Yay! We're going on a cruise!!! seven days on the Pride of Aloha (NCLA), leaving from Honolulu and coming back there, stopping in Kona, Kauai, Maui, and Hilo. We have two outside cabins with picture windows (very cool, Mom and I didn't have a window on our other cruise - be nice to see the islands while we're cruising past them!) We are in staterooms 8009 and 8010 :) We are flying in on December 16th, and spending one night pre cruise at the Marriott Waikiki which is nice, because at that hotel, you can book into the cruise at the hotel, and get rid of your luggage etc. I personally plan to be there as early as possible like Mom and I did on our HAL cruise - we got a full extra day of fun by being there before the security guards, and therefore allowing us to be roughly third on the boat-also great to explore in empty peace!

(Me, looking slightly deranged, but VERY HAPPY on the phone with Michael, our Personal Cruise Consultant at NCL booking the cruise...note the sticky notes, I seem to be developing a serious addiction to them. But really, what could be better, one thought per lovely square yellow-y space!?)

Unfortunately, Tonya and company can't join us for our trip, BUT they have a pretty good excuse - they're buying a horse!!! Congratulations, girls! Your going to be proud new mommies soon!!! Very cool! Also very cool is that Cyd is going to start vaulting soon at the Marland's!! I met her future coach at provincials, as well as Cheeco, who won a horse award! I hope to see Cyd at future Chilliwack competitions, since Marika brings her club over to them!

We're planning a second week on land on Oahu after the cruise, but we're still 'homeless' for that portion of it, so details to follow as we get them. Really, I don't care - we're going on a cruise!!!! Yay!!!

Hmmmm deep breath :)

Otherwise today wasn't so exciting - poor Pete is still recovering from his cold, so my biggest expedition was to take Venus to the local pharmacy and get some cold medication 'ru ru gold' for Pete. Given the whole exchange was in Japanese, and there was no confirmational English on the bottle, its lucky he's still perkily walking around!

Mostly hung out, reading, finishing Desperate Housewives season 2, etc. Once we'd basically decided to book the cruise, we killed the time before the booking centre opened at 6:30am/11:30pm for us, by watching a documentary on Waikiki ('Waikiki, In the Wake of Dreams, scroll down a bit), which was a great way to get in the right mood, and also by checking out the possible shore excursions, of which there are MANY for our trip!

Anyway, that's about it! Tomorrow's big scheduled excitement is a trip to Costco, but in the meantime, I have to go inform the other half of our group that they need to get some cruise wear! That is, if they haven't read the blog by the time I manage to dial!
D