Honolulu Headstart
And, after those 11ish hours of flight, one ridiculously long Trusted Traveler bottleneck (about 50 TTs in line for two frequently malfunctioning terminals), and four time zone changes, we finally got to Honolulu. Whew!
We got to our lovely, friendly, nicely sized, and Hilton Honors-point-paid-for Doubletree and fell into our beds for one night of on-land sleep. Time zones were on our side in this direction, which assured we were up for brekky--including Harper's first Loco Moco: rice, eggs, ground beef (sans gravy) which is a gf/lf eater's dream meal. This tie-dyed Mickey t-shirt got a "stay frosty" hand sign more than once (from people Harper swears thought she made it), so thanks two day trip to WDW!
Let's feed this boy so he can start diving!
Our one planned activity before boarding the Pride of America (henceforth POA) was Penn's: a 4 hour dive off Honolulu. Having been certified for a high school trip to Grand Cayman earlier in the year--yep, just like my school trip, ahem, sigh, insert image of a 1970s rain soaked Wisconsin Dells, he wanted to catch a dive or two in Hawaii. So, we grabbed a taxi at the last possible minute to zip us to the harbor, and because Hawaii, bruh, we still beat the dive company by about 15 minutes.
I ubered back and found the remaining two members of our Hawaiian quartet chilling in the open air lobby with some Kona cold brew. While it had been half-raining on the drive in from the airport the night before, the day was blue sky sunny.
So we decided to slow walk down the Waikiki main drag back to the harbor to meet Penn post-dive. The Doubletree Alana a couple blocks off the beach and right on what seems to be the chief touristy shopping street of Honolulu, across the street from the massive Hilton Hawaiian Village hotel complex that takes up a sizeable chunk of beach front.
As you look at this photo of Harper and Ned and shorts and t-shirts, hold in your mind this fact: Rochester was about to have its coldest Thanksgiving since the late 1800s. Temps would be in the teens. Mahalo!
We bought some funky Hawaiian t-shirts and stopped in McD's drawn by the sign advertising taro pies and by the always gf french fries. Taro pie verdict: starchy sugar filled fried pie that picks up the purple from the taro but not much flavor.
Fortified by fried starch, we kept on walking and found a massive mall, Ala Moana. It had a Christmas-themed hula show and a list of shops that seemed to have read our minds and were prepared to sell us Hawaiian quilted bags, cookies and candies, magnets, swimwear, and more. (Yes, we bought an Obama in swim trunks bottle opener, and yes, it's amazing.) Hawaii has no native industry beyond tourism anymore: the pineapple fields are gone (US isn't even in the top 10 producers worldwide), same for sugar cane. The crowds at this mall and others seemed to be almost entirely tourists, many international (especially Asian Pacific Islanders). Perhaps as a result, the people we met in Hawaii were across the board gracious, friendly, and open--plus big sharers, they all want to tell you their favorite things to do and see. Yay!
We shifted off the main drag to walking on the beach just as the day started to turn gray and cloudy--but still warm!
Awesome trees! Spot the Harper.
This spot of Waikiki seemed to be wedding photo central. In just the few minutes we were walking through, several brides (two in one shot below) and, in one case, a full wedding party showed up for photos. Their dresses were beautiful and it looked like BrideCon.
We got to the harbor just as Penn's boat was pulling up. As a 15 year old, he had limited details to share with us about the dive, but I can share that he saw green sea turtles. Oh, and we heard a lot about this dog, who wore a t-shirt and also was on the boat. At many points during the trip, we were asked to buy a t-shirt for our dog Mango. She remains shirtless.
We got back for a late lunch and grabbed some burgers next door to our hotel at Cheeseburger Waikiki, which had decent food, lovely open air seating, excellent service, and very fancy cocktails for Ned.
Then, it was off to the boat via a Lyft driven by a woman named Elf. Because Hawaii, bruh.
Hawaii's ports weren't really designed for cruise ships--they are industrial ports typically on the margins of towns. After all these years of cruises, one would think they'd upgrade but maybe not. The most retrofit is in Honolulu, but even it is fairly warehouse-y: a large cavernous space with quasi-functional signs and few directions.
We had arrived well after the majority of cruisers (in fact, the ship was mustering as we walked in), so we had no wait at all and just strolled through the check-in and on board.
We grabbed our gender-assigned leis and were directed immediately to the theater to muster--which wasn't really our muster station--because as latecomers, in the case of emergency, we would be on our own and/or sacrificed to the volcano.
As you can see, half of our party wasn't even paying attention, so we were definitely going down with the ship.
Now, a few words about the ship. The Pride of America was recently refurbished and is quite lovely. As the name suggests, every aspect of the ship is America-themed, which given all that's going on right now, is actually kinda of charming. POA is a modest-sized boat, making it super manageable, but according to many reviewers, this is troubling to people because the ship doesn't have a climbing wall or surfing attraction or infinity pool or casinos or multiple Broadway shows or fill in the blank. To these people, we say: you're in HAWAII! This ship is made to be a floating hotel that stops in a port every single day so that you can run off the boat and experience HAWAII, and it does that wonderfully. (Plus, if you think cruise ships have Broadway shows, you've never been to a Broadway show.) The food on ship is just fine, and everyone (including the dining room manager Charles who graced us with a Tom Waits impression, TOM WAITS, people!) bent over backwards to assure Harper's meals were gf/lf. The beds were crazy comfortable and the rooms were decently sized.
In booking the cruise, we picked the absolutely cheapest rooms available: inside guarantee. We got one for us and one for the kids. The guarantee here is that you get a room on a boat. One of the rooms we got had a great location: up by the high end suites. It went to the kids. One had a less desirable location, so we bid to upgrade it. For just $460 more for the entire cruise, Ned and I got a killer location balcony room. Nice!
Aloha, Honolulu!
Aloha, ocean! (See, 'cause "aloha" means hello and goodbye. Clever!)
As POA set sail, we learned that the first night of the cruise is always casual dress in every single restaurant. What?!? So we skipped the massive line out the main dining rooms (MDR) and wandered over to the almost empty high end Jefferson's Bistro (French cuisine). Would they take us in our t-shirts and sandals and make sure one of our meals was entirely gf/lf even if it meant fundamentally altering recipes and ingredients? Hells yes!
Yep, it's a carved out pineapple filled with fruit to dip in a single serve chocolate fondue served in a white linen restaurant to a kid in a hoodie who hasn't showered since he went diving. #cruiselife
We finished dinner about 9 that night and were ready to crash. Thank you, Hawaii.
Thank you, POA.
Our dreams were filled with waves of green turtles racing pineapple boats filled with happy tourists--and everybody won.
Aloha!
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