Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Our newest countdown..Key West, FL
We have decided to book a vacation in honor of our six month wedding anniversary to Key West, FL. We will be leaving on May 13, 2011 for 4 beautiful days in Key West. The countdown is on...
Monday, December 27, 2010
Day 10 in Hawaii: Disembarkation & Oahu
We woke up early and headed down to the buffet for our last meal on board. The Aloha Cafe was packed but the staff was working hard on cleaning/resetting tables, refilling food, etc. We waited a little longer than other mornings in line but not too long and we were able to find a table easily. We enjoyed our breakfast than headed back to our room. We double checked the room for anything we may of left behind and then headed down the deck 5 to disembark. We carried our own bags, and it was smooth and easy to do. We exited around 8:30am.
We waited and waited for the Budget shuttle. It never came. I tried to call the office many, MANY times. No answer. Finally, we spoke to a HUMAN and they informed us that Budget does NOT pick up at the pier. That would be of been fabulous information to know about an hour ago! We had no cash on us, as we used it all throughout the week. We only had debit/credit cards. We finally found a cab that would accept a credit card. It was $28 to get to the Budget rental office. When we arrival, my DH dealt with the situation. We were furious! The woman at the desk agreed with us and she suggested that we speak to her manager because if enough people complain, hopefully it will switch back to pick up at the pier. We spoke to her manager and she gave us free gas for the rental, which actually worked out to us making $3 from the deal! Once we both calmed down from being left at the pier for an hour.
We got our rental and off we went. We drove to the Dole Plantation. The minute you get out of the car, pineapple smell fills the air! We walked around the plantation, it was $5 a person. It was very interesting. Next, we walked around the gift shop and got ourselves their pineapple soft served. It was very delicious and a nice little treat.
Once we left the Dole Plantation we headed up to the North Shore. We saw their beautiful coast line, including a few areas where windsurfing and surfing competitions were being set up. We wanted to head to Waimea Falls Park because we wanted to jump into the falls. This is the only falls that we knew of that we could do this. However, we were NOT thinking that we did NOT have towels, as we had used the cruise's beach towels all week. So we had to change that idea. We continued driving along the North Shore and we decided to keep driving and loop around Oahu.
Our next stop was La'ie Point. An island that has had hole created in the center of it from an April 1946 tsunami. It is only one of the five islands that are there to view. It was a beautiful sight and worthwhile sight to be seen.
Next we stopped and saw the "Chinaman's Hat." It was an easy stop, we took some pictures then it began to rain! We ran back to the car.
We took Highway 3 down to the Aloha Stadium to go to the Swap Meet, only to find out that Hawaii University had a home game and the parking lot was FILLED with tailgaters. We wish we would of researched that more, and went to the game. But we continued to drive on Highway 3, which was a very beautiful highway.
Our next stop was Hanauma Bay. We parked in the parking lot which overlooks the bay. We headed down the bay, but you must first watch a 9-minute video on preserving the bay. You cannot get to the bay without watching the video first. It is a STEEP walk down. There is a trolley that will take you up and down. I believe it was .50 down and a $1 up, but we walked so I am not positive. It is so very beautiful. We wish we werent on our last day in Oahu, because snorkeling here would of been amazing! Instead of snorkeling, we relaxed on the beach, taking in all of it's beauty.
After we finished at Hanauma Bay, we continued on our way to Halona Blowhole. When we arrived, it must of been low tide. I could barely make out the blowhole, and after seeing the Spouting Horn in Kauai, Halona was pathetic.
This was our last scenic stop. Next we decided to head to their shopping mall, to get some souvenirs and dinner. We headed to Ala Moana Shopping Center. This was a gigantic shopping area. They had EVERYTHING a mall has in PA plus more. It is huge, it is roofed but the sides are open. Everything you could think of was there.... food/clothes/souvenirs, etc. We looked around for a few last minute things, including a shirt for our puppy, Lloyd at home. Then headed to dinner at Bubba Gump's. We enjoyed dinner and headed back to the rental office. We returned our car and headed to the airport. We were so sad to be leaving but we had just spent the best ten days of our lives in paradise! Our flight home was scheduled to leave at 9:50pm and head to Houston, TX. This flight was great, because it was overnight so I was able to sleep the entire flight. We arrived in TX at 9:30am and were leaving again for our flight to PA at 10:20am. Our flight left earlier, around 10:00am until we had some issues. The ground crew found a problem with the plane and they had to double check it wouldn't be a problem. We finally got off the ground around 10:45-11am. The pilot made up the time and we arrived in Philadelphia around 2:30pm. Right on schedule!! My father in law picked us up with our puppy, Lloyd who was VERY HAPPY to see his Mommy & Daddy after 13 days!!
Now that our Hawaii adventure is over, we are extremely sad but we could not of imagined how amazing, and memorable our honeymoon would be!!
We waited and waited for the Budget shuttle. It never came. I tried to call the office many, MANY times. No answer. Finally, we spoke to a HUMAN and they informed us that Budget does NOT pick up at the pier. That would be of been fabulous information to know about an hour ago! We had no cash on us, as we used it all throughout the week. We only had debit/credit cards. We finally found a cab that would accept a credit card. It was $28 to get to the Budget rental office. When we arrival, my DH dealt with the situation. We were furious! The woman at the desk agreed with us and she suggested that we speak to her manager because if enough people complain, hopefully it will switch back to pick up at the pier. We spoke to her manager and she gave us free gas for the rental, which actually worked out to us making $3 from the deal! Once we both calmed down from being left at the pier for an hour.
We got our rental and off we went. We drove to the Dole Plantation. The minute you get out of the car, pineapple smell fills the air! We walked around the plantation, it was $5 a person. It was very interesting. Next, we walked around the gift shop and got ourselves their pineapple soft served. It was very delicious and a nice little treat.
Once we left the Dole Plantation we headed up to the North Shore. We saw their beautiful coast line, including a few areas where windsurfing and surfing competitions were being set up. We wanted to head to Waimea Falls Park because we wanted to jump into the falls. This is the only falls that we knew of that we could do this. However, we were NOT thinking that we did NOT have towels, as we had used the cruise's beach towels all week. So we had to change that idea. We continued driving along the North Shore and we decided to keep driving and loop around Oahu.
Our next stop was La'ie Point. An island that has had hole created in the center of it from an April 1946 tsunami. It is only one of the five islands that are there to view. It was a beautiful sight and worthwhile sight to be seen.
Next we stopped and saw the "Chinaman's Hat." It was an easy stop, we took some pictures then it began to rain! We ran back to the car.
We took Highway 3 down to the Aloha Stadium to go to the Swap Meet, only to find out that Hawaii University had a home game and the parking lot was FILLED with tailgaters. We wish we would of researched that more, and went to the game. But we continued to drive on Highway 3, which was a very beautiful highway.
Our next stop was Hanauma Bay. We parked in the parking lot which overlooks the bay. We headed down the bay, but you must first watch a 9-minute video on preserving the bay. You cannot get to the bay without watching the video first. It is a STEEP walk down. There is a trolley that will take you up and down. I believe it was .50 down and a $1 up, but we walked so I am not positive. It is so very beautiful. We wish we werent on our last day in Oahu, because snorkeling here would of been amazing! Instead of snorkeling, we relaxed on the beach, taking in all of it's beauty.
After we finished at Hanauma Bay, we continued on our way to Halona Blowhole. When we arrived, it must of been low tide. I could barely make out the blowhole, and after seeing the Spouting Horn in Kauai, Halona was pathetic.
This was our last scenic stop. Next we decided to head to their shopping mall, to get some souvenirs and dinner. We headed to Ala Moana Shopping Center. This was a gigantic shopping area. They had EVERYTHING a mall has in PA plus more. It is huge, it is roofed but the sides are open. Everything you could think of was there.... food/clothes/souvenirs, etc. We looked around for a few last minute things, including a shirt for our puppy, Lloyd at home. Then headed to dinner at Bubba Gump's. We enjoyed dinner and headed back to the rental office. We returned our car and headed to the airport. We were so sad to be leaving but we had just spent the best ten days of our lives in paradise! Our flight home was scheduled to leave at 9:50pm and head to Houston, TX. This flight was great, because it was overnight so I was able to sleep the entire flight. We arrived in TX at 9:30am and were leaving again for our flight to PA at 10:20am. Our flight left earlier, around 10:00am until we had some issues. The ground crew found a problem with the plane and they had to double check it wouldn't be a problem. We finally got off the ground around 10:45-11am. The pilot made up the time and we arrived in Philadelphia around 2:30pm. Right on schedule!! My father in law picked us up with our puppy, Lloyd who was VERY HAPPY to see his Mommy & Daddy after 13 days!!
Now that our Hawaii adventure is over, we are extremely sad but we could not of imagined how amazing, and memorable our honeymoon would be!!
Day 9 in Hawaii: Kauai
We had to wake up early today as we had booked a Blue Hawaiian Helicopter ride at 8:00am. For an 8:00am flight you must report to the office at 7:15am. We awoke around 6:30am, headed to the buffet and then walked to the office. Their office is across from the Anchor Cove Mall. We left the boat at 7:00am and were there before 7:15am. We checked in and used the restroom before the security movie begins, around 7:30-7:40am. We watched a movie, similar to what airlines show you. After the movie, we head to a van which takes us to the airport. We arrived at the airport and waited about 10 minutes for the helicopters to land. Each helicopter fits 6 people, we had 5 on our flight. My DH and I sat front row, next to our pilot, Dawn! They give you a seat number, which the computer figures out based on weight configuration. The fight was simply amazing! Dawn explains everything that you pass over. The NaPali Coast is breathtaking. It is hard to remember everything that she told us, but we did purchase the $25 video from our flight.. It was definitely worth the money. The flight is 55 minutes long. We LOVED it!!! Dawn told us she had NEVER saw the crater as clear as it was on our day. We actually got to go inside the crater of the volcano that created Kauai due to the how clear the day was! So even though day 1 in Kauai was a bummer, day 2 was AMAZING!
After the helicopter ride, we got back to our rental car, filled up on gas which was cheaper than doing the gas option at this location. The gas option charges you for a full tank... we had only used 1/4-1/2 tank so we just paid for it ourselves, and returned our car. Again the return process was quick and easy. Looking back we should of returned our rental on Day 1 of Kauai as we did NOT use it at all on Day 2. We wasted the money on the rental and $20 on parking. Oh well!!
We returned to the boat around 11am. We grabbed some lunch, changed into our swim suits and planted ourselves on the deck near the pool to soak up the sun for our last day of vacation!! We did not do anything that afternoon. We relaxed on the deck, listened to the Jimmy Buffet Tribute which was fun!! We enjoyed our last day on the cruise thoroughly.
We watched the boat leave the Kauai port, which was awesome to watch the captain navigate through the port and out into the ocean.
We headed back to our room around 4:00pm to shower and get ready for dinner. We knew the NaPali Coast Sail By was scheduled for 5:45-6pm. We headed out to the deck to watch the sailby. It was gorgeous!!!
We had a reservation at East Meets West at 6:30pm. We arrived at the restaurant, greeted and seated. We both hadSapparo beer. They serve edamame as soon as you sit down. We ordered two appetizers, then dinner was served. My DH order Lemon Pepper Shrimp and I ordered Kung Pao Chicken. Both were very delicious. After dinner we walked around the ship, we headed to Martini Bar which has Happy Hour from 9-10pm. It was a little confusing to get to but the drinks were delicious! The Martini bar is at the front of the ship, near the meeting/conference rooms.
By 10pm we were pretty tired due to our early wake up. We headed back to our room, had a few beers that we had left over in our fridge while we packed up our bags for disembarkation tomorrow. We were planning to take our own bags off the cruise ship so we did not have to leave them outside our room or tag our bags.
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| Beautiful Sunrise, we knew day 2 would be MUCH BETTER |
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| Toxic Flowers, even though they look pretty |
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| Heading to the van with his nice yellow hip life vest |
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| Views at the airport |
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| Here comes the helicopter |
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| Controls |
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| Up, Up and Away |
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| The port from the air |
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| POA |
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| Waimea River |
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| NSSA uses this sight to monitor things |
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| NaPali Coast |
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| The waves crash before shore line due to the reef below |
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| Inside of the crater.. so clear |
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| Inside of the crater |
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| Wailua Falls from the air |
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| Back on the ground after an awesome ride |
After the helicopter ride, we got back to our rental car, filled up on gas which was cheaper than doing the gas option at this location. The gas option charges you for a full tank... we had only used 1/4-1/2 tank so we just paid for it ourselves, and returned our car. Again the return process was quick and easy. Looking back we should of returned our rental on Day 1 of Kauai as we did NOT use it at all on Day 2. We wasted the money on the rental and $20 on parking. Oh well!!
We returned to the boat around 11am. We grabbed some lunch, changed into our swim suits and planted ourselves on the deck near the pool to soak up the sun for our last day of vacation!! We did not do anything that afternoon. We relaxed on the deck, listened to the Jimmy Buffet Tribute which was fun!! We enjoyed our last day on the cruise thoroughly.
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| Relaxing at port |
We watched the boat leave the Kauai port, which was awesome to watch the captain navigate through the port and out into the ocean.
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| The front of the boat as it leaves Kauai |
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| Such a beautiful day |
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| Beautiful Kilauea Lighthouse from the boat |
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| Everyone watching the boat leave the port |
We had a reservation at East Meets West at 6:30pm. We arrived at the restaurant, greeted and seated. We both hadSapparo beer. They serve edamame as soon as you sit down. We ordered two appetizers, then dinner was served. My DH order Lemon Pepper Shrimp and I ordered Kung Pao Chicken. Both were very delicious. After dinner we walked around the ship, we headed to Martini Bar which has Happy Hour from 9-10pm. It was a little confusing to get to but the drinks were delicious! The Martini bar is at the front of the ship, near the meeting/conference rooms.
By 10pm we were pretty tired due to our early wake up. We headed back to our room, had a few beers that we had left over in our fridge while we packed up our bags for disembarkation tomorrow. We were planning to take our own bags off the cruise ship so we did not have to leave them outside our room or tag our bags.
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