arctickitty

Hi @RRFan and welcome aboard! I kept feeling like a question had been lost in the sea here. I haven’t sailed on Crown before so I don’t know what is different from before and after the dry dock, but I can report on a few things. Firstly, I would say that yes, there are some ongoing sewage issues. When our lost luggage was being searched for we spent a chunk of time at Guest Services and chatted with the lovely agent who was helping us. He told us that the reason we had been upgraded was that our original room on the Plaza deck had flooded two cruises ago and hadn’t been fixed yet. We do smell sewage stink periodically, especially indoors on deck 7, usually right at the Wheelhouse Bar or the entrance to Wheelhouse. A few times we’ve smelt sewage on our balcony. This morning our steward asked if our toilet flushes and he said others in the section are not. As far as the condition of the ship, it seems pretty typical to me, being about 98% or so lovely with some evidence of wear and tear here and there. There’s a water stain towards the ceiling of our room, but I’ve touched it a few times and it hasn’t been wet, so that’s good enough for me. The outside of the ship has a lot of rust staining. I have not seen or heard of any issues with propulsion.

@NIkkiGR sounds like tons of fun! If you scroll up a bit, the food pics and info about Tacos y Mariscos is just above. Since the theme of the day was the blindly trust Alfie, we got birria as well as the fish and he was correct that their birria is amazing. I think I have more food truck pics in queue.

@Happiest when cruising There are tons of bike rental places in Lahaina. If you haven’t been on a bike much, a lot of the places have e bikes, which would help you get up the hills. You can have a really nice ride with only that short section on the highway to get to the beach path. From what Alfie said, I think most people do that ride and do it just once, not like what we did…more to come but it’s time for Dancersize.

The up, up, up on the highway back to Lahaina wasn’t bad at all and in fact I found it to be a lot of fun. We could ride faster on the highway than on the beach path because we weren’t dodging pedestrians. Although we did get passed by more serious cyclists on road bikes. You know, the kind in spandex suits. I swore I sweated my body weight out and I was grateful for my water tube. There is a pouch in my backpack and the tube goes over my shoulder and I can suck it whenever I want, which in the heat is basically all the time. I can then refill the pouch from my insulated water bottles and have a cool supply. We chilled out with a cold brew and a green smoothie in Cafe Cafe and then tooled over to the food truck park housing Tacos y Mariscos las Islitas. When we’d talked tacos with Alfie, I’d asked about Ono Tacos and he said that Ono used to be the best but now Tacos y Mariscos was better. There are a lot of food truck parks in Lahaina; great places for local bites! Upon arrival I saw that Paya was also in the same park and I’d wanted us to have a fruit bowl there so I told Special Someone he could choose the tacos as long as he saved us room for a fruit bowl. Then he told me what he wanted to order and even though I told him he could pick, he immediately knew I didn’t approve of the order. We went round in circles a bunch until I said fine just save us room for - fruit bowl.

They said you needed them but we never showed ours because they didn’t ask for them. They gave them out the night before starting at 6:30pm in the Captain Circle host’s office. I think we could have shown up for a tender at 7am like I wanted because I don’t think most of the people with 7am tickets bothered to get up that early.

At the Sheraton, I found a parking lot that wound around and snaked up hill. I led us up all the circles up and up and up just so we could ride down it. Special Someone misunderstood Alfie’s directions and we kept going through some timeshares or condos or “cottages” or whatever people would like to call them. I didn’t want to get wet at 10:30 so we kept riding. We explored some of the resort roads (so much traffic!) and tried to get to the main road which took us up and down and around and lots of dead ends before we found the highway and got on it. It has a very narrow strip on the sides designated for cyclists. I really enjoyed it! At least before we hit the highway I found all 7 of the gears on my bike. After the big loopy hotel hill I’d said “my bike says 7 speeds but I only found 3.” Special Someone said “You have to crank it all the way.” I said the equivalent of “duh” wondering how dumb he thought I was and sped off. I guess I was angry enough because I magically found the rest of the gears. We biked on the highway as far as the Avis-Budget rental cars. I pulled off there for us to discuss next steps and because we’d been riding downhill for a very long time so it meant we’d have to ride back up to return to Lahaina so I wanted us to determine how low we wanted to go. Special Someone was hungry so he wanted to go back to eat Alfie’s favorite tacos. I didn’t want to eat yet s we compromised on a coffee shop Alfie recommended, Cafe Cafe.

@Happiestwhencruising because of this thread when we were hiding from the midday sun in Lahaina at one of the malls, I said, let’s go in Hilo Hattie’s to see what it is. I’ve been to Hawaii by air from Alaska 5 times before and had never been in one. It is a store where you can get your matchy-matchy Aloha wear, aka men’s Aloha shirts that match women’s Aloha dresses. The majority of the store was clothes. They had a variety of other souvenirs, macadamia nuts, coffee, leis, etc. I think the comparison to Wal-Mart is that it’s one stop shopping for souvenirs and Aloha wear but it’s not artisan goods. For example, the don’t have coffee or Mac nuts from my favorite farm on the Big Island; they just have products from bigger producers.

Alfie recommended we ride out to Kaanapali. He said to ride out Front Street and stay on the left side of the highway for a few hundred yards before picking up the path along the coast. We did just that and the path curved and wound along the coast through a series of public beach parks. Lots of great spots very close to Lahaina! As Alfie told us, Hyatt is the first resort you reach. You can continue on paths to the left if you walk you bike or you can beer right and keep riding. He told us that Sheraton was the last one and we could snorkel and jump off a cliff there. Just because he said “jump off a cliff” I felt that I had to go do this.

@tutomomickey I’m not the best person to ask as I think it’s all hot. I did notice a change in the breeze from cool to warm air after about 2 days after leaving California.

Tender tickets were superfluous yesterday morning. We had Grouper and were told to expect it 9-9:30 am. We therefore took it easy in the morning and slept in. I had to work hard at this and managed to stay asleep until 6:24. They flew through calling the groups and Grouper was called by 8am. It seemed like they eventually repeated group names. We tried to hustle up which for a buttercup like me means we got to the tender around 8:30. We wandered around Lahaina without a plan until I asked Special Someone, “Did you research bikes here?” (He loves riding). I thought he said “Oh” but I think he actually said no, but moments later he was on the phone and then we were on our way to pick up bikes for the day. Alfie met us and set us up with 7 speed cruisers.

Yes, we made it to the top. It was a really fun time for us both.

IMG_1312.MOV I am sorry to disappoint everyone, but the tender ride to Lahaina this morning was the smoothest I’ve ever been on.

Irony of the day:

@konatyme https://www.princess.com/learn/faq/pre-cruise/prepare-for-your-cruise/ This link has the exact passport rules. Special Someone was joking about not having his, but I’d that had been the case he would have needed some alternate documents which he absolutely wouldn’t have had.

Thank you to everyone for all of your Lahaina tips and comments. I will catch up with everyone…some day… Not sure what we are going to do in Maui…maybe ride the tender boat back and forth for a few hours… Thanks to the magic Marriott elevator, the afternoon’s highlight is brought to you by the nene, the Hawaiian state bird.

We went surfing! More on that later, but it feels like the craziest thing I’ve done yet and I still haven’t calmed down from how freaking scared I was (but I hid it the entire time I was in the water). Meanwhile, a quick question for all of you repeat cruisers: with the tender in Lahaina, is it realistic to go to the beach early in the morning and go back to the ship to clean up? I was thinking that with the tenders once we get ashore we need to stay ashore. What do you guys think? I wear different compression garments in the water than I do on land and it’s not so hard to change into my compression to get into the water but it’s not so easy to change back when I’m wet. Yesterday and today we were close enough to the ship (or could ride an Uber) to get back so I could rinse all the sand off and get dry before I put my dry land compression gear back on. I’m not sure I want to get wet in Maui if I can’t get the sand and water off me before I put my stockings back on. I’ve just been picturing having sand stuck on me and having it ground into my skin by the compression garments and setting the stage for a medical disaster to brew… If getting a mid-morning or mid-day tender isn’t a realistic idea, we could save the ocean until the afternoon.

Honolulu was a 32,000 step day, which is a decent number for a port day. The ROOKIE MISTAKE required us to be FLEXIBLE and we popped into Ubers more than planned, but we had a lovely time, tried new things, and found what we loved (and didn’t). Part of being a two-time cancer survivor is that I have a lot of damage from the treatments. I like to say that it affects everything and nothing in my life at the same time. By this I mean I don’t let it hold me back from much but it does require me to be constantly considering how to handle it. One of the reasons cruising is so enjoyable to me is because it helps me take care of my leg more easily than on many other types of vacation. This is my leg wrapped up in a compression pump. The machine is heavy and bulky but with a cruise I set it up in my cabin and it’s ready whenever I need it. The standard treatment is one hour per day but this cruise I’ve done well with doing it morning and night most days. If I’m writing you a long story it almost always means I’m stuck on my pump! Since we were moved up to deck 14, OceanNow means that we can have specialty coffees delivered and I can even have yum yums to sip while I’m pumping. Anyway this is the back story to explain why I haven’t been in the ocean much as an adult. I’ve been in 24/7 compression my entire adult life and sometimes it’s been stockings and sometimes it’s been bandages and sometimes it’s been all sorts of things in between. The past few years I’ve been on an upswing with my leg, in which I usually wear 5 layers of compression but with this system I can do almost anything I want (hence the triathlon racing). So I really wanted to try to go in the water on this trip! You will soon find out that this Alaskan does not know what she’s doing! First, we have to talk about the ROOKIE MISTAKE. Ive been to Oahu several times before but I’d never been to Leahi/Diamond Head because of my perception that it was too difficult. I also tend to ignore the #1 most popular hike in an area and do something different. But thanks to Cruise Critic and cruise bloggers, I’ve seen mention of all sorts of people doing it and it gave me the question to look up and I realized it didn’t sound difficult at all but that it did sound 100% worth it to do. So our plan for Honolulu was to go to Diamond Head first thing and then spend the day making our way back to the ship. We got off the ship around 7:40 and got our Uber. Driver: Do you have a reservation? Special Someone: Yes Me: Reservation for what? Special Someone: I reserved this Uber Me: I don’t think that’s what she meant Google: “drivers: do not take passengers through the gate without a reservation” Me: Diamond Head requires reservations Ba-bing, and you have our rookie mistake. I looked up and saw there were reservation spots open from 1-4pm so we decided to book entry from 4-4:30pm. Then we had to figure out what to do with our in-process Uber. Special Someone did not have any requests or suggestions and the only thing I could think of was Kuhio Beach, which had been described as a good beginner’s beach, so we got dropped there. I was ready to start taking my clothes off and try this whole get in the water thing, but I could tell Special Someone didn’t like it. Me: What don’t you like? Special Someone: It’s too commercial. Me: (pauses to swallow exasperation): Do you understand where you are right now? Special Someone: In the commercial center of tourism in Honolulu Me: (big smiles and laughs because he did listen to something I said at some point). So what do you want to do instead? Special Someone: Walk. Me: But what about getting in the water? Special Someone: Are there other beaches? Me: (maybe he hasn’t listened to much I’ve said…)

I was going to pick a word or phrase to represent the theme of today, but I fell asleep. So I’ll give you the choices and probably write one in the morning: rookie mistake flexibility when sand sounds like rain Okinawa

Ukelele and Hula are free and at 1pm and 2pm respectively. Hawaiian crafts seems to be at 9am on sea days. Special Someone went the first day and found out it cost $. His reporting isn’t too detailed but from his perspective one project option cost more $ than he wanted to pay and the other project required you to already know how to crochet. That craft session hadn’t been marked “additional fee applies” in the patter but they started adding it. One day there was a different entry in the patter and he said that was going to be the free one, but you had to go first to get a ticket and then go back later to do the project. Learning new crafts would be cool but we do arts and crafts at home and I do arts and crafts at work so it wound up not being a priority for us. Zumba/dance fitness was at 9am as well. I have never had such a “schedule” on sea days!

I haven’t heard them say what is up next for them.

In Alaska, whenever something is unique or odd or funny, we say “Only in Alaska.” Examples would include “Only in Alaska does dressing up for the theater mean wearing your bibs” (bibs is rain or snow pants) or “Only in Alaska they closed school because it rained” (this was because it rained on top of a foot of snow and then the temperatures went right back to freezing. That storm was called Icemageddon). Anyway, while getting gas in Hilo, I noticed an “Only in Hawaii.” Only in Hawaii does the gas station offer you a free hot dog musubi with your tank of gas.

Now I have a few minutes to tell you more about hula classes with Leialoha. They have been held in Club Fusion just like Zumba and you have the benefits of the nice sound system and the auxiliary screens if you can’t directly see her. Fellow passengers who post things online do a good job but Princess does not explain in the patter that the classes are meant to be sequential and build upon each other. The dance floor was full the first day and packed the second. I have been wearing my grippy trail running shoes to help with balance on the floor but I discovered that if I stay back on the carpet, regular shoes do just fine. She encourages participants to go barefoot, but that wouldn’t work for me since I’m in compression stockings and that would be a recipe for the electric slide. So, if you’re worried about slipping, going in the back or sides on the carpet is an option. Like Tiki Dave, she is a skilled teacher. Her methods are subtle but very intentional and she uses humor to break the tension and help people feel comfortable. Throughout the classes she also teaches a fair amount of Hawaiian vocabulary. The classes are a good arm workout! Especially in the early bits of learning a song/dance you might have your arms lifted for a good chunk of time. During the dances themselves you have a variety of movement and sure use them but don’t keep them anywhere for long. Sometimes it is tricky to do the leg and arm movements at the same time, as the legs are almost always a count of four (step to right step to right, step to left step to left —two steps but 4 beats) but the arms might be a two, four, 6, 8, or something else. She teaches the arms and legs separately and when people go all floppadoozle doing both she breaks it back down and provides more practice. I have really been enjoying the classes and I’m glad I tried them out. I plan to continue them after our port days.

That’s crazy.

Hilo Avis car rental was easy and seamless. Special Someone got a nice taste of Hawaii Volcano National Park and some peeks at local Hawaiian life. Your snippet for today is the Mermicorn drink special at Sippin’ Siren in Hilo.

Good Morning. Today I want to talk about the ukelele and hula classes a bit. We are four sessions into both classes and yesterday both Tiki Dave and Leialoha spent some class time discussing the logistics of the shows. I knew I couldn’t be in both but it’s nice to know I don’t have to decide in advance, you just show up and do one or the other. I had gone into this cruise with the assumption that I’d play ukelele but not dance, but I’m now thinking the reverse is going to be likely. I tease myself about being the worst student in uke because I’m “too busy” to practice, (although many of the other passengers may be bluffing about how much they practice) but I’ve found the dancing sticking in my brain better. I haven’t tried to learn a new instrument as an adult before and I’m mostly doing it because I’m an opportunist and here is a low-barrier chance to do something new. A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me because the uke music is not the melody of the songs but more like a backing track. I also am not familiar with the songs we are playing so I’m quite lost if Tiki Dave is not calling out the chords to us and I’ve never been very good at counting out the measures. I can hear the difference in the chords to know if I’m playing the wrong one and can wait till I find a spot I know what to play and if we play a song over and over enough I can start to remember where to change them. Yesterday we started on a new skill, which is strumming patterns and that was really cool to learn about. But then putting strumming patterns back into a song was a big mess for me. As others have said, Tiki Dave is a wonderful teacher. He is very intentional about how, why, and when he teaches things and he has a very warm and welcoming approach to playing. Beyond the cruise I don’t see myself continue to learn to play ukelele the proper way but what I do see myself doing is buying a pick and looking up sheet music and playing it one string/note at a time as a melody instrument. Well, I’m out of time for now as Hilo is calling, but I’ll tell you more about hula classes another time.