My future probably won’t include more trips to Hawaii. I will pass on Hawaii. Also, we had people (two ladies) with us the whole time, so everything was group event or decision. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without everyone knowing my business.

The Flight
Well, it started off as long but on time. Be prepared to lose 6 hours Eastern Time and gain 6 hours of light their time. The flights were all on time. It took me almost 24 hours to get home. Well, we left from Honolulu and went to Kona, an outside airport, and were informed we wouldn’t take off until about 2 hours later than scheduled due to an air filter problem. So, basically, the overnight flight to Chicago got us there at 10 am instead of 8 am. So we missed the Richmond flight. We were all over that airport (Chicago), shuffled from line to line. We finally were put on a flight to Dulles/Washington DC at 11 pm at night.

Remember, we landed at 10 am Sunday. So not only did I get home around 6:30 am Monday (was supposed to be home at 10 am Sunday), we had to spend another $150 on a rental car from Dulles to Richmond. I was sick of traveling and being stuck. And there was a sort of mutiny among us, two of us wanting to hang out in Chicago until Tuesday or Wednesday and the other two wanting to get home ASAP. Then to put the icing on the cake, once we arrived in Richmond, we had to wait at least another hour because our bags were locked in the baggage claim area since they had apparently arrived before us. Remember, we paid for a flight back to Richmond, so when we originally checked our luggage that was used as the final destination. However, we ended up at Dulles airport instead of Richmond.

Pride of America
We went on a 7 day Hawaiian cruise 4/7 -4/15. This is our tenth cruise, so we have a lot of background knowledge to give a balanced critique of it.

First, for those of you on the East coast: be prepared for the long flight. Not as bad going as coming back. The ship was fairly nice and seemed newer. The staff was mostly American as compared to other ships. They were good but not excellent like the foreign flags ships of the Caribbean.

We traveled with two ladies. So everything we did on this cruise was a group thing. This cruise was port intensive. Every day we a stop somewhere. We only had a ½ day at sea on Friday, the last day. I am use to Caribbean vibe on other cruises; so, musically, I wasn’t impressed with the band. It was Hawaiian music, which bores me. If you’re into hanging out by the pool expecting the dance stuff of the Caribbean, it isn’t happening. Some of my best CDs of reggae I got in West Indies.

No music to buy in Hawaii. Well, if you want to see four places in Hawaii, this cruise offers 4 stops: Maui, Kona, Hilo, and Kauai. My favorite was Maui, which was the most exciting place from what I saw but expensive. In summary, I doubt I would venture back on this cruise, but I would recommend it for those of you wanting to see a lot of Hawaii.

Hilo
Our first day, we were in Hilo. We had a guy take us around all the good spots. We started at a Japanese-type water garden complete with gazebos and little bridges over some lakes. We then went to Rainbow Falls and walked around. We went to the Mauna Loa macadamia factory. We got different treats there, like the honey roasted ones, which were great. We also went to Volcanoes National Park. This was a lot of walking and barren type craters. We saw some steam vents and went to lava tube. It was dark, muddy, and damp.

Maui
Definitely my favorite stop in Hawaii. The island is beautiful, especially West Maui: Lahaina and Kaanapali Beach. They were beautiful areas. The beaches had powdery sand and nice water. The first day we went to Malea Harbor for a snorkeling cruise supposedly to Molokini Crater. We never made it to that place, though. We ended up at Coral Gardens, which had some fish; but I’m sure Molokini would have been a lot better.

Our second day in Maui was neat. We rented a blue Mustang convertible and drove to the west side of Maui. We stopped and watched surfers in several locations. We even watched a guy give lessons near Lahaina. We also went to Hilo Hatties, the store of Hawaii, and bought some t-shirts and key chains. I saw a lot of nice hotels and resorts in Kaanapali Beach. If I were to come back to Hawaii, I would go straight to Maui and skip the rest.

"I would go straight to Maui and skip the rest."

Kona
We went shopping in Kona. We walked around and got some pizza while waiting for our tour to begin. We did the Dolphin sail and snorkel tour. The boat was small, and it was smaller area they took us to for snorkeling. I saw a few fish, again nothing like the Caribbean. I would say Kona was okay but nothing extraordinary.

Kauai We went to our excursion, which was tubing the ditch. It was pretty fun. You get fitted with a hat with a light and some gloves. Basically, they put you in a big inner tube and the water whirls you around and floats you down through a series of waterways and tunnels. Your tube is constantly in motion, and it is really fun.