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Set out on a scenic tour of cosmopolitan Honolulu. You'll discover that the most modern metropolis in the Pacific is also a compact and captivating city. Experience the hustle and bustle of Chinatown and see the historical Civic Center, including the state capitol. Other highlights include lolani Palace and Missionary Homes as well as the famous Punchbowl Crater, site of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Cruise past the famous King Kamehameha statue, seen in many episodes of Hawaii Five-O. Honolulu City Hall and Kawaihao Hawaiian Church are also included on this great tour of Oahu. NOTE: infants, ages 0-3, participating in this shore excursion must have a ticket purchased for them.
Above is a view of Downtown Honolulu from our drive up to the Punchbowl Crater and National Memorial Cemetery. When we got onto the bus at the cruise port terminal nobody on the bus could see out the windows due to all the condensation and water droplets on the windows. The air conditioning had made the interior of the bus icy cold and fogged up all the windows. Some people loved the cold air in the bus while others were complaining that it was too cold in the bus and that we could not see out the windows. The bus driver / tour guide turned off the air conditioning to help clear up the fogged up windows. A few people immediately complained that it was now getting to warm in the bus but most of us wanted the air conditioning kept off until the windows cleared up so we'd be able to see something on this tour. The bus driver kept the air conditioning off and the windows did start to clear up. Unfortunately that did little to help clear up the water droplets. The bus driver explained that they had just washed the bus and they always just let the windows air dry. Someone should have just gone out and used a squeegee with a long handle to wipe down the exterior of the windows. As you can see from the above photo the fogged up windows had mostly cleared up but the water droplets remained.
Above is a beach east of Waikiki near Diamond Head. Also included is a photo of our tour bus. The monument is dedicated to Amelia Earhart, first person to fly alone from Hawaii to North America, January 11, 1935. My parents who were born in 1912 and 1918 used to tell me that the flights by Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh were major newspaper headline stories when they were younger as these events happened when they were teenagers and in their young 20's.
The above shore excursion ended right on time at 1 PM back at the cruise port terminal. There was still another 9 and one-half hours remaining before we had to be back on the ship by 10:30 PM. So, we decided to do a bit of exploring on our own. We rented a car for less than $30 for the day, but after all the taxes and airport fees were added it came up closer to $45 for the day. I could have gotten a smaller car for about $10 or $15 cheaper, but we wanted a car where it would be easy to get the wheelchair in and out of the trunk.
The taxi ride from the cruise terminal to the airport came to $40 after tip. It would have been a bit less if it wasn't for all the traffic that slowed us down getting to the airport. Plus, I gave the taxi driver a very good tip as she gave us some fantastic advice that probably made our day much more enjoyable. She gave us ideas of what to go see driving on our own both going east and going west from the airport. She suggested that we go west rather than east since the traffic in Honolulu was going to remain bad and only get worse later in the afternoon being a Friday afternoon during rush hour. She mentioned that the Dole Pineapple Plantation was not to far outside the city to the west and she even suggested we try the Hawaiian Pizza and the Pineapple Ice Cream which she thought were delicious. We decided to take her up on all of her suggestions regarding going to the Dole Pineapple Plantation.
Above is the car that we rented. I like to take photos of the exterior of the car both before and after our rental just in case there are any questions about the condition of the car after we return it. It also helps me to remember what our rental car looks like, especially the license plate number, so I can find it again at each place we park. The photos are also proof of the fuel level before and after our rental. I always fill the tank up myself before returning the car to avoid the excessive "prepaid fuel charges". I took a photo of the center console too as it looked like someone had removed the inside of the center console and I didn't want to be blamed for that being missing.
Visiting the Dole Pineapple Plantation was on our list of things to do on one of our trips to Hawaii. The last time we took a cruise to Hawaii and made a shore stop at Honolulu, which was January of this year, we spent most of the day on a shore excursion to the Pearl Harbor War Memorial. It was mentioned on that tour that most of the pineapple production had shut down. They sort of lead us to believe that the Dole Pineapple Plantation was no longer in operation but some on our ship had come back saying they had gone to it on their tour. So we had put that back onto our Hawaii "To Do List". Most of the pineapple growing operations in Hawaii have been shut down, especially the Dole pineapple canning operation, but the Dole Pineapple Plantation tourist operation and its farms, gardens, and tourist train are still in full swing. When we got there the large parking lot was almost full with a lot of tourists.
From the H1 highway we ended up right into the airport, but we still had to go top off the tank with gas. The closest gas station that Google Maps showed to us was a Texaco that was 2 miles away. Though that seemed close, it was out on some back highway that required a lot of turns down dark roads and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. On our return to the airport from getting gas we saw a gas station right outside the airport! I wonder why Google Maps didn't list that one? It would have been a lot faster and easier to go to that gas station. The taxi ride back to the cruise terminal was a lot faster and cheaper than getting to the airport. There was no traffic on the ride back.
These are placed in random places in the hallways near bedroom cabins each night. They are turned on and make a lot of noise. I thought they might be to air out a cabin that got flooded but there are no hoses coming from them going anywhere. Each night they are in a different location.
We are now embarking on our long cruise to Guam. It is Friday night. A week from today, next Friday night, we will still be at sea and not have made any port stops at all. Tomorrow is Saturday. We will still be at sea all day a week from tomorrow. We don't make our next port stop until a week from Sunday. Spending an entire week at sea will be the longest we have ever been at sea without any port stops. If you are counting, you might think that comes up to 8 days at sea. However, we will be crossing the International Date line and Monday will totally vanish so it is 7 days that we will be at sea and not 8. Technically we will have Monday, but it will only be about one hour long in the middle of the night when most of us will be sleeping. So for most of the passengers, Monday will not exist at all!
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If in this report you see any typos, misspellings, factual errors or other types of errors, please let me know.
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