Our final morning aboard the NCL Pride of America started with a big breakfast in the Skyline Restaurant before grabbing our bags and disembarking from the ship. Since our flight was not until 4:07pm, we decided to store our bags at the port and take an Uber to Diamond Head Crater for some hiking.
Our second day in Kaua’i, and final day of the cruise, began with an early breakfast in the Aloha Cafe buffet. We prefer to have breakfast in the Skyline Restaurant, but they do not upon until 7am, and we had to be on the pier by 7:15am for our excursion.
This morning we had breakfast in the Skyline Restaurant as the ship pulled into the port at Nawiliwili, Kaua’i. Our tour today was called the “Best of Kaua’i” and covered a lot ground.
Today we were anchored off the coast of Kona on the west side of the Big Island of Hawai’i. Our day started very early with breakfast at the Aloha Cafe buffet. We then took a tender ship to the port in Kailua-Kona to meet our tour. Sara was fascinated by the tendering process and getting aboard a lifeboat.
As usual, our day began with breakfast in the Starlight Restaurant before getting off the ship in the city of Hilo on the Big Island or Hawai’i. Our excursion today was called “Volcanoes and Taste or Hawai’i,” with the main attraction being a trip to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park to see Kilauea. This was my favorite place when we came to Hawaii over 15 years ago, and I was excited to see it again.
Our second day in Maui again began with breakfast in the Skyline Restaurant before leaving the ship for our tour. Today we were supposed to do the road to Hana, but the Moana Kea protestors blocked the routes to Hana and Haleakala, and all of those tours were cancelled. Instead we did a tour called “Best of Maui.”
We are scheduled to spend two days in Maui before leaving for the big island. This first morning started with an awesome view of the island from our stateroom balcony as we sailed into the port in Kahului. We had a yummy breakfast in the Skyline Restaurant on deck 5 before leaving the ship.
For our final day in Oahu, we had a buffet breakfast at the Rainbow Lanai restaurant at the resort before checking out and boarding our tour bus just after 7am.
We initially travelled southeast and saw Diamond Head Crater and the area of Kahala, which is kind of like the Beverly Hills of Oahu. Kimoke’o shared with us a real estate listing for a 2.7 acre that was – $48 million with $8,700 per month in property taxes. Yikes.
We had to be at the bus stop at 7am, so we just ate protein bars in the room before boarding the bus for Pearl Harbor, where we spent most of our day. This ended up being kind of a theme of the day as we had nothing but snacks to eat until dinner in Waikiki later.
Day 2 started with breakfast at Tropics Bar and Grill right on Waikiki beach. Kate, Olivia and I all had yummy omelets, but Sara had a big stack of chocolate chip pancakes. It came a nice little downpour but luckily we were under an umbrella big enough to keep us from getting wet.
We’ve been planning this 11-day trip to Hawaii for quite a while. We told Kate and Sara about the vacation on Christmas Day and gave them each a lei and a special countdown chalkboard to track the remaining days. They started at 204 and this morning they hit zero, which meant the travel day had arrived.
