Tuesday December 19, 2006 Kauai Day Two
This morning Peter and Grampa headed off on their helicopter tour ridiculously early, and Mom and I slept in, relatively speaking, until 8. Today we decided to go to Crossings for breakfast, and had a different server from dinner (we hadn’t requested Anna). He was fine, and we enjoyed our breakfasts (I had the fruit plate and waffles, and mom had an omlette and toast). At about 9, we headed off the ship and walked to the nearby Marriott where we rented boogie boards and flippers (so ridiculous to walk in!) and went boogie boarding on their beach. It was so much fun!

The waves were about 6 feet at the roughest times, and around 4 feet the rest of the time it was rough enough that they weren’t letting anyone have surf lessons, and only experienced surfers were allowed to rent the boards. Mom quickly got the hang of catching the waves, but I didn’t have quite so much luck with it! Finally, on the last wave, even though it was only small, like around 2-3 feet, I got rocketed into shore, it was awesome! The comedian yesterday was pretty correct though when he said that boogie boarding is the equivalent of pile driving yourself into the shore, and getting sand everywhere! We filled our shower with sand even though we thought we’d basically rinsed off at the beach, it was nuts! The only bad thing about the boogie boarding was the board rash we got on our stomachs, and a little bit on our legs... When we do surfing lessons in Maui I think we’ll be wearing t-shirts for sure!

The most challenging part of the whole thing was trying to get past the first set of breaking waves, which could really pound you if you didn’t get through or over them sufficiently... Given that this was baby surf on the scheme of things, it must be an amazing amount of power when you get into the big 30 foot North Shore style waves! We’ll have to go watch them next week in Oahu I think!

We headed back to the ship via a stop for shampoo and conditioner at the ABC store (there is only 2 in 1, so pack accordingly!), and were back on the boat by around noon. By the time we finished showering, Grampa and Peter were back on board, so we all went for lunch together in the buffet, and ate on the aft lanai while we watched the sail away from Kauai.

We were getting completely windblown down there, so Grampa headed up for a nap, and Mom, Peter and I went to deck 12 and grabbed some lounge chairs to chillax for a couple of hours. I’m slowly starting to lose the ‘Yes, I’m a Canadian’ skin color I came out here with (and I had such a great Kabuki tan earlier this year L ). There was ‘scenic cruising’ with announcements explaining what we were seeing, but I only vaguely paid attention – I was too busy napping and reading, and Peter was catching up with his sleep from his early morning, so we loaded mom up with cameras and sent her to the railing to document the scenery – we’ll see it later! I did get up to check it out once, and it was gorgeous, but the lounge chair was more chillerific at the time...

At about 4:30, we were getting way too blown around, so we came back to the staterooms, and, um, napped a little bit more (its vacation after all!) At six, mom and I went to the necklace making class in the cultural center. We made a necklace and a bracelet each, and I also had enough nut and shell beads left to make a kind of zipper pull thing.

We came back to the cabin to dress for dinner – it was formal night, and Mom and I were opting in....The ship was generally dressed more formally than last night, but there was a huge variety! I don’t care what anyone else is wearing, but it’s fun to get dressed up occasionally, so that’s what we did!

We went to the Stardust theatre at 7:45 to watch Mark Marcy, the magician and comedian perform – he was very clever and a great performer! They’ve added an extra show we’ll be going to on Thursday if we have a chance, when magicians are good, they’re really good, and he definitely was! He had us laughing and impressed throughout most of the show – a pretty good combination of entertainment!

Straight after the show we headed back down to Crossings for dinner. True to her word, the hostess had held a table for us in Anna’s section (we tried to make a reservation this morning and found that they only do reservations for tables of more than six, which was fine, we weren’t that bothered, but would have liked to be in Anna’s section again, so we were happy to be seated there).

She was just as friendly as yesterday, despite having had a terrible evening – someone had yelled at her before she’d even gotten a chance to introduce herself, and they were really upset about the whole Freestyle concept, and mad about something to do with what table they were at. While they may have been upset, swearing at Anna was way over the line! We tried to cheer her up, and I think by the time we finally left (last ones in the dining room again, oops!) I think her night was looking up a bit – she even gave Mom and I some super secret instructions on how to get to a beach for on our ‘Tour Hilo on your own Bicycle’ tour we’re doing tomorrow while Peter and Grampa tour Mauna Kea, which may or may not be the world’s tallest mountain (see also: Kong, Odaiba dinner, dinner at Sohan’s for all the back story on this debate!)

After dinner, at about 10:45, we walked down to the photographers to see if there was a better picture of Mom (the one Peter bought was unfortunate, to say the least), and then Peter, Mom, and I went to the Blue Lagoon to bring in the ‘New Year’. We didn’t dance as much as yesterday even though there were more people, but we did participate in the Conga Line, throw the New Year’s streamers, learn a couple of dances, and make total fools our of ourselves for a couple of songs. There was a hilarious couple’s balloon popping game where you had to pop a balloon by hugging, and then the guy turned around and your popped it by squishing it between the girls stomach and his ass, and then finally put on the balloon on his lap and popped it by sitting on his lap – no hands allowed for any of this. There were a few surprisingly hard to pop balloons, I have to say!

Came back to the room around midnight again (New Year’s on the Pride of Aloha actually happens at 11:30 pm apperantly), ate our mint chocolates from the pillows (we also got a super cute towel elephant today!), and now I’m blogging while Mom gets her beauty sleep before the 7:40 am wake up call.

Seas are, I’d say, definitely mild! You can completely tell you are on a boat tonight which is nice, but it’s nothing more exciting than a slightly rough BC Ferries ride (ie: not rough at all). Occasionally you walk a bit sideways, and the dance floor was a bit disconcerting – sometimes we’d all be spinning left and it would be rocking right, it was the ‘everyone is now equally and instantly tipsy’ dance floor! We have a gentle side to side roll, but no noticeable front to back pitch.

At the shore excursion desk earlier though, when it was even more mild and you could only feel the motion every ten minutes or so, this one guy walked up and asked when we’d be getting to Hilo. The person told him at 8, and the guys goes: “So, like, its going to be going like this all that time then?” Gesturing wildly up and down with his hands. The poor shore ex. Staff member had to explain that yes, the small boat in the big ocean would probably continue to move for the duration of the journey. I’m not sure exactly what the guy was expecting to feel on this trip, but I guess he’s happier when we’re docked, which luckily for him is most of the time on this trip!

Time for bed I think!
Aloha
D