Two very quiet days in Honolulu
Spending 2 nights in Honolulu (October 17th and 18th) was a last-minute change to our itinerary that was necessitated by the tragic fires in August that completely destroyed Maui’s cruise port, Lahaina. Our only plan was dinner at a place that’s very special to us, and that’s really all we did, so this is another fairly short post.
In contrast, there are 7 posts with 140 photos about Honolulu and Oahu from our multi-day cruise-and-land visit to Oahu in 2014. You can find them by using the Search or by going to the Post Archives – the Oahu posts start on October 1st, 2014.
The weather wasn’t looking very good as we approached at 06:10.
About to enter the harbour at 06:17.
The next photo I shot was that afternoon. This is a card with a real orchid on it that was left by our room steward.
This was the view from our verandah – the “cruise terminal” is just a warehouse.
At about 4:00 we disemarked and caught a taxi. For a few reasons, we had the driver drop us at the Outrigger Reef. That’s where we stayed in 2014, and the beach is quite nice there.
That was a good place for a been-there-done-that photo 🙂
We soon went next door to the Halekulani Hotel, home of the House Without a Key restaurant, where we had a 5:00 reservation.
One of their deservedly-famous mai tais was a good way to start the evening.
Looking back at the photos from a decade ago, it appears to be pretty much the same band playing now. Walking 100 feet from our table got this shot with the 130+ year old Kiawe Tree, and Diamond Head in the background.
We asked one of the servers to take a photo but it somehow missed the focus. Too bad, it might have been really nice.
I got the chef’s Fresh From the Sea special, but have forgotten what type of fish it was (something I’d never heard of). A mystery now, but it was excellent.
The Halekulani Coconut Cake ($16) was simply amazing. They’ve posted the recipe online – it’s 6 pages long!
There were a few rain showers during dinner. While we were over the building’s canopy, staff rushed around with umbrellas for all the people out in the open.
Sunset is when dinner at House Without a Key really changes from a meal to an experience
A hula dancer is with the band much of the time, adding greatly to the experience.
We walked back to the Outrigger Reef to catch a taxi back to the ship. A Lincoln stretch limo is what arrived for us. It got the job done, but I was extremely uncomfortable (mentally) in that thing.
Back on the ship, I got a photo of my favourite photo on the ship, displayed along one of the staircases.
Just after noon the next day, the lovely 72-meter yacht Stella Maris cruised by. She appears to have been bought last year by an American billionaire for around $75 million, after having been available to charter for a few years, at around $650,000 per week. She accommodates up to 14 guests and has a crew of 20. That’s a Eurocopter EC 135 helicopter on the back, on a helideck that’s even certified for night landings.
The next photo looking due north was shot at 4:30, as everyone was thinking about sailaway and the 5½-day cruise back to Vancouver. The historic Aloha Tower can be seen to the left, at Pier 9 (we were at Pier 2).
A closer look at the Aloha Tower. It’s a retired lighthouse that was opened on September 11, 1926, after having been built at what was then the astronomical cost of $160,000.
Throughout the cruise, we spent a fair bit of time on the open aft section of Deck 9, and it was of course a particularly nice place to be while we were in Hawaii.
There were a couple of places near the middle of the ship on high decks where Diamond Head was nicely framed.
Pretty much everyone with a camera of any kind was on deck for our final Hawaii sunset. The next photo was shot at 5:54 – I processed this one as an HDR to bring out the details in Sand Island Park and the industrial area in the foreground.
There it goes, at 6:03, as we sailed away.
The harbor pilot was only aboard for a few minutes, and as the sun set, the pilot boat came alongside to pick him up.
A lovely final evening sky, at 6:14.
A broad look at Honolulu at 6:20, then it was quickly dark.
Our final Hawaii night was Traditional Hawaiian Dinner night on Koningsdam. Yes, that’s a baby pig’s head. The first head I saw was going by me on a young woman’s plate. Hawaiian pizza was as traditional as I was getting 🙂
There will be 2 more posts about this cruise. The next one will again be about the ship, showing you the many places I hadn’t shown you on the first post about her. The final one will simply be our short 2-hour flight home.
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