Carefully balancing rest, relaxation, and adventure, our trip to Tahiti, French Polynesia, and the Hawaiian Islands was fantastic and though we wish it could have lasted much, much longer, the trip has come to an end and we have tons of great memories, photos, and of course, the travel log. Check out any link below for more information on the latest trip! Photos and...
After a wake-up and cleanup of the beach house, we took a quick ride to Makakilo to see Sophie’s place and then off to the airport to catch our flight home. Hawaiian Airlines did another great job of good food, excellent service, and a pleasant trip home. We arrived into Oakland around 10pm and finally got back into our own bed! Another fantastic trip — Can’t wait...
Can’t believe it is already the last day on Oahu, but the final day on Oahu was just as wonderful as the others. This morning, we headed into the car, and starting heading north. For the first time, we left the “cityscape” of Oahu and moved into the farming and agricultural area of Central and Northern Oahu, as the island transitions from skyscrapers and dense...
Now, at first glance, the thought of spending a morning at the Swap Meet seems a little strange, but until you have been to the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet, you may have to adjust your mindset. As we woke up to a leisurely morning, we had breakfast and made our way our out to Aloha Stadium. It was a a breezy, overcast day, which made for slightly cooler temperatures and...
This morning, we were up, showered, and ready to roll by 9:00am to head into Pearl Harbor to experience the World War II Valor of the Pacific National Park, the USS Arizona Memorial, and the Battleship Missouri. These stops had a tremendous amount of history, emotion, and contemplation as we enjoyed the museums on the site, recognizing that this location was the...
After an incredibly simple and fast disembarkation in Honolulu, we were picked up at the Honolulu Cruise Port by Sophie, Edie, and one of Sophie’s friends, Bernie, who was gracious enough to offer his vehicle and served as our guide for the day. We took a quick drive through Waikiki to show Darin the sight, but quickly made our way towards the coast to our first...
We arrived in Nawiliwili a little before 8am and decided to sleep in a bit before our 9:30am meeting time for our Kauai Photo Tour. We met up with our driver and made our way north and east to Kapa’a town, where the Photo shop was based out of and where we would meet our driver and guide for the day. The staff at the shop are incredibly friendly and they are...
This morning, we woke up to the rolling of the sea swells as we anchored out in the harbor of Lahaina, Maui. Today is a tender port and we will be renting a car to see the island of Maui for the very first time. Though we made good time into the port, the tender process was slowed significantly as the differential between the ship and the tenders varied by up to 8...
After 5 days at sea, we arrived into the port of Hilo, Hawaii on the Big Island on time at 7am, completed Immigration and made our way down to the gangway for a 7:30am exit from the ship. We were picked up by the local Enterprise Rental Car shop (all the Rental Car companies had mini buses and vans for the incoming ships… Yes, we were joined in port today by the...
The final day at sea entry is a set of odds and ends of bits and pieces of observations, ideas, and notes that didn’t really fall into any particular area, so it ends up in a single posting here… 1) Small Ship Simplification — The smaller ship concept has won us over, and though everything is a bit smaller than we are used to, overall any compromises are minimal and...
Today’s At Sea entry is actually a mixture of two elements of the ship, the first focuses on the physical movement of the ship, and there certainly has been a good share of it, and the other music, entertainment, and activities on-board. As we left the gentle waters of Tahiti and the other Polynesian islands, we began our 5 days at sea heading due north in the...
Back for the next installment of the Day at Sea entries… Today’s entry is on the Staterooms and Passenger Decks… For this trip, we elected to take our very first Guarantee stateroom (meaning that Princess can place us in any location as long as the category of stateroom is equal or greater than the one we paid for). In this case, we purchased an Oceanview category...
Today’s Day at Sea entry on the Royal Princess is about its Public Areas… Given the smaller size of the ship, we were wondering what kind of compromises needed to be made to the public areas as the ship was shrunk down for the smaller ship cruise experience. Outside public areas: There is only one pool on-board and it is located mid-ship Deck 9. In addition, there...
The sea day entries, as they have been on the last few of our trips, will not be specific to the activities we did on these days, as generally we take sea days very mellow. Instead, these entries will be focused on a different aspect of the Royal Princess, the ship we are on for this cruise — its amenities, staff, and public rooms. Today’s entry — Food and Dining on...
This morning was actually a slow start morning, as our tour didn’t depart from the tender dock until 9am. Given that we arrived into Bora Bora’s tiny tender point of Vaitape at 7am, some people were actually coming back from shore when we boarded our tender at 8:30am. When we arrived to the Vaitape pier, we exited the tender, walked 6 feet to the left, and saw on...
After docking in the main port town of Uturoa, on the island of Raiatea, we quickly disembarked the ship and made our way to a small dock just about 50 yards away from the ship to meet up with today’s shore excursion “L’Excursion Bleu” and Bruno Fabre, our guide for the day. Bruno has been in the business for 15 years and comes with a lot of positive recommendations...
An early start for all as today is one of our three tender days and ensuring that we start our independent tours on time is always a key requirement to see everything we hope for on our trips. As we awoke, the ship was still en-route to Moorea, as we had departed from Papeete at 4am this morning. Given that Moorea is only 18 nautical miles away, it only took about 2...
The day began early as we had hoped to visit the Marche Municipal (The City Market), a massive, two story building that covered nearly two city blocks that made any farmers market at home look like a roadside stand. Hundreds of vendors, some with little more than folding tables, to entire “shops”, built entirely into the building come together in a massive connected...
We’re back and we’re excited to be crossing one the major travel destinations off our bucket list with this 17 day trip to Tahiti and Hawaii. As with many of the destinations on our list, Tahiti is a long way away from home, so today is a heavy travel day as we make our way from Oakland, California to Papeete, Tahiti via Honolulu, Hawaii. Up at 5:30am, we...