February is an awesome time in Hawaii – mating season for the humpbacks. It’s iffy on weather, but always better than home

We arranged to stay two night pre-cruise in Waikiki – which is quite expensive so we reasoned we wouldn’t be in the room much and could go with a budget hotel. This proved to be a poor decision as the room was quite dated and bed was extra springy.

We made our way by Uber to Dukes for dinner

We had a full day to explore Oahu in a rental car so we headed for the North Shore to see big waves. We didn’t go all the way around the island and didn’t really see huge waves, but it was still very cool to see The Banzai Pipeline

The beautiful Waimea Valley has been well used by Hollywood.

Saturday is embarkation day, but first we headed to the Hula Grill for breakfast – they did not disappoint!  We had tried iHop next to our budget hotel (which was pretty darn expensive) the previous morning and after waiting a long time for service, my food was returned inedible.

At the Hula Grill I had eggs Benedict and asked for it to be made with smoked salmon.

My sister had the Pancakes

We were a bit disappointed with the size of the staterooms on board the Pride of America. We had a balcony guarantee stateroom so ended up in 9666 – go figure why nobody would choose it at the aft elevators with a balcony is like being on display, just at the curve of the ship… no privacy at all. I told a guy a few cabins down that I felt like I should be out there dancing like in a birdcage

Our first stop was Maui where we rented a car and reserved a room at a resort in West Maui for our overnight.

We had reserved a Whale Watch trip well in advance on line with Pacific Whale Foundation.  We have gone out on a Catamaran in the past which was glorious, but we figured we could see whales from all sorts of vessels and had done this same trip the previous year.  We ended up sitting with folks from our ship that had planned the excursion with the cruise line.

After our Whale Watch we walked down Front Street for our reservation on the patio at Kimo’s with a full on water view.  I had the pulled pork sandwich and a Mai Tai – it was perfect weather sitting under the umbrella and super friendly service too!

The Myths of Maui Luau at the Royal Lahaina Resort had a few fashion changes, the guys were wearing some Walmart version of grass skirts.  The band was great and the fire dancers did not disappoint.  They didn’t even pretend like we were eating the pig that they hauled up on stage – that is clearly for tomorrow night’s luau.  The wind picked up and brought rain toward the end of the show, so we rushed out quickly.  In the morning, I enjoyed the walk along Ka’anapali beach

 

Kapalua is beautiful – we had planned on hanging out at Napili or Kapalua beach and doing some snorkeling but the water temp was about the same as the air, and just a few degrees shy of our comfort level.  We enjoyed lunch at the Plantation House overlooking the golf course with a beautiful island view.