I'm Back From Hawaii!

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This is the ship -the Princess Star - on which I took a 15 day cruise. We went from Vancouver, British Columbia to Hawaii and back again.  It was five days on the Pacific to Hawaii, four days making stops in the islands of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai where we took day time excursions and then a five day return trip back to Vancouver.  When we  stopped in Maui, we had to take tenders into the island instead of being docked.  The ship was huge (1000 feet long and about 300 feet wide and about 14 stories high) and beautifully decked out.  This was the view from the beach in Maui.

On the first day, I thought for sure there was a wave pool on the way to breakfast as waves were definitely breaking over the side.  Later, it was rough enough that they had to close to pool to swimming and the water was going way over the four foot walls about eight feet away from the pool!!  It wasn't a wave pool obviously, just rough waters -- I did take Dramamine six of the days we were on the water!

There were a lot of decorations (ice sculptures and sculpted fruits and vegetables at the meals). This display was for a day they were offering sushi by the pool.  If you look closely, you can see the dragon made from pineapples.

Many times they had bouquets like this one at the meals.

I took many pictures of the wakes.  We were going about 20 knots most of the trip and the water was a beautiful blue.

This was one of many many different mosaic fish that were on the columns by one of the four swimming pools.  I loved looking at these mosaics and the floor tiles and fancy carpeting as well as stained glass accents.  It was really a beautiful ship!

The food was unbelievable besides the shear amount of it.  Here is the gang at dinner one ,  night.  My best friend from high school Vicki is the one on the far left -- she invited me on this trip after one of the ladies planning on coming dropped out.  I am the second from the left.  Mary Ellen and Marjie make up the group.  The three ladies I with whom I went are all members of the same bridge group down in Florida.  Needless to say, playing bridge made the hours we were at sea just fly by!  We played bridge a lot (I learned a lot an hopefully will be better this spring when Vicki comes up here for the sectional tournament) and played a game called Hand and Foot (Canasta on steroids).  And the rest of the time we just lazed and ate and ate and ate!!  I also took the opportunity to go to the geology lectures which took place most days we were at sea.  They were a bit over my head but did give us a lot of information on tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and tectonic plates which helped us to understand what we would be seeing in Hawaii and why the islands are each quite different.