What a great day on the Big Island, Hawaii! We arrived in Hilo, the main port, to bright blue skies which was a bit of a surprise as it is renowned as being one of the wettest places in the Pacific. Had some breakfast and then were pretty much the first off the ship at 0815. We got a cab to the airport which was about 10 minutes drive away to pick up our rental car for the day. A nice little white Verso, very low mileage and not bad at $80 all in. We dro...

The ship gave a bit of a clonk at 0530 and we woke up to find ourselves on the dock in Honolulu. Went back to sleep for an hour and then got up and had breakfast. The immigration checks started at 0630 and it was all supposed to be orderly: tour groups at 7 followed by A deck at 0730, B Deck at 0800 etc. Being D deck, we sat in a lounge and waited. We heard the announcement for A deck and then there was a long silence. It got to 9am and we went to investi...

Blimey! Did it again! 910 wake up…… Lazed around and then forced ourselves out of bed at 10. What slugs we are becoming! LOL. Didn't bother with breakfast as it was so late but found ourselves a place on the sundeck by the -still- empty pool. It had been quite swelly in the night and the wind was still a strong 7-8 this morning. We managed to get out of the wind and it was boiling. Used the shower to cool off. The Jacuzzis are all still going but ...

Slept in till 915 again! Is it the rocking or the total cabin darkness??? Whatever it is, I never sleep this well anywhere else. Amazing. Hot, sunny, breezy…. I guess in the night the surf level in the pools must have reached a critical level as we came on deck to find them all empty and covered with nets. We did peg out by the pool after breakfast. Had to keep hopping under the pool shower to cool down. Hopefully the swell will lessen and they wil...

Lovely morning by the pool, reading in the sun. During the course of the morning we had a couple of short, very sharp downpours of rain. Then, the black clouds would clear and we'd be back to blue skies again. Also, there was a swell that we could not detect but the swimming pool could! So the water was really swishing from end to end and cascading into the "catchment" pools. It was like being in quite a rough sea. Weird but rather invigorating. In art...