Day 60 - Lahaina, Maui

My distant cousin maybe?

Cruisers welcome.



Our 'other' water craft

Model for sale at $99...

As a tender port, we were safely anchored by 7am and the tenders launched.  These tender boats are in reality, our lifeboats, so at least they get a bit of usage throughout the voyage and all passengers are very familiar with them.  All that is except those who are wheelchair bound and cannot walk unaided to board them – and there are always a fair few of them, not to mention the wheelie walkers and those walking with sticks.

Ship anchored and numbered tender tickets issued, waiting in the Marquis dining room.

One of our identical el Cheapo, $30 Vodafone pre-pay phones still worked, Paula’s of course…

As we’d been processed in SF, just a walk off again.

No shuttles or HoHo buses as this is a small town.

We did need either a government ID or passport copy on our return.

Cruise cards checked on returning to the dock area.

Scanning on the ship of hand luggage on return, as there is no dock

As I over ate yesterday, just fruit for breakfast and a leisurely start to the day.  There is always a rush for the tenders and we had nothing planned, so we ambled down, just in time to get ticket number 900.  That was the last call for numbered tickets but we didn’t have to wait long, for our smooth ride to shore.  Bright sunshine and a deep blue sea, exactly what the brochures show.

We trundled through many of the shops and in addition to the souvenir shops, there were some very classy galleries.  As I hadn’t had a coffee, we opted to sit on a small deck, overlooking the beach and Paula’s mango smoothie was excellent and the coffee also very good.   Hawaii is the only US state that grows coffee.

Too late.  We've been shopping...

Although a fairly small place, it does have a lot of charm and we had heard of yet another ukulele shop here, so we had to look – not that we were buying any more! Some of the souvenir shops had $9.99 instruments, but as we’d been told, you get what you pay for.  I’m not sure that the +$2500 models would make us sound any better.

Jim and Marie sampled the local speciality of ‘shaved ice’ and enjoyed it.

We were back on board at 2pm, before the late rush as we didn’t fancy standing out in the sun, queuing.

Yet another portion of beef curry (strange that they have a daily curry in the buffet, but rarely in the dining rooms, which is why one of the tables close to us complained about the evening dining room food.  The food is fine, but the buffet seems to have far more variety, so they scan the menu and  choose whether to eat up or down.

A usual deck 11 sail away get together.

Dinner was very nice sliced fillet steak.  I should qualify that.  There are always about 5 choices, but I rarely have one of the two the fish choices  and even rarer, the vegetarian.

The late show was billed as ‘The Modern Gentlemen’, who are normally touring as ‘The Four Seasons’, backing the Franke Valli shows.  However, they were good to a point, but we felt that they really are a backing group and hadn’t the strength of a genuine lead singer.

Off to bed after 11pm and yet another Hawaiian port tomorrow – Hilo, our last US port before heading south to French Polynesia.  Getting a slight tickle in the throat which doesn’t augur well…