A circle tour of Oahu by car
We overnighted aboard the Celebrity Solstice in Honolulu Harbor Monday night, and had a car booked from Enterprise for Tuesday morning. The general plan was simply to circle Oahu, or at least the eastern half of it, with stops at whatever spots attracted any of us at the moment....
Read More
Arriving at Honolulu by cruise ship
We’re now about half-way to Hawaii, “the Big Island”, having sailed from Honolulu last night at 8:00 pm. We arrived at Honolulu at noon on Monday after having the islands in sight for several hours. Sailing in is a perspective that not many get, which is a shame, because...
Read More
Crossing the Pacific Ocean on Celebrity Solstice
As I start writing this, it’s 05:20, about 90 minutes before sunrise. I’m on the back deck of the Celebrity Solstice, 8½ hours out of Honolulu, and it’s about 82°F. As usual, only a handful of other passengers are up and about, but crew members are seen often, cleaning...
Read More
How to fill 5 sea days on Celebrity Solstice
One of the first questions asked by people who haven’t been on a cruise is often “what do you do on the ship?”. That’s particularly true on an itinerary such as we’re on, which starts with 5 days at sea between Vancouver and Honolulu. The short answer is that...
Read More
The cruise on the Celebrity Solstice begins
When I closed the blog on Tuesday morning, a glorious sunrise had just started the day. As I write this, we’re out in the Pacific Ocean a few hours southwest of Vancouver Island. It’s dark (06:00) and the seas are heavy – there will certainly be some sick people...
Read More
Disembarking at Los Angeles, California
We spent a second day at sea on Sunday the 22nd, our final full day on the Norwegian Sun. I haven’t said much about the ship yet, and I’m going to skip past this sea day now. When I get home I’ll write up a full review of the...
Read More
Sailing into and out of San Francisco, California
I’m now way behind in my posts – we’ve been in Santa Barbara for a couple of days. Saturday the 21st was our scheduled day in San Francisco, when we would meet Cathy and her girlfriends for lunch. The original cruise we’d booked, on the Celebrity Millennium, overnighted in...
Read More
Exploring Astoria, Oregon
Astoria was the port I was really looking forward to on this cruise on the Norwegian Sun I may have passed through briefly during a drive a few decades ago, but had never had a good look at the community. A couple of history-oriented friends in Whitehorse like it,...
Read More
Boarding the Norwegian Sun & exploring Nanaimo, BC
It’s Wednesday night as I start writing this – 9:40 pm and we’re in the open ocean off Cape Flattery with low rollers. Some passengers are apparently feeling the effects, and I saw a large crew cleaning up a mess on Deck 12 a few minutes ago. It takes...
Read More
Music videos from our European trip – violins & organs
I don’t shoot much video, but did shoot a half-dozen during the trip, of things that still photos don’t do justice to. Here are the 3 musical ones: First, a machine that actuals plays several violins, from the collection at Siegfried’s Mechanisches Musikkabinett (Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum) at...
Read More