Garvin Cruise to Hawaii

Checkout from the hotel is at noon today, but the flight doesn’t leave until after 5:00 PM, so we still have time to do a little more before we leave. We started by sleeping in and not getting up until we were ready (no alarm clock today). We considered eating breakfast on the hotel terrace overlooking the beach, but after all the fancy meals we have had the last two weeks, we decided something simple was all we wanted. We had seen a Burger King while we were walking around the night before, so we went and had plan old ordinary croissanwichs (like back at home). Then we came back to the hotel and packed up all our things to see if everything would fit in the suitcases or if we would need to buy another. ... read more

This morning we woke up in the port of Nawiliwili, Kaua’i. At this port, the ship ties up to the pier so our days of tendering are over. We decided to have one last “leisurely” breakfast in the Club restaurant. It was good as always and then we headed to the pier to meet our tour. Today’s tour was apparently very popular as there were multiple buses. They took the first 18 of us who arrived early to a small bus and we got to leave first (ahead of the other buses). Our bus driver Marilyn is a fulltime school bus driver and works tours when they need her. Because we were a small bus, we were able to go a few places that the big buses could not. Our first stop was the Spouting Horn. ... read more

Today is actually our second day on the “big island”, but we are on the other side of the island. We are in Kona today. This is much more of a tourist location than Hilo, despite what our guide said yesterday. We had to use the lifeboats to get to shore since the water is to shallow for the ship to dock (they anchor and then ferry people back and forth to shore). Conversely Hilo has a deep port and everything that is shipped to this island is first offloaded in Hilo and then driven across the island. That is why gasoline is $3.40 in Hilo and $3.66 here in Kona (glad we are not buying gasoline in either place). We had the buffet breakfast this morning to make sure we were in plenty of time ... read more

Hello Blog Readers - This is the last full day at sea for this cruise. We have had a good restful time but are ready to start seeing some of the islands and going on our excursions. Those begin tomorrow, but today we enjoyed probably the best weather day at sea. Breakfast was in the main dining room. Although we had missed Eggs Benedict the first time, they had an unexpected repeat offering and Janet had some (said it was much better than an Egg McMuffin). We restrained ourselves at lunch getting something small from the buffet because a big dinner was planned for this evening (see further below). The weather has steadily improved, with the sea being pretty smooth for the past couple of days and the temperature today getting up to almost 80 under ... read more

Last night was a very good night’s sleep. Not only were the seas pretty calm all night, but the Dramamine helped Janet sleep and we both got a full night’s sleep. For breakfast today we decided to try the buffet. You start with a plate almost as large as a turkey platter and you choose as much as you want from practically all the breakfast ideas ever conceived. So forget the idea that this might be a smaller meal. But we had nobody to blame except ourselves if we didn’t get all we wanted (which of course we did). At 9:00 was a short session targeted at new cruisers on Princess, but since we had not been cruising in 5 years we had pretty much forgotten the perks of their program. Later that day we went ... read more