Thursday December 21st, 2006 – Kona
Mom and Peter went off on a snorkeling adventure this morning, and I was sleeping in until Grampa called and woke me up at nine to get breakfast. Since he didn’t want to go to the buffet, and breakfast in Crossings ends at 9, we decided to tender into Kona in order to get breakfast. The tender ride was on a lifeboat and held 120 of us as well took the five minute trip over to the dock. It was pretty efficient and a fun ride over – I love being on the water, and its not like you really feel like you are on a boat on this ship!
(looking back at the town)
(always good advice!)
We found a slightly sketchy place on the water, with a non so enthusiastic guy working there, but we were hungry and didn’t really know what other options there were, so we went in there, and the macademia nut pancakes I had were actually really good. Grampa just had eggs and toast, but they couldn’t poach them because they didn’t have the water for that apperantly – makes you wonder!

After breakfast, we just spent about three hours wandering around the little town near the port – we checked out an old historical site (I would check the name, but that would require getting up), looked at the artifacts in a hotel lobby, checked out the beach, took photos of the ship, went inside a really nice stone church, checked out the outside of a summer palace, bought some books about Hawaii, and had macadamia nut ice cream (me), and Long board lager (Grampa) at the Canoe Club on the water. We saw a really cute and colorful lizard while we were eating, and Grampa got some good photos I think.
(Macademia nut icecream and Longboard Lager pitstop at the Canoe Club)
(Summer palace, we didn't go in, just looked at the outside)
(stone church from across the street)

Headed back to the ship and tendered over at about 1pm Mom and Peter were still away on their tour, so Grampa stayed in his cabin to rest, and I headed up to the buffet for lunch – they had good salad stuff today! Then I actually went to the Outrigger lounge, but they were having a crew training session, so I went to the sports bar, and read my Outpost magazine, and actually broke out the Genki textbooks for about 45 minutes. That got to be too unvacationish pretty quickly, so I headed to the pool deck and read my magazine until 3:45 when it was time for the pax vs. crew beach volleyball game.

I ended up making a complete fool out of myself at the beginning – I waited until one other woman got up and joined in the two crew guys who were playing with the volleyball on the deck before we started. Then, they started doing ridiculous aerobic/stretching on the deck, with the microphone, in front of everyone... The other woman (not wearing a name tag or anything) joined in, so I did as well. It wasn’t until they introduced all the crew, that I realized I was the only one not getting paid to bounce around like an idiot – it turns out she was the piano bar performer!

After the game (the pax won 2 games to 1), I headed back down to shower off the saltwater from the pool, and get changed – everyone was back by then, so we made a plan for the rest of the evening, and Peter, Grampa and I headed up to the buffet area to jump on the wifi – I was trying to upload the blog finally, but it didn’t work out too well... So far, this ‘live’ blog has only been live on this file – sorry!

At 6:45 we went to see the magician Matt Marcy again in the Blue Hawaii this time, doing close up sleight of hand magic – he was really good again! He also taught the audience how to do one trick, so I’ll have to try that out at some point... Then, it was time for the ‘On the Radio’ Pride of Aloha Crew Show in the Stardust theatre, which was pretty good – the dancers all know and perform an amazing amount of choreography between the two shoes, and the singers are all fairly good (though I’m not exactly the best judge!).Peter figures the music selection was a bit random (I didn’t even recognize about 1/3 of the songs, but I figured that was just me), but we all enjoyed it, and we’re a pretty varied audience in terms of music, for sure!

Then, it was time for our 8:30 dinner reservation – we’d reserved for five, in Anna’s section, on her suggestion – they won’t actually accept reservations for four or fewer. Unfortunatly, when we got there, Anna was sick, so not working – it’s much harder to play off the mystery fifth person when you’re missing your inside man! We figure our server (who was also nice) had seen this trick before, but since the dining room was basically empty, we didn’t feel bad about having an extra seat or two at our table.

Hopefully Anna will be back tomorrow so we can conquer this dining room malarkey! In anycase, my dinner was delicious – corn chowder and beef Wellington . I also tried a piece of tuna sashimi! And It was pretty good as well...

After dinner, we headed up the Blue Hawaii for Liars Club (who says that vacation is for relaxing?) and voted on which member of the celebrity panel was telling the truth in a balderdash type situation. After that show, Grampa and Peter bailed, and Mom and I stayed for the ladies night – ‘Ship ‘n Males’ show. There are some things best done with girlfriends and not mothers, and really, watching strip shows is probably one of them! I think we both expected a bit more of a caberet dance type thing, but really it was pretty full on stripping (down to skivvies). I wonder when they told the bartenders and waiters that they’d be strippers on the side? Before or after they signed their contract to pass out bread? Unfortunately we didn’t have any ones on us, and therefore couldn’t stuff money where the sun don’t shine, and besides that, who goes to a strip club with their mothers? We passed on the blow job shooters and headed back to the stateroom to sleep and blog. We have an early morning tomorrow (my first proper tour – the Haleakala crater, I’m really hoping I don’t get too carsick!) so I’m going to crash now too...

Aloha,
D

PS- how about that Rosie vs. Donald feud?