Cruising to Hawaii

I don't know about you, but usually when we go on a vacation, we end up coming home needing a vacation from our vacation. This is the first time where I actually felt refreshed upon my return home, which I was not expecting since we spent two weeks cruising aboard the Grand Princess from San Francisco to Hawaii and back. Being away from home for two weeks is a pretty long vacation and having to spend 2/3 of that on a ship, regardless of how large it is, doesn't instantly make me think relaxed. Ends up it was a pretty amazing vacation. Even with all the kids with us.

Of course it helped that my mom came along to assist with the kiddos. In fact, the cruise was her idea. I really wasn't sure how great a vacation this was going to be for the kids. I had only been on one other cruise before - to Alaska - and I was easily the youngest adult on board... by like 50 years. I figured it was partly because of the destination. Nope, ends up all cruises are like that. However this is not a bad thing! There were a few small children on board, but not enough to be a nuisance when eating or trying to relax with a book. No disrespectful young adults. No loud music. No being stuck in an elevator with a group of people who feel it's necessary to interject swear words in their stories to each other every five seconds. Did the sidewalks roll up a little earlier than I would have liked? Sure. It was pretty dead by 10pm, but it didn't really matter because the boys had to be in bed by 8 most nights anyway and someone had to stay with them.

I was surprised at how much Sofia enjoyed the trip. The boys are pretty easy being so young. As long as they are with us and they get some running around time, they are content, so I didn't worry about them. But Sofia is used to going to school and having some structure and interacting with other kids and going to the park... Ends up she had the most fun out of all of us and she's wanting to know when we get to go on our next big boat ride. Being one of the larger ships, I knew Princess was going to have some sort of kid program, but I assumed it was going to be more like a room with toys and things Sofia could play in that would have a person act as a monitor to just make sure she wouldn't hurt herself, or something like that. Boy was I wrong. They had a whole program for kids. It would usually be separated by age, 3-7 was the Princess Pelicans group, but because there were only maybe a dozen kids aboard the ship in total, a lot of times they just played in one big group, from age 3 up to 13. Sofia ended up making all kinds of friends. She could go to the playgroup anytime between 9am and 10pm although they did close for an hour at lunch and dinner. They had organized activities for the kids each day and then sometimes they did fun things like pajama parties or movie nights. We needed a suitcase just for all the arts and crafts she made at Pelicans! She made jellyfish out of coffee filters and ribbons, flower leis out of paper cut outs, a grass skirt out of streamers, a solar system out of modeling clay, picture frames from popsicle sticks and foam stickers. She colored her own backpack, bandana and t-shirt. Not only did she come home with stuffed animals, but every time we went to pick her up and we had the boys with us, they'd give Thomas and Jacob stuffed animals too. Sofia had so much fun she barely wanted to go see Hawaii when we got there. I was also impressed with the level of security they had. Even though there were plenty of Princess employees there supervising the kids, they had a locked door and you had to get buzzed in to enter, they scanned your cruise card at pick up even if they knew who you were to ensure you were one of the authorized guardians and they gave you a pager in case anything happened they could easily reach you on the boat. A pager - like think back to 1995 - Adam found out it's an effective system when he was ten minutes late picking her up. If this is what Princess Cruise Lines is like for kids, I can't even fathom what kind of extreme joy Sofia would have on a Disney Cruise.

The boys were the only set of twins on the cruise so they were well known by the end of the trip. Especially with Jacob being Mr. Personality. He was handing out high fives like they were going out of style. We opted to take our Phil and Teds stroller with us so although it is an inline stroller, it looks the boys actually sit one on top of the other. Adam lovingly called it the penthouse and the basement seat. I did not anticipate how much attention our stroller was going to get us. People were constantly asking us if they ever switch places and how we decide who gets to sit where. (Yes, and whoever is most tired goes on bottom, in case you were wondering) Thankfully our children are pretty well behaved so we didn't have to deal with many meltdowns or get any grief from anyone. Plus 90% of the people on board were grandparents and they almost all commented how our kids made them miss their own grandkids. There was one grumpypants that we sat behind during a show and when Jacob made a coo of laughter, the guy turned around and grumpily said, "Really?!?" to which Adam replied, "I'm sorry, were you never a child?" The best was the lady sitting next to Mr. Grumpypants who was just talking to us about the boys. She snapped her head around so fast and gave him such a gasp of disgusted disbelief. Priceless. Everyone was very accommodating, both Princess stewards and cruise passengers. All the Princess employees, either in the restaurants, the buffets, the cruise director staff, our room steward, they were all so kind to us and showered all our children with attention. As a parent, I'd rather people ensure my kids have a great time over me because I get a ton of joy from seeing them happy. And they were all very happy throughout the entire trip.

The ship sailed out from San Francisco which was so convenient for us. Our neighbor dropped us off at the port and our friend picked us up. Easy. It was supposed to take us five days to sail to Hawaii and then we would island hop for four days, sailing each night and arriving at a new island the next morning. Then it would take us four days to sail to Ensenada, Mexico and another day to get back to San Francisco. Except that someone intentionally jumped overboard on day three which delayed our trip to the islands as the ship immediately began a recovery effort that lasted some 30 hours and was unfortunately fruitless. The poor woman was lost at sea. Because of the delay, we had to cut out one of our port stops so we were not able to visit Kawaii, but we did get to see Oahu, Hawaii and Maui.

What a gorgeous part of the world. This was my first trip to Hawaii but I'm sure I'll be back. The cruise was not what I would call a "Hawaiian vacation" as we didn't spend any length of time in any of the islands. But it did give me and Adam a good idea of how to prioritize our return. Adam fell in love with the main island - of course a country boy would love the most country part of the tropics. No high-rises, not real touristy, lots of natural beauty and openness. It was a toss up between Oahu and Maui for me. I really loved Maui but we didn't see much outside of Lahaina. And although we did travel around Oahu a bit on our tour, we didn't get to see North Shore, which I hear is pretty nice.

We did organized excursions with Princess for Oahu and Hawaii but we just bummed it around Lahaina (Maui) and Ensenada (Mexico) so we could do our own thing. On Oahu we did a tour that included Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial, the Pali lookout, a city tour of Honolulu and ended at Hilo Hattie's flagship store. It was a long and hectic day. The tour left around 10 am and didn't return until about 3pm with no real break for lunch. I can go without eating, but the boys don't do so well and unfortunately you can't bring food off the ship, so we were stuck having to sustain them with boxes of Fruit Loops and Shredded Wheat. My mom was not interested in seeing Pearl Harbor so she and Sofia did a different city tour and hung out between Honolulu and Waikiki. The USS Arizona Memorial was touching. I have a soft heart with all kinds of things, heck I cry at sad country songs, but military tragedies really pull at my heartstrings. Men and women putting their lives on the line for ours, and then they lose those lives, totally blind sighted - it was breathtaking. We had an audio tour and at one point I had to stop listening because the water works had started. A soldier was talking about losing his friends and the fact that they are still there in a liquid coffin trapped in the ruins of the Arizona.... It did ease my heart ache a bit to see Adam had tears in his eyes too. So I'm not that much of a cry-baby....

Hilo Hattie's was amazing. So. Many. Hawaiian shirts! Aloha wear all over the place. We spent a pretty penny. Matching outfits for the boys and Sofia, several shirts for Adam including a special edition Elvis shirt commemorating the Blue Hawaii Live in Concert via Satellite show (tassel Elvis!), a pa'u hula skirt, sarong and several flower clips for me. It was madness.

On Hawai'i, we docked in Hilo and took a full day excursion to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. We also hit up a couple touristy spots on the way like Big Island Candies and the Mauna Loa macadamia nut farm. This time lunch was provided in a botanical gardens. We lucked out and had an amazing tour guide. She was fun and so informative. We learned a bunch about the big island and about the places we visited on our trip. And if you were late returning to the bus after one of the stops, she made you do the hula in front of everyone. Even though we were away from the ship all day without any time on our own, the boys actually did better on this tour than they did on Oahu. Sofia and my mom went to a different botanical gardens and spent time around town in Hilo.

Kilauea was amazing. We've done Lassen Volcanic National Park before, but it was totally different. Boiling mud and sulfur smell at Lassen. Ends up they are completely different types of volcanoes. (There's more than one type? Who knew!) Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea had no smell (which is nice) just steam vents and calderas. We walked through the Thurston lava tube and took the Crater Rim drive around the park.

On Maui we decided to just take it easy and stay in Lahaina, finish up some shopping, actually go to a beach and get some shave ice. It was uneventful but still enjoyable. Sofia could have played in that warm water all day long. We didn't intend to go to a beach to hang out so we did not have anything other than the clothes we had on. Although we warned Sofia not to get too close to the water, she ended up soaked from the waist down. Good thing it was hot that day - she dried quickly. Plus she had a ginormous shave iced to eat! We visited two different shave ice places, Ululani's and Local Boys. I was skeptical about trying Ululani's. It seemed a little chain-store like to me and I couldn't remember if that was the place that came recommended from a local on the ship... (it was) You guys! I just about died. The ice was so fine it was like powder. I got mango and Tiger's Blood snowcapped. So delicious. The other place was not a chain - and also does not deserve the 4.5 star reviews it has on Yelp. Yuck. That was not shave iced, that was a snow cone. If you are going to Maui, I beg of you, get some shave ice at Ululani's.

Just when we were getting used to being in Hawaii, it was time to start the return trip home. Four days at sea, just like on the way out, except that I got to participate in a hula/ukulele recital/show! I took hula lessons while on the ship and we performed four dances in the theater. I was pretty good if I do say so myself. Sofia joined me for one of the classes and now she's totally hooked. I will be signing her up for hula lessons soon. Our stop in Ensenada was out of necessity (some rule about non-US registered ships, which almost all cruise ships are, having to make a stop outside of the US on all itineraries) and we were only there for four hours. The only two excursions that were available were a visit to a winery and a city tour and folklorico show. Meh. So we just disembarked and walked around. We went about three blocks before we turned around and went back. I'm sure Ensenada is a nice place once you get away from the port but those four blocks we walked were typical border town. Sadly, we must have been asked to buy little items from dirty dirty kids and their moms about a dozen times. I was surprised no one had asked us to buy any gum.... and then they did. What a way to live up to a stereotype. I didn't think it would really be like that.

After two weeks at sea, we were back home. So that we didn't have to deal with car seats for the boys on the drive home, our friend picked up Adam, Sofia, my mom and all the suitcases. I took public transit home with the boys which meant I had to walk from the port to the Bart station. I knew it was a good vacation because I couldn't help but have this immense feeling of joy radiating from me. We got off the boat at 10 am and it was going to load up with a new bunch of people and set sail for Hawaii again at 4 that same afternoon. As I'm walking down the Embarcadero, I saw several people walking towards the ship with their luggage in tow. I couldn't help but tell everyone I saw, "Have fun! We just got back. It was amazing."

And now for the photo dump:

Setting sail 

Golden Gate Bridge and Marin Headlands - see you in two weeks!

Thomas and I on our first formal night

Jacob and Adam on formal night. Notice the matching bowtie and suspenders... I made those!!

Sofia couldn't wait to wear her fancy dress and go dancing. 

View of Pearl Harbor and the Mighty Mo' from the USS Arizona Memorial

relaxing on deck. I also learned how to make that ribbon lei on board. 

Jacob and I outside Thurston Lava Tube. Look at the size of those ferns! 

Enjoying the surf in Lahaina. That's our ship in the background.

Ululani's Shave Ice. She didn't care what flavor it was as long as it was purple. (it's blueberry and sugar free grape) 

Hanging out with a banyon tree in Lahaina

All accessories made by Sofia herself - paper flower lei and hair piece and streamer grass skirt.

Doing our kaholos after my hula show

check out this amazing cappuccino I ordered! 

Sofia and her bestie from Pelicans, Paige.

What two weeks worth of mail looks like. No it wasn't sitting there the whole time. We had the post office hold it for us and our mailman skillfully delivered it all the day after we returned.