hawaii time yesterday, I was trying to change the time when I was asleep or something). But because of this, I didn’t have to wait long before the boat docked and we could get off (ok we did have breakfast first, too).
Then some time at the beach (see above) where we bobbed around in the big waves. The beach we visited had nice manicured lawns that nudged up to soft sand, and then nice warm water. I liked the soft sand, and , when I was in the water, the way the waves lifted me up. They were big waves and there wasn’t even a ferry or any big boat passing by to make them!
After beach time, there was some light shopping, and then back to the boat. I spent the rest of the afternoon on a lounge bed on the swim deck with a book.
Tonight’s desserts. My fruit crumble and sorbet in the front, and sticky toffee pudding for Mum
We finished Pride and Prejudice during nap time and didn’t know what to do with ourselves. So we went for dinner and are now waiting in the piano bar for the piano players to come sing us a song.
(To be clear, the boat is in no way lost. It’s me and Mum who keep going the wrong direction: We neither of us have a sense of direction.)
This is about yesterday! Thursday October… something
Seriously a day to relax. We went for a swim after breakfast, then I went to the morning lecture (about two of Hawaii’s major symbols: the ukulele and the Hawaiian Shirt – AKA Aloha Shirts). Then nothing for the rest of the day? After lunch we put on the 2005 Pride and Prejudice to watch while napping.
Facebook update
We had a late supper booked so we went to the main stage show before we ate. Last night was The Runaround Kids, who play hits from the 50s and 60s. They wear blue tuxedo jackets – what i think is a tuxedo jacket, with long lapels, In between songs the lead vocalist told really bad jokes, which I enjoyed immensely.
Dinner was the best. Fillet mignon and sorbet for dessert, which I again started eating right away due to excitement, only to be distracted by Mum “ahem”-ing nosily to remind me to take a photo first. I had a plan to hold on to my phone with my eatin’ hand, but it still ended up ignored on the table.
Tada! (I took the photo but all credit goes to Mum
We keep crossing time zone lines. Today we are currently 3 hours behind Victoria/Duncan time. There will be one more before we land in Hawaii, because whenever I go to switch my phone to Hawaii time, it’s wrong.
There are 2 ways of dealing with a drifting time zone change. Mum doesn’t change any of her devices and counts backwards whenever she looks. This is too stressful for me and I make my phone match boat time. My computer is still on home time and a freak out whenever I see it.
This morning we did out now-routine of eating breakfast and going for a hot tub and swim. This routine will go askew tomorrow when we have our first stop in Hawaii. (I don’t know when we’re landing. I think it was meant to be 8am but that changed because there’s another boat in our berth at Nawiliwili and we have to wait for it to leave. Our itinerary hasn’t been updated.
I missed reporting on days 3 and 4. On day 3 we hit the Pacific and the boat started rocking in all the ways a boat can rock and I’v been motion sick. I don’t get throwy-uppy motionsick, I get dizzy and woozy head motion-sick. Not gross but very uncomfortable.
Day 3 (Monday) wasn’t bad. Mum and I went for a 1 mile walk around the ship in the morning, then caught a lecture about the history of Hawaii. I wasn’t feeling good after lunch an found a reclining chair on the pool deck and read my book while Mum went to her Ukelele lesson. We napped after that and then got ready for fancy dress-up night for dinner. We had a late reservation for the dinning room, so we went back to the piano bar to listen to a set: the was songs of the 80’s this time. Guns and Roses and Eurithmics are pretty cool on two pianos. After that we were in time for our reservation, but I only got my starter salad half-finished before I realised I wasn’t feeling good and didn’t want to sit up for the rest of the meal. We took off early and the room service staff brought up our meals to us later. I wasn’t able to eat mine, which I’m a little dissapointed about because it was a plate of Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
On day 4 (yesterday as I write this) I woke up and immediatly knew I wasn’t going to get up that day. The boat was pretty tippy and that made me very woozy. I only felt almost-ok if I just stayed in bed and did nothing. Mum brought me food I could eat lying down; and she also went to the daily lecture and recounted it to me.(Culture of Hawaii)
I was better(ish) in time for dinner last night. And today I’m better still. I still feel woozy from the rocking of the boat, but alredy I’ve gotten out of bed and did the 1 mile walk again this morning. I’ll try going to the lecure again, but the theatre where that’s held is at the very front of the boat, and the rocking is defineatly more pronouched there, so I’ll see how I feel doing that. Today’s talk is about all the stops we’ll be making in Hawaii, and informtaion about what to do there.
I’m describing the distance of our walks in miles because the signs along the deck where we walk say that 3 laps = 1 mile.
i'll try to be better. i promise 