We are up early (gee, what a surprise) and finish our walk and last market coffee by 8:15. Laundry, cleaning, packing, and we’re all ready to go about 10:30. It’s a bit earlier than we wanted, but, all is done so we head out to the pier to drop our luggage. The drive to Honolulu, which usually takes a long while for the traffic and construction, takes no time at all (of course, we want it to take long!), and we get to Aloha Tower in about 20 minutes. As we round the turn to the Tower (which is where we’ve docked and boarded many times) I have a mini-heart attack because there is no ship there. OMG – do we have the wrong day? Did something happen? Well, no, the ship just isn’t docked at the Tower…duh! It’s at another pier, which we see when we turn around.
Huge sigh! We find our way over to the ship, only to find out that it is a nightmare to just drop our bags. We don’t have luggage tags (because there was a glitch and they didn’t send them to us), so we grab a porter and tell him we just want to drop the bags. Nightmare! Ed takes the bags with a porter, I stay with the car (just in case they make us move it). As it turns out, Ed has to go all the way into the terminal, almost through the check in process to drop our bags. Huh? Crazy, but it all gets done and Ed returns so we can go to drop the car at the airport.
Gas at Costco – even crazier than the pier – totally busy – the line is backed up almost to the street – but it’s 30 cents cheaper than anywhere else, so you can sort of understand. We find our way back to the Avis rental return, then walk to the cab line. Uber was a 21 minute wait, so we figured we’d have better luck in the cab line. Only 12 minutes wait there – but geez – expensive. 45 cents for every 1/8th of a mile. A 4 mile cab ride ended up costing us $30 with tip. Sheesh. That’s Hawaii I guess.
Aboard the Solstice, all is well. We are early and cabins aren’t ready, because they’ve just arrived from a season in Australia and they had to have a Coast Guard inspection. We hang in the Buffet until the rooms are ready, then dump our stuff and wait for the bags –which aren’t forthcoming. Finally we get bored and say – what the heck – we head out toward Aloha Tower in search of something to do. Well…..Aloha Tower used to be this bustling marketplace with over Gordon Biersch are the only things left- and the rest is closed off and under construction.
We wander around a bit, and meet a security guard at the tower who tells us that the upstairs part of the complex is being turned into college dorm rooms, with shops on the lower level. Wow. (He also told us about how the Sandy Hook incident was all a fake – so you believe what you want.)
We do take his advice though, and go up in the tower for the view, which of course are wonderful.
There’s our ship…and there are the 2 condo buildings that just fascinate me.
After our scenic interlude, we head to Hooters where it’s happy hour – and the drinks are much better priced than on the ship. The prices – honestly! We figure out the prices on the ship do include gratuity but still – a round at Hooters (1 wine – really good pour – 1 big beer and 1 little beer) is still way cheaper.
Back to the ship, luggage is waiting for us, we unpack, hit the gym, the Sky Lounge even though it’s not a “club” night, dinner, music in the Ensemble Lounge (Alex Cole, acoustic guitar, really good), and back to the cabin where we are hanging out now.
Tomorrow – North Shore exploring.
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