Friday morning at 10:30 the shuttle came by the RV park and picked us up for the trip down to the cruise terminal. We only had about seven bags packed for the trip. Some of the bags had been packed for a couple of weeks. We weren’t too excited! We arrived at the cruise terminal and found that they still hadn’t opened up the entry area for arrivals since they were still clearing the previous passengers off the ship. The shuttle driver said that he would have to drop us off down the street and we would have to get our bags (all seven) to the terminal on our own. We asked him to go around the block one time and he agreed. When he came back around they had opened the lot for embarking passengers so we got dropped right in front of the entry to the ship. Yea!
Our cruise was on the MS Zaandam, a Holland America Line ship. This ship is what they call a medium size, not one of the mega-ships. The Zaandam carries a little over 1,400 passengers,
compared to the 2,500 or so of the really big cruise ships. Also docked at the terminal was a Celebrity Line ship, the Mercury. The Mercury was supposed to have been in port on Thursday, but about a day out of Hawaii on the way back they had a medical emergency on the ship which required them to turn around and go back. This meant that the passengers on the ship got an extra day, but the passengers loading up on Friday would lose a day of their cruise. Bummer. We were able to get a porter to grab our bags and we zipped through the entry process and were on the ship before noon. We weren’t scheduled to leave until 5:00, but once you’re on the ship you are “cruising” even if you are tied to the dock! We met up with Helen and Joan, got some lunch, and hit the bars!The timing for our departure was great, we left at 5:00, just as the sun was going down so we sailed out of San Diego harbor right at dusk, very pretty. Of course, there was a little “sail-away”
party going on the fantail of the ship. About 30 minutes after clearing Point Loma we lost sight of the California coast and we didn’t see anything but water until Wednesday morning. We had a very nice cabin, an outside with a window, but no patio. We were on deck one. Helen and Joan had a veranda cabin up on deck seven. Not too much bigger than ours, but it was nice to have the veranda. The next four days were spent doing what people do on cruises. We ate, drank, gambled, shopped, went swimming, lazed around the deck, ate some more, drank some more, gambled some more, etc., etc. The food on this cruise was excellent and we had the open dining option which meant we didn’t have to show up at exactly 5:30 or 8:00 to eat. We usually went to the dining room around 7:15 for dinner and found that to work out very well. Jackie didn’t go swimming except for one foray into the hot tub. I was in the pool and hot tub for a little while just about every day. We also made good friends with the bar staff in the Ocean Bar, the central bar on the ship. We spent most of our drinking time either there or in the Crows Nest, which was on the top deck and had a great view. By the second day the staff in both these bars knew us by name and drink. Go figure! It didn’t hurt that one of the waiters that worked the pool area during the day, Ian, also worked in the Ocean Bar at night.One thing that became apparent was the fact that Holland America had a lot fewer activities going on around the ship than we found on other lines like Royal Caribbean or Carnival. Holland America seems to have a much older clientele (we sometimes felt like we were among the
younger folks on the cruise) so they didn’t have a lot of stuff going on. We didn’t really miss it last year when we were on the seven day Alaska cruise because we only had a couple of “at sea” days. With four straight days at sea we found it to be a little too quiet. The casino was typical for a ship, mostly slot machines, a couple of blackjack tables, 3-card, Carribean Stud, and roulette. They also had one Texas Hold’em table with two sessions each day and the table was always full. It was a fairly low stakes 3/6 game so they didn’t have any problem getting players. Like most casinos, we lost more than we won overall, but both Jackie and I did have a couple of $200 plus wins which helped keep the gaming going for the whole cruise.Finally on Wednesday morning, after four days of nothing but water, we found ourselves cruising into Hilo, Hawaii, for our first port call. The four of us had decided that we weren’t going to take any of the canned “shore excursions” offered by the ship. They were mostly overpriced bus trips
and we figured we could have more fun on our own. We got off the ship about 11:00 and took the free shuttle to Hilo Hattie’s, one of the best known Hawaiian tourist shops. Hilo Hattie has stores, usually more than one, on every one of the islands. After looking around for a little while we found some free-lance “tour” guides in the parking lot. We managed to hire a car and driver for the four of us for about $40 apiece, far less than the ship’s tours cost. Our driver was a local who grew up on the big island and took us on a nice tour of the area around Hilo. We went to a couple of beach areas, although we weren’t swimming they were still pretty to see. He also took us to the Macadamia Nut Candy Factory. I think the factory gives “incentives” to all of the guides, amateur or not, to bring them to the factory. We got back to the ship by late afternoon and sailed out of Hilo at sunset.When the ship left Hilo harbor the Captain sailed Southwest along the shore to the area where the Kiluea volcano is dumping hot lava into the sea. This volcano has been active for about 15 years now and is adding a couple acres a year to the size of the island. It was pitch black when we arrived in the area, however, because we a couple miles off shore we really didn’t see too much except for a very distinct red glow on the shore. It would probably be pretty impressive in a small boat up close, but with a large ship we couldn’t get close enough for it to look like much more than a big bonfire on the beach. After a few minutes looking at the volcano, we turned and headed North along the chain of islands headed for Honolulu.
Thursday morning, the 13th of November, I woke up about 6:30 a.m. and when I glanced out the window I noticed that we were about five miles off of Oahu, headed into Honolulu harbor. I threw on some clothes, grabbed the camera and headed up on deck to get some great sunrise
photos of our arrival into Honolulu. Even though it was about seven in the morning when we approached the Aloha Tower at the harbor in downtown Honolulu, they had brought out the Hawaiian band and hula dancers to welcome us in. I guess this is a tradition that goes back a sixty years that every passenger ship is greeted with hula dancers. Unfortunately, we learned later that the other tradition of providing lei’s to everyone as they get off the ship is no more. If you want to get lei’d in Hawaii now, you have to do it on your own. The four of us got off the ship about 10:00 or so and spent the next hour trying to locate a rental car. Again, we had decided against any of the organized tours and chose to rent a car and drive around ourselves. Since I had lived on Oahu for two years in the late sixties, and been back several times since then, I was comfortable playing tour guide for all the obvious stuff. We finally got a hold of an Enterprise agency and after going to two different downtown offices found ourselves in a big chevy minivan. It was nice because it was comfortable with plenty of room for the four of us. We were going to be in Honolulu overnight, until 9:00 p.m. on Friday, so we rented the car for a full 24 hours so we would have it the next day also.We started the tour by heading to the windward side of the island across the Pali. The Pali is the mountain range (or ridge) that goes down the center of the island. There are only two roads that
go up and over the Pali and one that goes around the Southeastern shore. Those are the only three ways to get to the other side of the island. We made a stop at the Pali lookout which is at the top of the ridge and looks out over the windward side towards Kaneohe and Kialua, the two big towns on that side. You can also see the peninsula on which Kaneohe Marine Corps Base is located. This is where I was stationed back in the late sixties. It was a major Marine Corps Air Station at that time, now there are only a couple of helicopter squadrons on the air side. The ground combat units still use it as the primary Pacific Marine Corps operating base. We then drove down and through Kialua, checked out where the apartments where I used to live only to find that they had been recently torn down. Ah, progress. We checked out a couple of the local 
beaches and then headed around the coast line for the scenic route back to the Honolulu side of the island. After a lunch stop we drove through Waikiki and located the Honolulu Elks Lodge. What a place! It is located right on the water on the Diamond Head end of Waikiki Beach. The front and sides of the bar are open to the beach and when you sit on the patio you can see all of Waikiki Beach just down the sand. This property has got to be worth millions. One of the members there told us that they lease a small piece of land they own adjacent to the lodge to a hotel for $70,000 per month! Even with all that, their dues are still close to $300 a year, but what a place to go have dinner and a cocktail. The four of us had a drink, enjoyed the lodge and chatted with one of the members who was originally from Southern California. We also got our first Hawaii Elks Lodge pin.After visiting the Lodge we decided that we needed to drop the car off for the day. We had found that overnight parking near the ship dock was $50 a night, which was more than we were paying for the car for 24 hours. The Enterprise folks said if we got back to the office before they closed
at 6:00, we could park it in their garage and they would give us a ride back to the ship. Then in the morning they would come pick us up and we could take the car out again. So we dropped the car off late Thursday afternoon and went back to the ship. We did do a little shopping in the shopping center right near the dock before we reboarded. The next morning we headed out about 9:00, picked up the car and then headed back over to the Southwestern shore for some more sightseeing. We went to blowhole, a pretty standard tourist attraction where waves go into an cave under the rocks then water blows straight up through a hole in the top of the rocks. After that we stopped at Haunama Bay, one of the prime snorkeling spots on the island. We didn’t go down to the beach, but got some great pictures of the bay from up on the bluff that 
overlooks it. When I lived in Hawaii in the sixties we used to go to Haunama bay a couple times a month for the snorkeling. Great place and very pretty. After that we headed to the other side of Honolulu to Pearl Harbor to visit the Arizona Memorial. We went into the visitors center and spent about an hour there, but we didn’t wait in line to actually go over to the memorial. You could see everything pretty well from the visitors center. We then headed over towards Waikiki Beach, but the afternoon traffic was so bad we decided to just take the car back and go back to the ship. At about 9:00 our ship pulled out of Honolulu just as the moon was rising over the Pali. We had a great view of the lights of Honolulu and Waikiki off the back of the ship as we pulled away, headed towards Maui.The next morning, about 8:00, we found ourselves anchored off the coast of Lahaina, Maui. We were only going to be in Lahaina until about 5:00, so we decided that it would be our beach day.
We took the tender into Lahaina, then took a cab to the Whalers Point area where all the big resort hotels were. We rented a couple of beach umbrellas and chairs and all four of us went swimming. The girls had a little trouble staying on their feet with the waves and such, so Jackie only went in once. I spent a couple hours in the water and got pretty red, but not too badly burned. It went away in a couple of days. After a couple hours on the beach we changed and went to lunch at a Bubba Gump’s restaurant on the waterfront, then walked old town Lahaina and did some shopping. I got a couple of shirts and Jackie got a muu muu. Then we went back to the tender pier and took the tender back to the ship. We pulled up anchor at about five and south back towards the Big Island and the town of Kona.Again about 8:00 we anchored off the coast of Kona, Hawaii. After breakfast we took the tender into the port. Kona was very small and there was limited shopping, but we hit a couple of shops. We had a nice lunch in a café overlooking the water, then Jackie and I headed up to the Kona Elks Lodge which I had called and found to be open. Helen and Joan stayed in town and said they would meet us back at the ship. The Lodge was only a short walk up the hill from the tender pier and we found a kind of decrepit building but with a very “beach hut” feel to it. There were a couple of members there, including a woman who was a PER, who were very friendly. We had drink, chatted for a while and got our second Hawaiian Lodge pin. After visiting the lodge we went back down on the waterfront and looked for a geocache that we knew was hidden in Kona. We had downloaded a couple of caches for each of our port stops, but this was the only time we actually went out and looked for it. We thought we were going to have a DNF (did not find) until I spotted something up in the fork of a tree. I had to stand on the beach wall to get it, but we had our first and only Hawaiian geocache! After finding our cache we did a little shopping then headed back to the ship. At about 7:30 we finally pulled anchor and left Kona. We were supposed to have left at 5:00, but several things went wrong. First, the Captain came on the intercom and said that although all the passengers were back, they had to keep one tender in the water to off-load a medical evacuation. We never did find out any details, but apparently one of the passengers became ill enough to have to be removed along with their traveling companion. Then, as they were loading the last tender (which are actually some of the ship’s lifeboats, back up onto the side of the ship, one of the crew members was hit by a piece of equipment and fell into the water. Again, the Captain came on and said our departure would be delayed while they took the crewman ashore for treatment and evaluation. Finally, about 7:30 or so we felt the ship moving and the Captain announced that the crew member was doing OK and we were headed back towards Ensenada, Mexico, our final port call five days down the road.
The next five days at sea were pretty much the same as the four sea days coming over - eat, drink, gamble, swim, then more of the same. One activity that I did participate in was the Karaoke stuff. About every three or four days they would have a Karaoke session at night up in
the Crows Nest bar. It was generally the same eight or ten people singing and we got to know each other pretty well. On Thursday afternoon, two days before we arrived back on the mainland, they had a contest where all the singers that wanted to participate got to go up on the main showroom stage and sing in front of a live audience. Since we were at sea and there wasn’t much to do, the showroom was pretty full. There were eleven of us in this “semifinal” round and they selected five of us for the finals, to be held the next afternoon, on Friday. I was fortunate enough to be one of the five finalists. On Friday I got all dressed up in my suit and went up on stage and sang “My Way” and a got a real nice round of applause from the audience. I didn’t win, but I had a good time and all the rest of the afternoon and evening I was stopped by other passengers and told that I had done a nice job. Made me feel pretty good.Friday night we were supposed to go into Ensenada, Mexico for a couple of hours. Cruise ships that are not registered in the United States are not allowed to start and finish a voyage between American ports, so we had to make a “foreign” stop before we went back to San Diego. We were supposed to go into Ensenada about 8:00 at night, leave at midnight, and then dock in San Diego the next morning at 7:00. However, about 6:00 we noticed that we were going into a pretty heavy coastal fog and by 8:00 it was a thick as pea soup. You couldn’t see the back of the ship from the front decks. We were pretty much sitting still in the water for a while, then the Captain came on the intercom and said that the fog was too thick to safely enter Ensenada’s harbor, so we were cancelling the port call. I assume that since we were in Mexican national waters at that time that this satisfied the technical requirement to be in another country prior to going back to San Diego.
Saturday morning we woke up docked at the San Diego cruise terminal where we started 15 days before. We got off the ship about 9:30, caught our shuttle back to the motorhome and were back home before lunch. Everything was OK with the coach, the cat obviously missed us because he has been much more affectionate since we got back than he ever was before. I guess being pretty much alone for two weeks makes you more appreciative of what you have. We didn’t see Helen and Joan after we went off the ship. They were going up to Temecula for a couple days before flying back to Massachusetts. On Sunday we packed up the motorhome and left San Diego for Ramona, about 60 miles to the Northeast. We are now there, at one of our Western Horizons membership parks. Barry and Colleen were going to come up on Wednesday and spend the Thanksgiving weekend with us, but just before we got off the ship Jackie came down with a bad cold. We called them on Tuesday and let them know that Jackie was still feeling poorly, so they cancelled the trip. That same Tuesday we drove up to Indio so I could go to the doctor and get a suspicious looking mole cut out of my back. Took about six or eight stitches, but it doesn’t really hurt much. Just a little pulling from the stitches because it is right in the top center of my back. Every time I move my arms forward the stitches pull a little. The stitches should be out and OK in a couple weeks.
It is now Monday, a little over a week since we got off the ship and yesterday was the first time Jackie felt well enough to go out and do some touring. Yesterday we spent the day up in Julian, which is only about 15 miles from where we are staying. Julian is a cute little mountain community with a lot of shops. We did some geocaching, getting eight and spent a couple hours walking around town shopping. We are going to be here in Ramona until next Sunday, the 7th of November, when we will go to Pilot Knob in Winterhaven, California - just across the border from Yuma, Arizona. We try to go there at least once each year so we can go down to Algodones, Mexico for our eye and dental exams and treatments. We have done this for three years running now and are pretty happy with the system.
So folks, that’s the tale of our cruise and safe return. I will post again after our time in Winterhaven and before the Holidays. Until then, have a happy life!
