May 1, First Day in Hawaii

This afternoon, sooner than expected, we docked in Honolulu. Here was a picture that Patrise took at dawn this morning.

The primary activity for the day was to go through U.S. Immigration. All of the 4000 passengers had to go through Immigration in waves, based on preassigned groups. The passengers were grouped into numbers 1-18 for non-US and non-Canadian citizens and grouped into letters A-M for Americans and Canadians. Because we were in one of the premier suites, we were placed into the A group, so once the process started at 3pm, we were called up in the first group.

(Early views of Honolulu from our suite)

(View of Honolulu residential tower [l], freight ship behind ours [c], freight ship leaving harbor [r]).

The process was a case of call a large number of people to go through the process, then have them wait around for everything to occur. We waited 25 minutes for what turned out to be 2-3 minutes of actual activity. We felt sorry for the folks after us, because the lines and the waits just got longer throughout the day. The process went on throughout the afternoon and did not end until about 7:23pm.

Immediately after we were cleared through Immigrations, we left the ship to go shopping at a local mall. The Ala Moana Mall was about a ten-minute Uber ride away from the cruise pier, and it was a large and very upscale mall. We were going there to buy another piece of luggage to replace one of our original pieces; the wheels had gotten so damaged during the trip, that it was very hard to move around. As I said, the mall was upscale, containing stores such as Apple, Balenciaga, Cartier, Dior, Neiman Marcus, blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. We were going to a luggage specialty store named TUMI.

Well, let’s just say that the TUMI store was an “appropriate representative” for the upscale nature of the mall. The young man who assisted us was very helpful, very knowledgeable, very friendly. Still, the luggage we were interested in was almost $1,400! Despite the great manufacture, the nice styling, and the life-time warranty, it was a bit much for us to swallow. We decided to keep looking. Along the way, we detoured for a nice scope of gelato and a bottle of water. Then, while I finished my Stracciatella – basically a form of chocolate chip, in which the chips are very fine, rather than the chunky pieces we usually get in vanilla chocolate chip – Patrise decided to walk to the Macy’s at the end of the mall, to see what it might have by way of luggage. She returned with a very nice Samsonite piece that she was able to get for 50% off or less than $250. Hmm: $1400 or $250, it was a tough decision, but she’s pretty savvy (smile)! After purchasing the luggage, we made our way back to the location in the mall where we were dropped off, ordered a new Uber ride, then returned to the ship.

Once we were back on board, we went to the Concierge Lounge, mostly to give the tips we were planning to give to the staff. We did so and thanked them for their warm and gracious hospitality that made the voyage so enjoyable. We went from the lounge to dinner at Jamie’s, the Italian cuisine specialty restaurant on the ship. This was our last night on the ship, and we used Patrise’s Master Chef certificate that was her prize to pay for our dinner. We enjoyed the final dinner and then returned to our suite to pack our luggage for departure tomorrow.

Having packed, we ready ourselves for bed and went to sleep a bit early, to be prepared to arise early tomorrow morning.