The ship is docked in Honolulu, Oahu today. Myself and a couple girls had planned to go to Pearl Harbor, then in the late afternoon do a tour of some film locations. You can’t make reservations at Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona Memorial; it’s just first come first serve tickets. We’d heard that the wait time at Pearl Harbor could be long, so we rented a car to enable us to get around the island more quickly. As soon as we were able to get off the ship, we were out and off to the rental car company. We got our car and headed to Pearl Harbor. I dropped the girls at the gate to not waste time with parking. We did everything possible. We arrived there by 9:30am. The tickets we were given ... read more

One of the obvious recommendations I’d been given for my time in Hawaii was to go to a Luau. During our 2 weeks in Hawaii, we have 4 overnights. However I’m working during the evenings for 3 of the 4. Seeing as the Luaus happen in the evenings, tonight was the night for my Luau. Like with everything else I’m doing in Hawaii, I did a lot of reading about where was the best place to go. My pick for the Luau - The Old Lahaina Luau in the South Shore town of Lahaina. Earlier today, I’d driven a group of crew on the Road to Hana. Late this afternoon, we returned to the cruise pier to drop off people who had to get to work and pick up our little group who was Luau-bound. Then ... read more

Today we are docked at Hawaii’s island, Kauai. Of all of the Hawaiian ports we’ll be visiting in our time, this is the one I was most excited about. Kauai is Hawaii’s Garden Isle. When I did my research on the island, I read about lush jungles, green mountains, deep valleys, flowing waterfalls and stunning coastlines. It sounded like a mystical and majestic place and I couldn’t wait to explore it. The guidebook I read said that the not miss thing to do in Kauai is to drive along it’s North Shore. It said that especially the Na Pali Coast is gorgeous, but you can only truly see it by boat, helicopter or multi-day hikes. A multi-day hike obviously doesn’t work with a cruise schedule. I tried to find a boat tour to go along the ... read more

The combination of working spring break and being sick has had me stuck on the ship this week. I’ve pretty much just been sleeping or working. Today however, I made it a priority to get off the ship. Otherwise, it will be another nine days before I’ll be on land again - next cruise we’re off to Hawaii! So, after a good sleep in, I got off the ship. We’re docked in La Paz, but the pier is actually quite a distance away from town. Thankfully, free shuttles operate from the pier. I took the one that went to the beach. Compared to the Caribbean beaches I’ve gotten used to seeing, the ones of the West Coast we’ve been going to have been rather underwhelming. Today’s beach was really nice though. The sand was quite rocky ... read more

Today we were in Manzanillo. It is our final time in this port and our final time visiting what has been our regular ports. Starting next cruise, we’ll have different itineraries for the next couple of months. For our day out, I went with a few friends to a resort. They’d gone last week (when I was working) and really enjoyed it. I quickly saw why. It’s unfortunate we discovered it so late - I would have come more often had I known of it earlier! There was no fee to go to the hotel. We purchased our food and drinks - and it was really good food and drinks. There was wireless internet. I was able to sit in their lobby for a bit and take care of a few things I needed to catch ... read more