Saturday, March 28, 2020

January 3, 2020 – Honolulu, Hawaii – Mostly Cloudy – Showers – 78F

Showers were predicted for today and early in the day, the clouds over Honolulu did look threatening.  But, it's still a beautiful day on the island of Oahu.




We did have excursions today but we needed to be in the Theater at 7:30 AM and we just can’t get ready that early anymore.  We respectfully declined the tickets, explaining why.

Horizon Court was crowded this morning as people were getting ready for their morning tours.  My spot along the windows in the Solarium is perfect for a relaxing breakfast.  I had the usual and brought Ellen her breakfast, also the usual.

The ship was about emptied out when I had my morning iced latte.  We formulated a plan to take one of the free shuttles somewhere, where we could see parts of Honolulu.  It was raining slightly when we left the ship for the terminal.  The terminal in Honolulu must have had some kind of renovation since we were last here as it looked different.  In addition to all of the gathering spots for ship tours, there were free shuttles to “Hilo Hattie” and “Maui Divers”.  Both of these shuttles will, after you are subjected either to a factory tour or a shopping session, will take you to either a hotel (if you are not on a ship) or to Waikiki Beach or Ala Moana Mall.

I don’t know why but we opted to go to “Maui Divers”, purveyors of gem quality black coral and pearls.  The shuttle took us to the factory and store where we saw a short video on the company and its products, watched people make jewelry behind a glass partition, and then breeze through the store itself.  We then got into a group going to Waikiki Beach.  The ride to the beach was about 10 minutes and the bus let us off at the “Apple Store”, our pickup point for later.  This was a good choice because the store is huge and easy to find.

We walked about four blocks to the beach and Waikiki, even on a cloudy and iffy day, was wall to wall people.  All I could do was thread my way to the water and take a few shots of the beach.  Waikiki is still a lovely beach.





It was about 12:30 PM now and we needed some items from Longs Drugs so we walked past the Apple Store on Ala Moana Blvd reaching the drug store about four blocks beyond. We bought some deodorant and four bottles of drinking water.

Although we had to stand our ground in the bus pickup line, we managed to get on board the 1:00 PM Maui Divers Shuttle back to Pier 2, our dock.  Security can be a long wait but not today and soon we were back on the ship.

We checked out Horizon Court for lunch and came away with only a salad.  We went to the newly named “Salty Dog Grill” on the pool deck and I ordered the sweet potato and green chili tacos (a one off event) as there were no pizzas ready at “Slice”.  I went back and got some pizza to go with the salad.  The pizza was fresh but, in my opinion, the pizza in Alfredo’s Pizzeria is better. 

It was off to Deck 15 Aft, hoping that the prevailing breeze, and it was significant, would keep the cigarette smoke away from us.  I am about to finish “Full Wolf Moon” by Lincoln Childs.  When I first started the book, I was sure it was a werewolf book.  Then, some distractions were thrown my way, and ultimately, it was a werewolf book with a twist.  It wasn’t a long book and maybe not Lincoln Childs’ best but interesting.  His main character, Jeremy Logan, enigmalogist, is just not that interesting (not even close to FBI Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast).

We had a late dinner in Horizon Court – we didn’t change clothes all day – because we were not going to attend the Olana Hula Show.  The Eggplant Parmesan and Spinach Cannelloni were just OK and the fried risotto/mozzarella balls were interesting but overall, not a great meal.

The rest of the evening was spent on the couches outside the Explorers Lounge listening to the “Supersonics” (I like their sound) and the TV Theme Song Trivia (amazing how few themes I knew).

We are helping with dispatch tomorrow morning, so the evening was a short one.  We also wanted to get to sleep before the ship departed at around 11PM to avoid dealing with the bow thrusters.

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