We’re Back!

We’ve been back from our Hawaii adventure for over a week now so it’s time to catch up on what we been doing for the past few weeks.

We left the motorhome parked in Arizona and drove the Jeep to San Diego and stayed at the Wyndam San Diego Bayside hotel. It’s a perfect location for a pre-cruise stop, but not a great hotel. However, they have a long term parking garage where we could leave the Jeep, so that made up for their deficiencies.

Here’s a video of our view from the room balcony

Our cruise was on the Holland America Eurodam. The ship is 936 ft long, and 105.8 ft wide. It has 11 passenger decks and weighs in at a hefty 86,273 tons. There’s plenty of room for its 2,100 passengers.

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Our room was on Deck 8 mid ship. It was a nice room, a little cozy, but it had a verandah!

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I didn’t realize how far away Hawaii was until we got aboard and I took a look at our itinerary. Five days at sea just to get there. In total we traveled 5,030 miles at an average speed of 15 knots (17.26 MPH).

For most of the days at sea, and every night for happy hour, we could be found at Lido deck pool (the only smoking section on the boat). That’s our group on the right side under the canopies.

This was our view pretty much the five days going there and back.

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Our excursion in Honolulu was the “Pearl Harbor History & Honolulu Highlights” tour. We drove through the neighborhoods of the early missionaries to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the final resting place of more than 35,000 Americans, including 776 who perished at Pearl Harbor. We saw the downtown area and City Hall, as well as the authentic Chinatown district, which is considered the “Red Light” district when the sun goes down.

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The last stop on the tour was at Pearl Harbor to see the Arizona Memorial

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After a 20-minute film that depicted the events of the 1941 attack, we boarded a Navy launch for a harbor tour of Battleship Row, the area where eight US battleships were moored during the attack on Pearl Harbor. The boat then circled the USS Arizona Memorial where more that 1,000 servicemen still lie entombed. Unfortunately, because of structural issues, the memorial is not open and we didn’t get to go inside, but just being close was a moving experience. Here’s a video of the harbor tour.

Our next port is Nawiliwili, Kauai and the Kings, Trains & Waterfalls excursion.

Stay tuned.