Pride of Hawaii Review March 12 - 19

[LokiGB]

This was our first cruise. We were celebrating a 70th birthday and a 50th wedding anniversary in the week that were aboard the Pride of Hawaii. We flew in to Honolulu at noon on Friday and it was nice to have the VIP shuttle bus driver waiting for us by the luggage carousel. He helped us with our luggage and got us to our hotel on Waikiki Beach. We were glad we had decided to see Oahu before the cruise.

The next morning, Saturday, we were picked up by the shuttle at 7 AM and we lined up early for the Arizona Memorial tour. Afterwards we walked (won't do that again!) to the Aloha Stadium for their huge swap meet. I enjoyed it so much that I considered buying one of the Hawaiian print suitcases so we had an extra bag, for all the *swapmeet specials*.

The next day, Sunday, we picked up our rental car and went to Hanauma Bay to snorkel. We saw a tremendous number of fish in spite of the large number of people snorkeling. We loved it there, but had to leave to go on to the North Shore to see the surfers ride the big waves at Waimea Beach, the Bonzai Pipeline and Sunset Beach. We found Giovanni's Shrimp Truck just past Sunset Beach and split a $12 plate of their huge shrimp, cooked in lemon, garlic, butter sauce with two mounds of rice along with fresh wedges of pineapple. YUM!

On Monday we called for a cab and a limo showed up (woo hoo!!) and took us to the ship for $20. We got to the pier a little after 12 and took our bags to the luggage area and then went through the embarkation process. The line was short and we were through in short order. We went to the Aloha Nui Buffet on deck 12 and had a wonderful lunch. We had all the restaurants picked out for the week and went to make reservations and found out that you could only reserve two days in advance...so we reserved Le Bistro French Restaurant for that night and Cagney's Steak House for the 2nd night. Our cabin still wasn't ready so we got off the ship and went over to the Aloha Tower Marketplace. We did some shopping and took the elevator to the top of the tower, where we were able to take pictures of the ship. On our return to the ship there was a woman selling leis on the dock and I bought her last two leis for $2.50 each. I think they were originally $8 each, but I think she was tired and wanted to go home, and I was glad to relieve her of those last two beautiful leis. I gave one to a friend who was with us.

Our cabin, a suite on the 11th deck, was ready when we returned so we went to see if our luggage was there, and it was. We walked in to find the room decorated with paper doves and silver bells and a Happy Anniversary sign. There was a bottle of wine and flowers, which had been sent for our anniversary from our family. We were very pleased with the cabin, it had lots of storage, many amenities (hair dryer, coffee maker, coffee, refrigerator, etc.). The bathroom was large and the tub and shower with sliding glass doors were nice. We really liked the balcony with the two deck chairs and table. The beds were pushed together and a king size duvet and colorful bedspread covered the bed. There were three pillows....all hard as a rock. That was our only complaint about the room, other than the large bottle of sparkling water that was on the desk next to a bowl of fruit. We were thirsty so we opened the water and poured a glass for each of us. It was only later that we found out there was a $4.50 charge for the water and the fruit was a gift from our family, not the ship, and no card was attached saying who had sent it.

We enjoyed going to the French Restaurant our first night. There were very few people there and we got excellent service. We had a delicious meal, very well presented, and they got us out in time to see the ship sail out of Honolulu Harbor. Up on the pool deck, where we went to watch the ship leave the harbor, I was given a lei.

That night we dutifully set our door dial to read "Turn Down Bed" before we went up on deck, and when we returned to our cabin our bed was turned down and we found a wonderful towel animal on our bed and two pieces of chocolate on the pillow. There was a note from our stewardess, Annie, telling us her hours and telling us to call if we needed anything and a number where we could reach her. She did everything she could to make sure our time on board was just perfect, and we felt she needed much more than her share of the gratuities that were billed to us. That night the seas were up and we were awakened several times because we'd failed to lock our slider to the balcony properly and it slid open and also because we left the bathroom door open and it was swinging back and forth.

Tuesday morning we awoke as we were coming into Hilo. As we sailed into the harbor, I saw a whale! It was a great 70th birthday present! The telephone rang and it was someone telling us that the room service breakfast that we had ordered was about to arrive. We ordered tomato juice, a Maui pineapple coupe, Raspberry yogurt, cranberry cocktail, a tropical fruit plate, and pineapple and apple-cinnamon danish. We made coffee in the room and it was a great way to hurry through breakfast and yet get a good breakfast. At 8 we were off the ship and on the Thrifty rental car shuttle, which was waiting on the pier. The driver was quite the tour director and talked the whole way to the airport - telling us what to see and what not to see and to not bother getting the nuts and chocolate covered macadamias at Mauna Loa, but to eat their delicious samples at the factory, and then stop at Wal-mart to get our souvenir cans of macadamias. He told us the hazy day was volcano bog. We are Blue Chip members so got in a special line and got our car in short order, and were on our way to Volcano National Park.

We were glad we had read Cruise Critic and had taken our Golden Eagle Passport so that we did not have to pay the $10 fee to enter the park. Stopped at the visitor center first and learned about the park, then drove the 11 miles around the top of the volcano crater. We were surprised to see the large number of steam vents alongside the road and remarked that it looked a lot like Yellowstone. From here we drove to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Plantation and Factory. We sampled all the different varieties of nuts and bought some postcards and nut belly flops, and were on our way.......to Wal-mart, like the shuttle bus driver had suggested. <grin> I bought bottled water and Snapple ice tea to take on the ship and keep in the frig in our cabin.

We drove into the town of Hilo.....such a quaint old town! We saw three outside farmer's market areas with wonderful fresh fruits and gorgeous, inexpensive cut flowers and flower arrangements. We found O'Keefe and Son's Bakery in town (which someone on Cruise Critic recommended) and went in to buy the fresh sour dough bread bowls filled with soup, only to find out that was only done 2 days a week. But outside, in a large cooler, a couple of college kids were selling box lunches from O'Keefe's for people *on the go*. We bought 2 of their absolutely delicious box lunches. The bread was so fresh and the turkey sandwich had cucumbers, shredded carrots, lettuce and onion and tomatoes and the roast beef had bean sprouts and onions. Both packages had carrot and celery sticks and a ginger cookie. We took our box lunches and drove, to Akaka Falls.....via the 4 mile curvy, scenic route - alongside a fast running stream, thru a rain forest and over 5 or 6 one lane bridges. There was one hillside covered with red flowered trees and it was quite a spectacular sight. We got to Akaka Falls, where we walked in past 2 small water falls and got to a really beautiful waterfall that looked very much like Bridalveil Falls in Yosemite. The falls were in a state park and there were a couple of picnic tables so that's were we ate our box lunches. On the way back into town we passed a scenic vista point and pulled off and could see our huge cruise ship tied up at the dock. What a beautiful sight!

We had to gas up the car and the gas station by the airport that had gas for $2.90.9 in the morning, was $2.95.9 in the afternoon. That ended up being the cheapest gas we found on our trip.

We returned to the ship and had to clear security again - showing our licenses and our boarding passes....also the bags with our purchases were inspected, along with our purses and backpack. There was quite a long line at 3:00 when we returned to the ship. We went up to our cabin and found that Annie had cleaned the room and had left fresh towels and another post-it note.

We went out on the balcony and looked out and there was a whale playing around in the water! We could see it's flukes and it splashed in and out of the water and was quite a spectacular sight. It was in the protected area, close to our ship and we were really surprised to see it so close. It may have been the same one I saw in the morning.

At 5 PM we went to the reception desk area where we met our Roll Call friends, Cruisepal and Jenny and their husbands and Sinclair. We all went out to the Aloha Nui Lanai at the back of the ship and had drinks and compared stories and plans. We thoroughly enjoyed all five of them and made plans to meet again the last day.

We had 6:30 reservations at Cagneys, the steak house restaurant, for dinner. It was very attractive and the waitress' were so cute and so friendly. We had prime rib and filet mignon with all the trimmings and ended it with creme brulee...mmmm! The waiters brought out a cake and sang Happy Birthday to me and then followed it up with "Let me Call You Sweetheart" for our anniversary. Then they brought out a cake for us to take back to our room! The food and the service was excellent and we felt Cagneys was worth the extra $20 each.

We came back to our room to find that Annie had turned down our bed and had made up a precious little rabbit out of 3 hand towels and it was sitting on our bed with chocolates and a red antherium. She had turned the television on, and had such lovely Hawaiian music playing. Such a nice touch and such a nice ending to a wonderful day.

Will write up Maui, Kona and Kauai tomorrow....part 2 :)

 

[LokiGB]

I meant to add in my review of our POH cruise that we really researched many, many travel websites while checking on prices. The amount that we ended up paying per person for our suite on the POH was $1043.10 plus port charges and taxes. In addition to that we got a $50 on board credit.

It really pays to check as many websites as possible for the best cruise prices that are available for the time of year that you are going.

Because it was our 50th wedding anniversary we decided to splurge and get a suite, and we loved having the suite, but I think if we were to do it again, we would save even more money and get a balcony cabin. We could use that savings for more excursions.