Magical Hawaiian Radiance of the Seas Detailed Trip Report with Many Pictures

reallyhooked · January 4, 2016

Awesome review. We were on the cruise. Thanks for the memories.

Have a Blessed New Year

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Awesome review. We were on the cruise. Thanks for the memories.

Have a Blessed New Year

Thank you so much! Then, you know how great it was! It was an experience of a lifetime!

Happy New Year! Hope you have a wonderful year also!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

This says it is the original banana bread – but Butch says no! But we are halfway to Hana!

Some waterfalls!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

We stopped at this little local strip. I could have done without this… :) Some people might find it quaint. I thought it was kind of creepy, but Butch knew people there. But, we found out we were 6 miles from Hana!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

It was a long day, but the beauty was incredible. The pictures do not do it justice. The road was harrowing. I am so glad that we did not drive ourselves. People just stopped without care to take pictures. So many tight curves and one lane roads and bridges. The edge of the road in some places was next to a cliff. Once, a guy in a jeep said to our driver – I’m on cliff side, dude!! Meaning get your Suburban over because I am about to die! There are 168 turns and 27 bridges – crazy! There were some big trucks coming the “other” way. I don’t know how they got by on some of the roads and turns! (By “other” I mean most people do the drive the way we were going.)

The Suburban was very comfy, especially with Phil in the 3rd back seat. LOL, once I forgot he was back there and didn’t let him out, shut the door, and didn’t even realize until Butch asked if Phil had stepped out. Yikes!!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Black sand beach! So beautiful! A girl at my work has one of my pictures as her screen saver – she says it just makes her feel so peaceful! It was much more beautiful than the black sand beach we saw in Hilo (though there might be others there that are more beautiful that we did not see…)

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Requisite warning signs…

Stairs down to the beach

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Someone had a fire burning on the beach. We did not know what that was about. But some woman from far up top the hill kept yelling down there whenever anyone would go near the fire and “by near” I mean just in the general vicinity. We were not sure if she was warning them or she was crazy…

I think this is the picture the girl at work has. I actually eMailed 2 pictures to work to give to people, who I knew were interested in Hawaii. The other was the rainbow on the beach picture. Then one day, another girl at work said to me, can you send me Brianna’s screensaver?? Huh??? I yelled over, Brianna, are you using my rainbow picture as your screen saver?? She said, hell, yeah! It’s gorgeous! :)

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

There were small caves here too.

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Eerie roadside memorial?

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

We arrived at the Travaasa Hana, where the 5 star restaurant in which we would be lunching, was located. It was voted the #1 boutique hotel and the #1 resort spa in Hawaii. The resort was quite beautiful! We had our doubts about the restaurant. There was no air conditioning. The servers were definitely on island time. But we were seated on the balcony and there was a beautiful view and breeze. Butch dropped us off at 12:00 and said he would be back at 12:40 and he was right on the money. Burgers were delicious and the dessert was to die for. Coconut cake and some kind of cheesecake mousse. Yummy! It looked like there were several tours that stopped there, but they had some kind of buffet. We did have a set menu from which to make our selections, but not at the buffet. It was very good! The meal was included in our tour, but we did leave an extra tip.

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Smoking section

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

It wouldn’t be a trip if Frank didn’t put his hand in front of my camera at some point…

Next up - the backside of the Road to Hana!!

CRUISEBOY305 · January 4, 2016

Thank you so much for starting this thread and sharing your amazing photos.

Doing the Hawaii to Vancouver repo in May 2017. looking forward to it. :D

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 4, 2016

Thank you so much for starting this thread and sharing your amazing photos.

Doing the Hawaii to Vancouver repo in May 2017. looking forward to it. :D

Thank you so much for your kind words!!! You will have a great time!!! The next year plus will go so fast researching and planning, which is half the fun!!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

betsyl · January 5, 2016

Thank you for posting your informative review and beautiful pictures. We did the Hawaii to Vancouver cruise a few years ago and this definitely brought back wonderful memories!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 5, 2016

Thank you for posting your informative review and beautiful pictures. We did the Hawaii to Vancouver cruise a few years ago and this definitely brought back wonderful memories!

Thank you!! It has been great reliving the trip. I can't wait to read someone else's review to relive it in the future. Such a lovely cruise to remember!

PhilNDebbieAtSea · January 5, 2016

Now on to the backside of the Road (from) Hana. Not everyone does this as rental cars are not allowed by their contracts to come back here. And I can see why!! We saw several people turning back after realizing how difficult the roads were here. The front side on steroids!! Gorgeous views!!