Day 81: Honolulu

Happy Thanksgiving!

Before I get into what we did today, I wanted to post the content of an article I read yesterday from a Hawaiian news source. When many of us think of Thanksgiving, it evokes 'over the river and through the woods'-type images. But, in reality, Thanksgiving was officially celebrated in Hawaii before it was in the U.S.  

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How Thanksgiving became a holiday in Hawai‘i before the United States

Elita Ouk, Web Reporter 

Historians can tell you that, in the United States, President Abraham Lincoln officially made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863 after years of unofficial celebration.

Few, however, know that the holiday was observed by royal decree fourteen years earlier in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

What drove the Kingdom to celebrate one of the most American holidays?The answer involves the monarch who ruled Hawaiʻi at the time. The Kingdom's different kings and queens each had their own preferences when it came to foreign allies.While some of his predecessors had favored Great Britain, Kauikeaouli, also known as Kamehameha III, admired the U.S. more. He was particularly impressed by the work American missionaries had done in the islands, former UH Manoa history professor Ralph S. Kuykendall wrote in the first volume of his history "The Hawaiian Kingdom."Hawai‘i already had a close relationship with the U.S. Christian missions of conversion had arrived in Hawai‘i around 1820 through the missionaries.Although their teachings were often at odds with existing Hawaiian culture and religion, Christianity and literacy were both widespread thanks to the work of missionaries from the nation's East Coast.Wanting to show his appreciation, Kauikeaouli designated a holiday to give thanks to the missionaries.In a decree, the King declared Dec. 31, 1849 "a day of public thanksgiving to God, for his unnumbered mercies and blessings to this nation," an announcement in the government-run newspaper The Polynesian said.Kauikeaouli was no stranger to ordering celebrations that went down in history. During a ceremony in 1843 shortly after Hawaiʻi's independence had been threatened by a rogue British military officer, he proclaimed before a crowd: "Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono,” which is often (though not always) translated as "the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness" and is the state's motto today.
Source:  http://m.kaleo.org/news/how-thanksgiving-became-a-holiday-in-hawai-i-before-the/article_21d06124-9395-11e5-bf31-b76fa7e249da.html?mode=jqm

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G was up and out and off the ship for a walk as soon as the Pacific Princess docked in Honolulu at 7am this morning, and I contentedly snoozed through it all, which, in itself is a remarkable thing. I remember that, when the Emerald Princess docked in Fort Lauderdale on turnaround days, we were literally shaken out of bed...and there we were on Deck 14. Here we are on Deck 4 and didn't hear -or feel- a thing. 

We didn't see a thing, either.  I looked out of our window, docked in beautiful Hawaii, and this was my view:

Now, that's appealing. ;-)

G appeared just before 8am, finally waking me up. I joined him for breakfast in the Club Restaurant, but first stopped to take some photos of the Thanksgiving display in the Club Bar. The ship definitely felt more 'Thanksgiving-y' today than it did last year, though it was similarly decorated for the holiday. I think the difference is that we were in the U.S. today (I think we were in Bora Bora last year, but I'm not certain) and, with this cruise returning to Los Angeles, more of the passengers are American. 

(This photo was taken later in the day in the Panorama Buffet, with assistant waiter Senny from India in the background.)

We were happy to see another new breakfast menu today, one that included banana walnut pancakes, so, of course, I had to follow up my usual fruit plate with an order of those. Anything banana nut, and I'm there!

The weather didn't look great this morning, but by 9am we walked off the ship and north through the Fort Street pedestrian mall en route to a bus. 

The ship was docked at Aloha Tower

The Fort Street pedestrian mall

Looking back toward the ship

While the traffic in Honolulu was the lightest we have ever seen, the streets were still full of pedestrians. WalMart was open, as were Walgreens and Longs Drugs, and I heard this evening that several big stores were also open, but not those in Ala Moana Mall. We had no trouble catching a bus down to Waikiki 

Beach. Our first destination was, unsurprisingly, the Hale Koa Resort. We got off the bus and had to walk four or five blocks toward the beach, and for most of them we walked through Fort DeRussy park, the military park that runs right to the beach adjacent to the Hale Koa hotel. 

Things were hopping at the Hale Koa, and along the entire length of Waikiki Beach. This is a long holiday weekend, after all. We made our way through the not-small resort to the outdoor bar/cafe right along the beach. 

Large banyan tree on the Hale Koa property

I loved this gazebo covered with bougainvillea...

...and this tree that had pink leaves mixed in with the green (it's always pink with me)

By the time we reached the beach, the sun came out for awhile, and the rest of the day offered a mix of sun and misting rain showers accompanied by some wind.

We ordered some fries and I had a traditional mai tai. They're so good there!

We had wanted to do a sunset sail again tonight, as we had in September, but when I called Holokai catamarans yesterday from Hilo, I was told they'd not be operating today. Still, sitting there on the beach, we could see another company's catamaran leaving for short sails throughout the late morning and early afternoon.

We eventually made our way down there, and found that they were a company called Maitai catamaran and they were offering a sunset sail tonight, but it was totally sold out. However, we were welcome to return at 5pm to see if there were any no shows. It was an appealing idea...it was already 2:30pm and we could easily have stayed in the area until 5. But at that moment the sky darkened again and a windy rain blew in and that kind of sealed the deal. We turned around and started walking back down the beach toward the Hilton Hawaiian Village. 

We spent a little time walking through the extensive shopping area that fronts the Hilton Hawaiian Village waiting for the rain to pass, and eventually started to walk down to Ala Moana Mall to catch a bus back to the ship. One note on that...the Honolulu Bus' website and app are fairly useless compared to Google Maps; which provides better bus routing and schedules. If you have cellular data in Hawaii, Google Maps is definitely the way to go. We waited just 7 minutes for a #19 bus back to the Aloha Tower. It brought back memories of our very late return to the ship in September, and of the night before that, when we'd stepped off the bus into a torrential rain. 

Our first stop was our cabin to wash our hands ten times before using the bathroom and washing them again. I can't imagine the germs we encountered on the buses and touching hand rails during our outing!  Then we went right up to the Panorama Buffet,  where the first person we saw was waiter Stefan from Romania, who was on the Pacific Princess last year and just arrived back on the ship today. I couldn't believe it, and for half a second was confused. Was it this year or last year? Then headwaiter Nelson came over to introduce us to Melvin's replacement and it clicked. How lucky are we to get Stefan for our waiter, even if it's only for 7 nights?!?

We ate very lightly, just enough to get us through to dinner less than 2 hours later. The Panorama Buffet was empty; I have no idea where everyone is on this ship. Love that!  We returned to our cabin and rested (and Interneted) a little before getting ready for dinner in the Club Restaurant. 

I think you can click on the menus above to enlarge them. 

I had the crab martini followed by the pumpkin gnocchi and then the turkey dinner and it was all excellent, but skipped the pumpkin pie for dessert in favor of the mango sorbet. As well as Princess prepares turkey, it cannot make pumpkin pie at all. I don't even try it anymore. ;-)

We were finished eating in time to get to the 7pm performance of folkloric hula school Halau Hula Ohana. They featured about 22 young girls (12 or so and under) and 7 or 8 older girls performing several hulas in perfect unison. So beautiful to see!  I'll upload some short video clips eventually, maybe from Maui tomorrow. 

And that was our Honolulu Thanksgiving. We've been on cruise ships for Thanksgiving for even more years than we've celebrated Christmas on ships, so it feels like a perfectly natural place to be on this holiday, especially as it was the first time we've been in the U.S. for it. We sail at 11pm tonight, and will arrive in Maui early tomorrow morning, at a time that I'm not certain about. We are 81 days into our cruise, and I don't sweat these sorts of details anymore. If I'm on deck, I'll watch as we cruise between the islands of Molokai and Lanai en route to Lahaina, Maui. And if I'm not...I'll spend the rest of the cruise hiding from Douglas Pearson. ;-)

Sailaway from Honolulu as seen on the Pacific Princess bridge webcam

Source:  Princess.com