[ Home ]  [ Travel ]  [ Photography ]  [ Pets ]  [ Games]  [ Rowing]  [ Physics ]  

 
  Home

This was a full cruise (2875 pax, 2880 capacity). It was really popular with the British Columbia crowd - we met numerous people from the Vancouver and Victoria areas. It felt like two cruises with 5 port days followed by 5 days at sea.

We left our condo in Kona about 8:30 AM to drive to the car rental place to return the car. The Buick Verano had been great. Along the way we stopped at Costco for gas. Gas prices in town averaged about $3.29 per gallon. At Costco it was $2.55 - a huge saving! We hopped aboard the rental car shuttle and were at the airport about 11:00. Check-in and security were kind of slow, but we arrived at the gate in plenty of time for our 1:15 flight. The flight was about 45 minutes, landing at 2:00. We grabbed our luggage from the claim area and found the Celebrity Hostess. She directed us to the shuttle bus and we were at the ship by 2:30 or so. The previous two times we docked in Honolulu, we were right next to the Aloha Tower. This time we were at an alternate dock about 1/2 a mile away. The ship's check-in was fast and we were soon aboard the Celebrity Solstice. Nice to be back!. We hustled to the buffet for a quick bite. Our bags soon arrived and we unpacked and stored stuff away. We phoned D&J to let them know that we were safely aboard. We had open seating dining for the cruise and agreed to meet at the main dining room at 5:30. There, we filled each other in on our respective land stays in Kona and Waikiki. We had all enjoyed our stay. For dinner I had prime rib which was very good. After dinner we went ashore to look for a grocery store (to get some Pepsi), but we were in an office area of downtown and couldn't find anything. So we reboarded the ship and wandered the upper decks and enjoyed the view of Honolulu in the moonlight.

Closer to Hilo we stopped at the Mauna Loa macadamia nut farm. The factory tour was self-guided. The gift ship carried all of their products, and feature chocolate macnut icecream! Yummy! Our final stop was just north of Hilo at Rainbow Falls. We toured back through the northen side of Hilo and arrived back at the ship by 3:00 PM. We had a late lunch in the buffet and then hustled to 4:00 PM trivia. For dinner I had rack of lamb. It was undercooked and, hence, a bit tough. For our evening entertainment we watched the hot glass late show until 10:00 PM. At that time we were scheduled to sail by the Kilauea volcano in the dark. One could see red spots in a line down the mountain (the lava flow) and huge red clouds where the lava poured into the ocean. Spectacular. The captain spun a 360 so that all of the cabins had a chance to see the action without having to go outside to the upper decks. D&J were on the opposite side of the ship as us, so by running between cabins we were able to see the volcano twice. Then it was time for bed.

Oh yes, one more thing. We still had about $250 in non-refundable onboard credit to spend, so Marjorie bought herself a really nice $200 underwater camera. That worked out well!

Note: The glass blowing demo has always been a source of fascination to Marjorie and I aboard the Celebrity Solstice, Equinox and Eclipse ships. Most of the work is raffled off (for free!) and Marjorie has won several pieces over the years (and adventures getting them home). Each cruise the artists create a few special items to be auctioned off in support of the Corning Glass Museum scholarship fund. This time it was the turtle (pictured below) which fetched $1500 for the fund. The artists did a great job in adverse conditions - the kilns are outdoors and it was cold and windy, not nice for glass blowing.