In Which We Remember that Vacations Can Be About Relaxing, Too

So, after our lovely, adventure-filled, and truly wonderful but also very long day touring Maui, we considered our activity planned for the next day.  It also seemed truly wonderful: snorkling at Molokini.  However, when we thought about getting up at 6 am the next morning to grab breakfast and get off the boat by 7 am, our enthusiasm waned.  Hmm ... should we push ourselves to the cranky Kress-Davis family peak?  Or should we remember that vacations can also be about not going, going, and going; they can also be about relaxing, too?  Four votes for the latter, and we abandoned the 6am snorkling wake-up call and turned in for a longer night's sleep.

Ned and I were still up early enough to wander the POA and watch the sunrise. 

I had mentioned the industrial ports.  Here's a good pic of what I meant.  This is the cruise ship port for Maui (in Kahului).  Inviting, isn't it.

Because the sun rose opposite the hills and Haleakala, it changed the entire appearance of the view as the sun's light warmed the island, burning away the mist and revealing the lush greenery topped by a dollop of clouds all set against a much bluer sky.

 



 Here's another view of the sun's power.  The day went from this:

To this:

While the beauty of the day made us rethink--for a moment--our decision to forgo snorkling, the rest and poolside service found on the almost empty deck confirmed we had made the right choice.

Lesson: keep one's phone on oneself, especially when distracted by work.

Ned and I wandered the ship a bit--this is a nice shot of one of the long internal windowed hallways.  We never once saw anyone sitting on those comfy sofas, but they were quite lovely.  The entire ship was filled with great nooks and crannies.  It never felt overcrowded, and even during the breakfast buffet rush at the Aloha Cafe, we were able to find a table.  To make things easier, staff even rolled a coffee and pastry cart through the dining room for refills on both!  Because we spent so much time off the ship when we were in port, we probably didn't explore as much of the POA as we might have, but we did enough, saw enough, and ate enough to say this with certainty: if you couldn't make yourself comfy, cozy, and filled to the brim with good food and drink, and be entertained and graciously served while on this boat, you were doing something wrong. 

On ship, we discovered the Cadillac Diner--a small 50s themed restaurant with solid wings--and the John Adams Coffee Bar--which served almond milk chai lattes, to Harper's great joy.  Why John Adams?  Because Adams renounced tea for coffee in 1774, writing Abigail that drinking tea had become unpatriotic--thank you, Google.  We also played Harry Potter trivia--poorly.

At some point during the day, we came across this shoe. How could anyone lose this and not notice? Weird.

Our desire to go full Search Party was tempered though because Ned wanted to go ukulele shopping, Harper and I wanted to go shopping shopping, and Penn wanted to go to sleep.

We had originally planned to rent a car at almost every port, but as the trip went on, we realized that we really didn't need to--taxis waited at the port right off the ship and those who were willing to walk a bit could easily get ubers and lyfts.  So, as the cruise went on, we started canceling our reservations, keeping only the cars on Hawaii and back on Oahu for our return daystay.  The three of us shopping grabbed a cab that dropped Harper and I off before taking Ned further down the main drag to his ukulele emporium: Mele Ukulele.

It turned out that the mall we picked at random had a quilt shop and Hawaiian boutique as well as the standard shops, so we hit the jackpot.  Plus, for lunch, we grabbed some L & L Hawaiian BBQ, which we remembered from our 2013 Hawaii trip and which was gluten free!  Yum!!

Ned swung by to pick us up on his way back after buying a Mango-wood guitar-lele: kind of a miniature guitar hand-carved out of beautifully grained wood.  (Ned later described himself as being in a ukulele fever while in the store, thus explaining his purchase--which needed no explanation, by the way.)

We tracked down Penn, still somehow sound asleep in his dark-as-night inside cabin (growing boy), and while he got ready for dinner, the three of us sat in the darkness watching the tiny tv and somehow got sucked into Rampage, starring Dwayne (formerly and always "the Rock") Johnson--which we joyfully hate-watched all the way through.

As the POA set sail for the big island of Hawaii, we settled in for Shanghai and some snacks at the Aloha Cafe, the POA's buffet.

And I won!!  Apparently, I can only win in international waters.

We finished the day with a dinner in the main dining room with every gf/lf accommodation Harper could ask for--including gf bread with olive oil--thanks to Charles (NCL SuperDiningMan).  Then caught a gorgeous sunset from the deck.

It turned out that a day of relaxation was just what we needed.

We didn't need to be elephants to remember that!