Back in Honolulu

Painting of native Hawaiian dancers, another

paintinng by our cabin.

Another Hawaiian painting that hung by our cabin.

A painting of adorable Hawaiian children.

The grill outside the Hukilau Cafe was a popular spot

especially in the morning serving up any kind of omelet you desired.

The Hukilau Cafe where casual dining was held.

One of many Hawaiian murals on the ship.

Day Nine-Honolulu A poem called I’ll Remember You by Kui Lee was in the Freestyle Daily with these words dedicated to the Officers, Staff and Crew of the Pride of Aloha:

I’ll remember you
Long after this endless summer is gone
I’ll be lonely oh so lonely
Living only to remember you
I’ll remember too
Your voice as soft as the
Warm summer breeze
Your sweet laughter
Mornings after
Ever after, I’ll remember you
To your arms someday I’ll
Return to stay
Till then…
I will remember too
Every bright star we made
Wishes upon
Love me always, promise
Always;
You’ll remember too
I’ll remember you.

The last day of our cruise just happened to be Mother’s Day and I thought it would be nice to find a place to enjoy a nice brunch. We disembarked and had to call Thrifty Car Rental to see about getting a shuttle. We finally got there and we ended up being there for 2 hours trying to get everything straight. Apparently since Alan wasn’t the one that reserved the car but was driving it they had problems with the paperwork. We didn’t have problems at any of the other times we’d gone to Thrifty on this trip. It was so frustrating and finally they gave us a discount for having to wait so long. We got on our way late and we had originally planned to go to the Hawaiian Cultural Center but when I found out how far it was I told Alan that we could cancel that. We then tried looking for a restaurant and it was hard to find one since we were already on the highway and there weren’t any signs of a restaurant anywhere. We found lots of fast food places but I wanted to go to a nice sit down restaurant. We stopped at a Starbucks and had our latte and frapaccino and asked if there was one close but they didn’t know of any. While we were there I was able to buy a couple of Starbuck gift cards that had Hawaiian hula girls on them. Marie, who works at the Starbucks in Baltimore we go to wanted one so we got one for her and then I decided I’d like one too. After leaving there we decided to head on back to Waikiki and try to find a place there. At least they had a Denny’s that we knew we could go to. We drove down the road to where we saw a sign saying Mother’s Day Brunch so we pulled over and asked if they were still serving it as it was 11:30 and the parking valet said yes so we handed him the keys, got my scooter and away we went. It was a very nice hotel and we found the buffet area only to find out that it was closed so I ended up ordering some fish tacos. YUK! I couldn’t eat them, as they were too spicy. We had waited over an hour for it to be delivered so by that time the luncheon buffet was open so I got some salad from it. It seemed like everything was empty from the buffet. This just wasn’t my day and it seemed like everything was going wrong. We left there and went over to the Royal Hawaiian and had some drinks and that seemed to help. The first drink I had was a Shirley Temple since the drink had been created at that hotel especially for Miss Shirley Temple, then I had another drink that was a little more grown up. I began to feel better.

It was getting hot so we headed on down to the beach. We found a parking spot close to the park and walked down towards the little food hut. Alan went to Starbucks to get biscotti to feed to the fish. We always enjoyed feeding the fish. We headed back to Thrifty Car Rental to turn in the car and on the way stopped at Hilo Hattie’s to exchange the shirt Alan had bought the first day we arrived in Honolulu, the one that was a woman’s shirt. They had no problem exchanging it. Then we were on our way to the airport. We walked on to our Gate and then were told our plane was being switched so we had to hustle to another Gate. It sure was a good thing I had my scooter. Shortly after arriving at the Gate there was an announcement that there weren’t enough seats for everyone since it was a smaller plane and asked if anyone wanted to volunteer to stay in Hawaii. Alan asked if I wanted to and I agreed it was a good thing. He went up to the attendant and told her we would volunteer. They put us up in a 4-star hotel in Waikiki right on the beach across the street from the beach with an ocean view! They also gave us vouchers for all our meal since we wouldn’t be leaving until the following night and a $600 airfare voucher towards a future flight with them. I had to call my boss and let her know I wouldn’t be at work on Tuesday but that wasn’t a problem. It seems after a day filled with so much going wrong we were given a ‘Do-Over’ day. It was around 9:30pm by the time we arrived back in Waikiki and we were able to relax and brush off everything from the day before.