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Published: September 30th 2009
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Janet at Might Mo
Janet at the USS Missouri Battleship in Pearl Harbor The last day of cruising was pretty short. The ship arrived around 7:00 AM at the port of Honolulu. We had to have our bags packed and in the hallway last night, so there was nothing much to do in that regard today. We had to be out of the cabin by 7:00 so we went to the buffet for our last meal on the ship. As usual we had plenty to eat, except I seem to have finally eaten all the pineapple on the ship - they better restock before the next passengers arrive. The ship sails on tonight, eventually going to Tahiti.
We waited until they called our group to leave the ship and then we were off to tour Honolulu about 8:30. We had one bag to take with us on the bus but all the other bags went directly to the hotel. But we were off for another full tour today before they dropped us off at the hotel.
First stop was at Pearl Harbor. Apparently you have to arrive early and wait quite awhile to visit the Arizona Memorial, but we saw it from a distance. We did spend an hour touring the Battleship
Diamondhead
View of Diamondhead from hotel terrace Missouri. It was a self-guided tour, and part of the ship was closed for refurbishing, but we saw plenty. It was very interesting. The bus also showed us a few other things on Ford Island as we were driving past.
Next came lunch. We actually stopped at a shopping center and everyone got to pick the fast food of their choice and bring it back to the bus. It wasn’t a fancy meal, but it was effective as we ate while traveling to the next places on the tour.
We traveled from the dry side (leeward side) of the island and over to the windward side. It gets much more rain, the cliffs are dramatically sharper as they drop almost straight down, and it is clearly much more windy. When we were up on the top there were great views of everything below us all the way to the sea. Fortunately it did not rain while we were on that side.
We also went to the Punch Bowl. Despite how it sounds, this is actually a national veteran’s cemetery, primarily for World War II veterans and possibly one dependent. On the other side there was a funeral
King Kamehameha Statue
"King Kamehameha the Great" statue in front of Hawaii Supreme Court beginning conducted, which the driver said was an Iraq war casualty.
After that we got to the city part of the tour. The driver showed us a lot of places and told us about some of the property issues. We stopped at the King Kamehameha statue and the Royal K Palace (which Hawaii Five-O used many times as a back drop). Then they took us to the Moana Surfrider Hotel on Kalakaua Ave in Waikiki to check-in.
The hotel is incredibly fancy. It is surrounded by fancy/pricy stores and is directly on Waikiki beach. From our balcony we have a view of the beach and the pool area. We went down to the patio for a short visit and there is a great view of Diamondhead from the patio (our driver said the Hawaiian word actually translates to the “fin of a tuna”, so the English word sounds fancier).
After resting for awhile, we went out shopping in the local shops (not the fancy/pricy ones mentioned above but instead the little shops and stands in the courtyard markets). We got a large dinner and then found our way back to the hotel for the evening.
We enjoyed turning OFF the alarm and we plan to sleep tomorrow until we wake up on our own (the last few days have been up early to catch a tour or something). Not quite sure what we will do tomorrow on our last official vacation day, but it looks like there are plenty of choices.
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