we went to the evening show. We did not care for it so we stayed for
about half the show.
cousin Mary Jane at a prearranged McDonald’s for a nice visit at about 3
p.m. David took
us to the ship and they took off. David will keep our car and pick us up
when we return to
San Diego.
We have a nice large cabin with a veranda and floor-to-ceiling windows.
We had over
four days on the ocean. During this time it was mostly relaxing doing my
regular walks
and lots of eating. Some of the evening shows were quite good,. We had
nice table
partners--Bob and Logene Wickwire, from Gainesville, Florida, and Pete
and Celeste
Alexander from Cotterville, Michigan. I think this is the eighth time
we’ve been to
Hawaii.
Sunday 22, Hilo. A cloudy day with rain showers off and on, and after a
two mile walk
and breakfast in the Lido restaurant we took a shuttle bus to a shopping
center. The bus went to a Hilo Hattie store. This is a tourist trap if
you ever saw one. So we walked in one door and out the other. Then went
about half a block to a nice Sears store and next to it was a nice
shopping center of at least a hundred stores. After walking through the
mall we took the shuttle back to the ship and had lunch. After lunch I
took a one hour tour of interesting points of the Hilo area. After dinner
we went to the evening show. We did not care for it so we stayed for
about half the show.
23. Honolulu. Today we are going on a tour that includes visiting the battleship Missouri. This is the ship that was used signing the treaty with Japan, ending WW2 on Sept 2, 1945. This was the signing of Japan’s formal instrument of surrender. This brought an end to the world’s bloodiest war. After visiting the Missouri we went to a nice hotel and had a very good lunch. A glass of wine, mahi mahi dinner including Caesar salad and dessert. We were at a table next to the pool. After lunch we toured the city seeing points of interest. In the evening we had a good dinner and a rather good show.
24. Today we were at Maui. This is the island where Sally and Mike live. After breakfast we got off the ship and called the car rental office (I had reserved a car) for them to pick us up and take us to their office so we could get a car. While we were at the rental office we tried many times to get hold of Sally, but no answer. After about 45 minutes she called back and she was at work. She gave us directions to where she works at a university. It was quite a ways from where we were and it was getting late but we took off in our rented car and drove and drove, but we could not find the school. We were way off and lost. After a long time we talked to someone at a coffee shop, they said you have to go back a long ways and take another road. It sounded like about twenty or thirty miles. After thinking it over we decided not to bother. and just do some sightseeing and take the car back and go back to the ship. This we did. We were sorry we did not get to see Sally and Mike but we did have an interesting day. After we got back to the ship we rested a while and at 4 p.m. we went to a movie. It was not bad and I stayed and watched most of it. After dinner we went to the show, we did not stay the full time and got to bed quite on time as we were tired.
25. Today we are at the island of Kauai, the city of Nawiliwili, we got
here at 10:30. At
about 11 we had an early lunch and got off the ship. We had four
different choices of 
free shuttles to different shopping centers. So we chose the one that
was furthest away
and we had a nice long bus ride to this shopping place. The driver was
good about
pointing out everything on the way. When we got there we were told that
the bus ran
every thirty minutes, so we could go back any time. This was quite a
tourist trap, there
must have been about 50 shops, everything was nice and quite new, so we
wandered
around and did a lot of window shopping and took the next bus back to the
ship. Then we
got on another free shuttle bus that took us to a large Kmart and we were
told this bus
runs every fifteen minutes. So we did a little shopping at Kmart and
next to Kmart was a
Sears store and lots of smaller stores of every kind. So we spent quite a
lot of time there
and went back to the ship. There were two other free shuttles going to
other shopping
centers but we had enough so we got on the ship and rested awhile. At 4
we went to a
movie. I only stayed about 15 minutes and walked out. I did not care of
it. So here I sit
writing and Nancy I am sure will stay for the whole movie. It has to be
pretty bad for her
to walk out but not for me. At 6 we had a good dinner and after dinner
went to a one-man
show. Quite good show, mostly singing.
26. Today we are at Kona. This is our last day in Hawaii, Tonight we leave about 5:30 on our long relaxing cruise to San Diego. Should get there next Wednesday morning. This forenoon we went ashore for a while, took a free shuttle ride to a shopping center. Had a bit to eat and went out to the pier as we had signed up for a trip on the glass bottom boat at 12:30. It was quite interesting. I was surprised to see so much coral and lots of colorful fish, many very much like the ones people have in large aquariums. At 4 p.m. we will go to a movie, get free popcorn, and unless it is good I will walk out as usual. Well, we went to the movie and got our popcorn. The movie was all about mountain climbers. I stayed for about 45 minutes and walked out. About that time the ship left Kona and was leaving Hawaii. I took some video as we were leaving and I had a nice prime rib dinner. Most of the time I get chicken or some kind of fish, often salmon. After dinner we went to the evening show, a large group of men and women singing loud and dancing, could not understand what they were singing, they were all over the stage. It was quite spectacular but after about thirty minutes I had enough and went to our cabin. At about 10:30 p.m.. we came along the volcano. That was quite a sight, seeing the red hot lava coming down the mountain and into the ocean. Our ship was at least half a mile from the shore. I took some video. I sure hope it shows up good. The ocean is quite choppy but so far it has not bothered us, in fact we sort of enjoy it.
27. We are on our way to San Diego, will not get there until Wednesday morning. So most days will be much the same. A two mile walk, do lots of eating, some reading and relaxing, a movie in the afternoon, and a show at night. Some are good. Two evenings will be formal dress for dinner. Tonight is one of them.
28. This day the same as most days at sea. We were invited as past Holland America travelers to the Mariner social reception. There were hundreds of people there that had been on Holland America before, at the reception. They gave those who had traveled on Holland America one hundred, three hundred, or five hundred days, medallions for the same. We were surprised when our name was called to receive our 100-day copper medallion. I think there were about 40 or 50 of us as I had not kept track of how many days or how far we had traveled on Holland America.
Sunday 29. We went to church service this morning and were invited to a Mariner club party at 5:15 before dinner by the Golden Bear travel agency. After dinner and show.
Monday 30th. At sea. Formal dress tonight, and baked Alaska parade at dinner, sort of a farewell dinner.
May 1. Our last full day at sea, should get to San Diego about 7 a.m. and we hope to get off the ship by nine. Today a US coast guard helicopter picked someone up off the ship, perhaps he had a heart attack. We must have been at least 300 or perhaps 400 miles from San Diego. We got back to San Diego on time, soon David was there to pick us up. It was a nice relaxing interesting cruise.
Grant.