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Today we arrived at port in Honolulu to disembark the ship and fly home. It was going to be a few hours of sitting at the airport to arrive home in the afternoon (local time). They announced that our flight was over-booked so we jumped at the chance to get ‘bumped’ for a later flight in return for some flight vouchers. We were bumped which turned out to be great for more than just the vouchers!

Our later flight left about 6 hours later so we took the city bus (for $2) to Waikiki to spend the afternoon there. We were able to get the last couple souvenirs we wanted to get for people and had dinner one more night on the coast at Duke’s. This was perfect since we weren’t really ready to leave anyways. Here’s tiffany’s excited call to her mom:

At Waikiki beach there was a strong wind and so there were lots of win surfers in the water.

We also got sat in the emergency isle for the return flight so we had tons of leg room!

Unfortunately that’s it for the honeymoon! Back to real life!

Today we left port for the last time and headed around the north side of the island. We passed the
Kiluea lighthouse on our way lighthouse on our way.

The waters during this trip were the roughest of the trip! It was actually a lot of fun to walk around the ship and see people walking, and the best part was the pool!!!! These pictures don’t show it well, but there’s some videos we took of the pool emptying all over the top deck.

Today we were at sea for a long time including passing the Na Pali coastline. We took lots of pictures of the coastline because it was so breathtaking. Here’s a handful of them:

We took time to relax on our balcony with a great view!

Today’s towel creation was 2 swans kissing making a heart!

This morning we were treated to a beautiful view of the sunrise as we were pulling into the dock.

We rented scooters today to get around Kauai which was really a lot of fun, but Tiffany almost took a spill. It was scary as hell, as she almost went into an oncoming car! The lady that owned the scooter rental place gave us directions to a really beautiful area that only locals knew about. We took some pictures with the underwater camera as we left our digital with her thinking we might not be able to keep it dry. The people at Costco exposed the film to light and none of our pictures from Kipu Falls came out very well.

We drove all the way to Wailua Falls on the scooters and took a few pictures and found a fish made of palms.

Halfway through the day when our scooter rental was done, we were picked up by David and Katie in their Jeep rental and we went in hunt of waterfalls.

We then found some offroad trails that we took the Jeep through. It included some water crossings and we ran into a lot of locals including people washing their cars in the streams! It was a lot of fun!

There was a mix of locals who gave us dirty looks and those who waved their beer out their window at us with smiles on their faces! We also found a really interesting sign about a hunting area which we decided not to enter!

We also hit a bird, so we stopped to look at it in the grille and take a couple pictures of the agriculture on Kauai!

We stopped at a few beaches on the way to the end because they were so beautiful. These beaches make the Southern California ones look horrible! A couple we stopped at were Kalihiwai Bay, Hanalei Bay, and Wainiha Bay.

There was also a cave at the end of the road which we had to take a couple pictures of before starting the hike. We didn’t realize the hike was slated to take 8 hours as it’s 11 miles each way, so we began the hike and talked to some people explaining it’s difficulty. We took a few pictures and decided to turn around and go back.

On the drive back we stopped to find more waterfalls and found a couple really neat ones.

Today’s towel animal was a rabbit!

Date: January 24th, 2007
Location: Kahului, Maui
Weather: Fantastic

Today we decided to get a car on our own. MISTAKE! Because neither of us are 25 years old, and we paid for a Jeep, unlike the “free upgrade” yesterday!

Other than the cost, we loved it! We took a nice drive around the top part of Maui. We went on a couple roads that a map said rentals were not supposed to travel because of the narrow 1-way bridges.

We drove around the whole north shore stopping often and taking many pictures. There were so many beautiful beaches and bluffs. I have decided this is where Tiffany and I will retire to!

We saw a few wild chickens on our driving excursions as well.

One thing our cheap selves were doing would be to see where the pay tour busses were going and follow them in our rental. On part of our drive we found a turnout with a couple tour vans pulled over and what looked like it led to a couple trails. We HAD to go see what they were doing! A short hike later and we were looking at some waterfalls into pools of warm water. We weren’t dressed for swimming unfortunately because we would have loved to take a dip as it was the warmest this day than any other day on the trip and we had on pants!!!

We then stopped at a few other places, namely a sculpture place, a fruit stand, a place with TRUELY happy cows, and it wasn’t in California!!!

Tonight was our luau which was the only excursion we ended up doing through NCL. The food was delicious and the drinks were free. The drinks were also, however, very watered down! I had some number like 6 Blue Hawaiians and 6 Mai Tai’s and couldn’t feel any buzz. We were a little disappointed by the entertainment though. It wasn’t a typical luau where they did all traditional things, they did more of a ‘history’ of hula and how it became popular on American television. We met a couple on the cruise for their 50th anniversary! There were quite a few at the luau, but the ones at our table looked like they were only in their 50s, so it was hard to believe! They were very nice people!

Tonight’s towel creation was a doggy!

As we approached port, we awoke to watch the sunrise and snap a few photos. We still weren’t exactly sure of what we were going to do this day. We had originally arranged for an excursion through NCL, but they moved the time from 8AM to 12PM (noon). We didn’t want to be kayaking in the middle of the day and get sunburned so we canceled the excursion completely.

We then got off the ship to figure out what to do, as we weren’t completely sure. We ran into a few buses that were giving tours for less than half the cost of the ones the NCL was offering. While looking at which one we wanted to do we were approached by a friendly couple to split the rental cost of a car! They ordered a compact, but the rental place ran out so we got a free upgrade to a Jeep!!! We had a brand new ’07 green 4 door JK!

They had plans to drive around to see craters, and see the active volcano spew
liquid hot magma into the ocean! We drove to Volcano National Park and were looking at craters in no time! Then, we continued to look at craters ALL FRIEKIN’ DAY! These people wanted to stop at every turnout to see the crater from every 5 feet. They were all named and dated, but who would remember all that? I can garuntee you they didn’t!

See? I told you we stopped everywhere!

The coolest part of seeing where the lava was going into the ocean, and where it went over a road that used to take you around the island!

The next cool sight was the lava tubes where lava burned through rock and made “tube” like caves you could walk through. Since the island is very wet and forest-like (where it’s not all lava-like) there was constant water dripping in the lava tubes. The next picture is right outside the tubes using the Gorillapod!

One of the activities on the ship was a PUB CRAWL!@!@! We had to be sure and be back at the ship in time to get our drink on! It was $20 for a fun trip around all of the bars and 6 drinks. It was much cheaper than getting drinks from the bar, and we also had TONS of fun! We had met our neighbors in the next cabin who were also our age, and on their honeymoon! We talked them into coming, which made it even more fun! We got to run around the ship hooting and hollering and yelling “PUB CRAWL” at the top of our lungs. When the trip from one bar to another involved the elevator, we were instructed to stop at every floor and when the door opens yell PUB CRAWL. This scared more than a few people!

One of the events was a spoon snake. There was a spoon connected to
a string that our boy-girl-boy-girl team had to over-under the string
through our clothes. Make sense? If not, look at the pictures!

Of course our team won! People also had rules to follow, like no sipping before the group all had their drinks and we had done a toast. When you broke one, (or the seal) you were embarrased like this:

Tonight we had a snake for our towel creation from the room steward. We ate at “Papa’s” the Italian restaurant on the ship with Dave and Katie, our honeymooning neighbors.

We had left port, and after dinner, the ship went by the lava flow and turned 180 degrees so both sides of the ship could see the hot lava.