Cruise Ship: Pride of Hawaii
Cruise Dates: May 28, 2007
Cruise Destination: Hawaiian Islands
Guest Contributor: Melissa
Pride of Hawaii - Stateroom 8076 - Obstructed view - Aloha!
Monday May 28th 2007 - OAHU
Plane left at 6am Phoenix - San Fran and then on to Honolulu for an 11:45 arrival time. Hubby and I didn't have seats together on the grueling 5 hour flight over the very deep Pacific, but we each got to rest up for our 7 day vacation! Got there and got shuttled to the boat with the included transfers from our package deal ($999 each included roundtrip air, 7-day cruise and all transfers from cruiseexperts.com) The check in line was deep too, about 40 minute wait, give them a credit card and we were on our way to the welcome mat! We read reviews about making dinner reservations the first day to get your top picks - you can only make them for the next 24 hours so we made one for that night at Papa's (no cover charge) and the next night for Teppanyaki ($20 each). The rooms were not ready (it is about 1pm now) so we hop off and meet our cousins outside the pier for a day on Oahu! They welcomed us with beautiful orchid and hibiscus leis that smelled just like sweet candy, and the culture begins!
We went just up the street to the very nice open air mall (www.alamoanacenter.com) and had lunch at Macaroni Grill. We went on the sightseeing tour and got to see the Halona Blowhole right next to Hanamau Bay. Got on the ship at about 7pm and found our bags outside our door waiting for us! One was missing but it arrived about an hour later--they said that we should have them all by 10pm. Got ready for dinner and toured the boat before our 8pm reservations. They gave out fresh leis to all at the Sail Away Celebration just as we pushed off shore. Papa's was good Italian food - had the chicken parmesan and some sort of grilled fish, both good! They also serve you antipasto and bread with dipping oils as an appetizer. Sodas were like $1.50 extra or you could buy an unlimited pass for $35 I think. The menus are broken down into appetizer, salad, main entrée, dessert usually, I would recommend ordering something from each section (especially if you are paying a cover because of the small portions, some nights we even ordered two entres each. Prime rib AND lobster anyone?
That night we checked out the spa because they were having a raffle giving away a bunch of free services (gym passes, personal training, massages, facials, pedicure, haircuts, etc.) If you are planning on doing any spa services go to this! I won a free 25 minute massage plus they give you discounts if you make appointments right then (just a note - I noticed that the prices kept dropping during the week for most services. So, if you want a massage on Saturday night wait until Friday to book it to get the better price - but they could always book up too.
After that we called it a night and got to our rooms and unloaded all of our clothes and got organized, which was surprisingly easy with 6 drawers and a closet plus tons of shelving and counter space. The bed was fine too, with decent sheets, blow dryer, shampoo/hand soap/body wash dispensers, plenty of towels (beach towels are available when you leave the ship every day on whatever deck you exit), we had an excellent room steward and she checked on us anytime she saw us! We were very happy with her service and great attitude!
HILO - Tuesday, May 29th 2007
Woke up early (this happened every day - so much for a vacation!!) and got ready for Hilo. We ate breakfast at the Aloha Nui Café on deck 12 and sat inside looking at the beautiful Hilo bay! The breakfast food was fine, scrambled eggs, waffles, pancakes, pastries, muffins, oj, pineapple juice, milk, cereals, fresh fruit - the normal stuff (got sick of it at the end). We got off the ship at 8am and hopped on the shuttle (after 30 minutes) to the airport to pick up our rental car (ALAMO is the same company the ship uses for their excursion list, so if you can choose another company and you will have a much shorter line when you get there - another tip, take any rental car shuttle you see - they all go to the same place! We sat there waiting for Alamo for 30 minutes and then we get there and they are all on the same little strip sharing a parking lot. duhhhh. We rented a jeep for like $90 bucks for the day.
GET THE GPS! It worked awesome and they give you a little map of the island with all the coordinates listed, you just plug them in and off you go! Alamo has great GPS units - very user friendly - we used Dollar the next day and their units were useless! Big difference. I think Alamo uses Garmin - add $10 bucks for those units per day. So we are off!! By the way, wear sunscreen! We got fried in our open-top jeep even with the overcast and rainy skies. We went to Akaka Falls first, and they are just amazing. What a nice ride along the coast. Easy walk to see both falls.
Then we went back through town to go to the National volcano park - 40 minute drive, drove down to where you can walk 4 miles (one way) to the fresh hot lava. We didn't have time to take the hike but could see the smoke from where we parked and you could walk a quarter mile to the 2003 stuff - also right there off the rocky cliffs is a sea arch that you don't want to miss! The steam vents were our favorite part and they were up by the visitors center, if I could do this again I would skip the long drive to the bottom where the hike begins and just see the steam vents and the old lava flow and head off to the black sand beach I was dying to see! We ran out of time and had to head back to drop off the jeep. Bummer!
There are also some orchid gardens along the way, and I think I read that there are more waterfalls (Rainbow Falls) that are even closer to town than the ones we went to see - so that might be a timesaver too. I would have loved to see the Black Sand Beach.
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