Day 27: Land ho in Hilo!

As much as we’ve enjoyed the five sea days required to get us here, it was very exciting this morning when I first woke up at 4:30am to see the faint lights and mountain profiles of the Big Island on the ship’s web cam. G was up shortly after that, walking all around the ship to view our arrival from different vantage points. I’m not quite as hard core, but was outside above the bridge when the ship finally was tied up at its berth in Hilo. 

The view?  Postcard-perfect. 

Kilauea putting on a show

It was spewing boulders the size of footballs 650 feet into the air!

Mauna Kea summit

Been there!

A clear view this morning of the observatories on top of Mauna Kea

This side of the island is so green, quite a contrast to the black lava on the Kona side

We went to breakfast in the Botticelli Dining Room (almost empty today), and discovered our next door table mates were from a development just ten miles from where we live. They’re both small towns; it’s a very small world. When the man asked what we were going to do today, G answered that he would do whatever his wife wanted to do. After I lifted my jaw back in to place, I asked our waiter for a special order:  pancakes with (maybe? please?) just a couple of blueberries in them. I figured today might be a tough day, and needed my favorite breakfast comfort food to prepare. 

This is what I received:

A thing of beauty
#spoiledontheemeraldprincess 

#ilovethisship

#ilovethesepeople

I took a few minutes to exchange some $100 bills at Guest Services. I realized that we’ll be in Honolulu tomorrow, and know that’s a huge shopping port for the crew. I figured that if we tipped today (please, no emails about tips vs. bribes), they’d have some extra cash. Let’s just say that no one seemed at all disappointed about that. 😉

And then it was time to claim chairs and settle in for today’s AFC championship game. Sure, we were watching it on a cruise ship in Hawaii and not in the brutal cold and snow at home, and the outcome was certainly not unexpected, but that was as soul crushing a defeat as I’ve experienced in recent years. Soul crushing. 

Deep, deep sigh. 

We were in the sun for most of the first game, which required lots of sunscreen which meant a shower would be needed before dinner. We took the time between the games to walk over to the little market near the port of Hilo where - our relief here was palpable 😉- they had 12-packs of Mountain Dew. Not cheap, but certainly easier than transporting a case of pop from WalMart back to the ship in Honolulu. 

We watched part of the second half of the NFC game in our cabin until my spirit could handle no more, and then watched the end of the game on my iPhone in the Elite Lounge followed by dinner in the Michelangelo Dining Room. The coast of the island as we sailed north was visible for quite a while from our dinner table. Beautiful!

Elite lounge appies

I shouldn’t even be going to dinner!

Tonight’s Princess Theater performance was vocal group The Company Men. I remember when we’ve seen them before being underimpressed, but they won me over tonight with their high energy, synchronized choreography and intricate harmonies. I’m still not a fan of music mashups, but they were very entertaining. 

There was a second vocal show at 9pm in the Explorers Lounge, but today’s hours in the sun and tomorrow’s planned late evening in Honolulu had us back in the cabin by 8:30pm.