Honolulu, Hawaii - September 29, 2013

Aloha from Honolulu, state capital of Hawaii on the beautiful island of Oahu. We have visited here many times in the past and always stayed within the city limits, Diamond Head and Waikiki beach but today with Jeff and Joy and a rental car we ventured out and toured just about the entire island. In a word incredible, once outside Honolulu the beautiful sharp edge mountains appear along with lush green landscape and some of the amazing beaches I have ever seen. First, I will mention the car rental experience with Hertz, in short excellent, friendly staff, timely shuttle service, very reasonably priced (especially when sharing with another couple) with very nice cars. I will strongly suggest to bring a GPS device, Jeff brought his TomTom and it made getting to some places a dream.

Car rental gives you freedom and flexibility - we saw the Swap Meet at the Aloha Stadium as we left the Airport car rental location and popped in for about an hour. This is the place to purchase any and perhaps all your Hawaiian souvenir stuff all at very reasonable prices. This swap meet is huge and pretty much circles the entire Aloha Stadium, FYI admission is a dollar per person. So with the retail therapy session out of the way we set the GPS to the North Shore and Sunset Beach and off we went to Oahu's most tempting combination of sun, sand, sea and surf, the place for any beach lover and water sport adventurer. Dangerous for any inexperienced surfer sunset beach offers swell point in the water that make up the potentially longest waves in Hawaii. We stopped in at Haleiwa Joe's Seafood Grill for an excellent lunch located at the local marina. Jeff and Joy visited here a few years ago with other cruise friends, so we knew we were in for a excellent meal, Pacific Blue Marlin was the fish of the day choice for both Jan and myself, Jan's panfried lightly breaded while mine was served cajun style as an open faced sandwich - excellent.

We then set the GPS for the Byodo-In Temple which is located at the foot of the Ko'olau Mountains in the Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. This park was established in 1968 to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. Built entirely without nails, it is a scale replica of the temple in Uji, Japan which was constructed over 950 years ago. Very nice.

We competed our island tour with stops at the Halona Blow Hole and Hanauma Bay. A great day here in Oahu. It was great to get out of the city as it felt like some of the quieter islands, similar to say Maui. So it is great to know that with a future visit here that we can get the entire "island" experience here in Oahu.

I will be doing two posts for today as the night's entertainment was magnificent as they brought in a group from Maui to perform for us and a separate post is warranted as part of the entertainment was us. Now we did not happen to bring our cameras to this show but many of our fellow travelers did, I am in the process of collecting these images to upload shortly.

Hilo, Hawaii - September 28, 2013

Aloha from Hilo on the east  coast of the big island of Hawaii. We experienced showers off and on throughout our stay here, normal for this area - temperatures were a very comfortable 28 to 30 degree range. Jeff had prearranged a car rental here (highly recommended), they provided a shuttle service to and from the car pick up spot at the airport. Easy, flexible and very reasonably priced, they upgraded our reservation to a mini van, very nice with lots of room. Our destinations today were the Volcanoes National Park and the Alaka Falls. The visitor centre at the park are second to none, there are many rangers on hand to guide and inform tourists as there are many options, from crater drives, to cycling around the crater to joining a guided walk over the lava bed (we did this in 2009, excellent). We drove around a good part of the crater finishing at the incredible Thurston Lava tube, a 200 meter tube carved out and encased in lava, amazing. Next was the hour drive to the Akaka Falls State Park which is the highest falls on the island.  The loop trail is an easy walk through the tropical rainforest, and provides several viewing opportunities. Beautiful drive to and from and all points in between including a retail therapy stop at the local Hilo Hattie. Great day, back on board and we visit Honolulu tomorrow. Last night we had a Parrot shirt night with some friends we had met on previous cruises, we have included a few pictures of our Parrot night.

Quote of the day. Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey. - Pat Conroy