Tales of the South Pacific - Kona

Cruise Day 8

Monday, October 6, 2025

Today we are in Kona on The Big Island of Hawaii, but we had nothing planned for the day, so we slept in a little.  When we got up and went out on our balcony, we got our first taste of what it’s going to be like for the rest of this cruise.  It was only in the eighties, but with the high humidity and the sun shining directly on us, it seemed very hot, and it is only going to get worse from here.

This is a map of the South Pacific and the area is commonly called Oceania.  It is divided into three areas - Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia.  We'll spend most of our time in Polynesia, but we will visit Kiribati in Micronesia and Fiji in Melanesia.  The Hawaiian Islands, where we are today, are considered part of Polynesia.  This map lacks the detail to show the individual ports, but I'll mark each area as we visit it.

The Hawaiian Islands, our port today is Kona on the east coast of "The Big Island".

We sail into Kona, our first port of the cruise.

A tender heads to shore.

After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we hung around our room for a bit, but just before ten we decided to head down to the tenders and go ashore to Kona.  There is no ship pier in Kona, so we will be brought ashore by using a few of the ships lifeboats that double as tenders.  Because we are in a Neptune Suite and are Five-Star Mariners (Holland America’s loyalty program) we have priority tendering which means we don’t have to get a tender ticket, we can just go directly to the tenders.

There was a bit of a line waiting to board the tender, but it went quickly, and we were on our way to shore.  It didn’t take long to get to shore, and from the tender pier we started walking along the waterfront where there are restaurants and shops.  The real downtown area is too far to walk too, but this will be fine for us today.  Back in April of 2017 we and some friends of ours rented a house in the nearby town of Captain Cook, so we are familiar with the area and have seen most of the nearby sights, so we were happy just to walk along the waterfront and peek into some of the shops. 

There was a very nice lagoon right next to the tender pier.

The Kamakahonu National Historic Landmark was also across from the tender pier, you can see the our ship anchored in the background.

We noticed a lot of signs about  the Iron Man competition and saw a lot of athletic looking men and women around and upon checking, we found that the 2025 Women’s Ironman Championship is being held in Kona  and started yesterday, October 7th and ending on October 13.  The men’s championship was held in France back in September.  Since the Ironman competition was started in Hawaii, it’s fitting to have women’s championship here. 

We started our walk along the waterfront.

We got a better view of our ship anchored out in the harbor.

We passed the Hulihe'e Palace, the Hawaiian Royalty summer home that is now a museum.

In our previous visit, we found a shop selling some delicious chocolate balls called Donkey Balls.  The name itself catches your attention, but their wonderful flavor makes you want more.  The shop where the original Donkey Balls are made on the premises was too far away to walk to but according to Google, there was a shop that sells them in the area we were walking in so I was in search of that.  Sadly, when I got to the shops, it was out of business, no Donkey Balls for us on this trip.

I did find a Hilo Hatties that sells Hawaiian clothing and other souvenirs so I went in to see if I could find an Aloha Shirt that I liked.  I think they may also be called Tropical Shirts and I like them because they are lightweight and very comfortable especially in hot and humid climates.  When you think of Aloha shirts you think of very bright and sometimes quite garish shirts, but I like a more subdued shirt and found just what I was looking for and made my first purchase of the trip.  Val didn’t find anything she liked, so after wandering around a bit more, we headed back to the tender pier to catch the tender back to the ship.

While waiting for the next tender to arrive, we sat in the shade and drank some ice water the ship was providing that really hit the spot.  The tender soon arrived, and we were quickly back on the ship.  This will probably be the first of many times I say this on this cruise, but the air conditioning on the ship sure felt so good when we got back inside.

After cooling off a bit, we headed for lunch in the Lido and then relaxed for a while.  I got back on my computer and updated the blog and then spent the rest of the afternoon out on the balcony.

We did go to trivia at four and once again we were in the middle of the pack, not the worst and not the best.  I’m not a big trivia fan, but I do enjoy getting to know our teammates and having interesting conversations before and after trivia.

We returned to the room and Val again went out to the balcony to read, but I wanted to download all the pictures I’d taken with my cell phone and camera today, so I did that before joining Val on the balcony.

We sail away from Kona.

The casino will be closed the entire time we are in Hawaiian waters, so after dinner tonight there was no casino for us, so we returned to our room and read until it was time for bed.  We were going to call it an early night anyway tomorrow is the first of three days in Honolulu and we have an early ship excursion scheduled and have to be up at seven.  There was a beautiful full moon tonight so we spent some time on the balcony watching the moon rise before calling it a night.

 

Tales of the South Pacific - Sea Days

Cruise Day 2

At Sea

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

We tend to sleep in too long on sea days so on this trip we vowed to not do that (we’ll see how long that lasts) so this morning we were both up at eight.  After getting ready to go we had breakfast in the Neptune Lounge.  It is only a continental breakfast, but that works fine for us as we normally don’t eat a full breakfast.

There was a talk on the ship excursions at ten, so we attended that as we hadn’t really planned much for Hawaii.  There were some interesting excursions, but nothing really caught our attention, so we are not planning on adding anything.

After that, it was off to the Crow’s Nest for our Cruise Critic Roll Call Meet and Greet.  The online Roll Call for this cruise was not nearly as large or as active as most of our previous cruises, but there was a pretty good turnout, and we met some nice people and enjoyed ourselves.

By the time it was over it was nearly noon, so we returned to our room where Val spent her time out on the balcony reading while I caught up on the blog and my email.

We had lunch in the Lido Buffet and then returned to our room where we read and relaxed until just before four.  Val likes to play team trivia when we cruise so at four, we went to the Crow’s Nest and found enough people to make a team.  I’m not an avid trivia player but I joined her anyway, and we had a team of six, Beth, Thom, Helen, Arthur, Val and myself.  We didn’t do very well in our first match, but we had a good time and met some nice people.

After trivia we returned to our cabin until dinner.  Tonight was listed as a dressy night, but we weren’t sure whether a dressy night was the same as a formal night and it turned out it was.  Val and I didn’t wear our best clothes, but it was good enough as there was a wide range of dressiness, but next time we’ll know that dressy means formal and wear our formal clothes.

Dinner was very good, but it took a long time to get through it.  Last night I thought the delayed service  was just because it was the first night, but tonight it was worse.  It took an hour and a half with a long wait between courses.  Normally it only takes about an hour for dinner, so I don’t know what’s going on.  If this continues, we may have to speak to the maître de about dinner taking so long, we don’t have enough time to go to the show if we want to if it takes this long to eat.

After dinner it was off to the casino where my good luck ended, and Val's bad luck continued.  We didn't return to our room until late, bit it didn't matter as there is a time change tonight and we'll set our clocks back an hour, and that means an extra hour of sleep for us.

Cruise Day 3

At Sea

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Today is the second of the six sea days we have until we reach our first port in Hawaii.  We had an extra hour of sleep last night so getting up at eight was easy.  We had our breakfast in the Neptune Lounge and then headed off to World Stage to hear a port talk for our first two stops in Hawaii.

From the time we first started sailing with Holland America they always had a port guide on every cruise.  Around 2019 this stopped, and they combined the port guide job with the cruise director’s job, and that didn’t work out very well.  Most cruise directors were no more knowledgeable about the ports than we were so their port talks were just canned presentations that they read.  That left them with less time to do their cruise director’s job, so he or she was just not around a lot of the time.  It seemed that Holland America listened to the complaints (I give them a lot of credit for that) and reinstated the port guide job so this cruise we have a separate cruise director and port guide.

On this cruise we have a port guide named Kristin and she is very good, her talk this morning was excellent and she answered the questions we had about our upcoming ports.  The other benefit is also very evident as our cruise director Clare is very visible and out and about at all the events and she actually now has a bigger staff, a big improvement.

After the port talk we went to the photo shop and found our embarkation picture (we won’t be buying it) and then wandered through the rest of the shops.  Since the casino was right there, we lost a little more money there before returning back to our room.

Since we have been to Honolulu quite a few times, we had nothing planned for the three days we are staying there, but after hearing the port talk, we decided we should do something.  We looked through the available ship excursions and decided to do the Grand Circle Island tour.  It’s a long 8-hour tour, but we’ll be in Honolulu for three days, so we have plenty of time.

After that was decided, both Val and I got on our computers and checked through our email, and I updated the blog until it was time for lunch.  We don’t particularly like a hot lunch, so lunch for us is typically a sandwich, a bowl of mixed fruit, chips and a dessert.  Val usually has ice cream for dessert, and I get what looks good to me, it could be cake or a pudding, or if nothing else looks good, cookies.  This does vary, but that is kind of our go-to meal.  I did have a piece of pizza today to see what it is like.  My experience with pizza in the Lido Buffet has not been good, and usually try it once and that’s enough for me, but there was a press release from Holland America this year talking about improving their pizza, installing pizza oven, and retraining their staff to make it the right way.  I don’t know whether I had the new style pizza, but I do know that what I had was better than what I’ve had before in the Lido.

Note: I found out later that this was new pizza style, but the pizza oven wouldn't be installed until next year.  Still, it was a huge improvement over the pizza previously offered in the Lido. 

After lunch we read and relaxed until team trivia time and then made our way to the Crow’s Nest.  We had everyone back from yesterday except for Arthur who didn’t show up.  Along with the trivia competition, the Crow’s Nest Bar has a happy hour where drinks are half price.  Val and I had our favorite unleaded margaritas, and we took advantage of the Happy Hour half price to stock up on sodas that we have with our lunch every day.

Our trivia team didn’t do very well, but we had a good time and are getting to know each other.  After the trivia was over, we talked for a while and then everyone left, but we stayed to watch some music and dancing from the Polynesian Culture Ambassadors who are onboard.  It was a good show, and we stayed until around six when we returned to our room where we relaxed until dinner.

Dinner service has been very slow so far, but tonight it was a little faster, so we hope that becomes the normal and not just an anomaly.  After dinner it was back to the casino and then back to our room to read and relax until bedtime.

Cruise Day 4

At Sea

Thursday, October 2, 2025

Another day at sea and that is fine with us as we are enjoying relaxing and winding down from the busy time we had before we left.  Today at ten there was a talk from two of the ship’s officers on the navigation of the ship and we went to see that.

It was a very good talk, and we learned a lot.  It was a man and a woman officer who did the route planning and navigation aboard ship, and not only did they talk about what they did, they also gave an overview of how the ship operates, the hierarchy of the officers, and other tidbits about the ship that we didn’t know about, very interesting.

After that there was a presentation on the Polynesian Gods put on by Kaeloha, one of the Polynesian Culture Ambassadors on board.  It was a little confusing, but very interesting, it is very nice to have this group on board.

It was near noon when we returned to our room, but we didn’t go to lunch until after one, so Val read out on the balcony and as usual, I went through my email and updated the blog until it was time for lunch.

We had a nice lunch today and spent a lot of time talking to a couple from Canada.  I don’t remember the name of the town they live in, but it was near Niagara Falls.  After lunch we visited the excursion desk and decided to book another excursion in Honolulu.  We have been hearing a lot about the Bishop Museum and decided we wanted to do that.  We looked into doing it on our own, but it looked like the easiest way to do it was through the ship.  We started out with no plans for our three days in Honolulu, and now we have plans for two of the days.

We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing before heading off to the 4:00 team trivia.  There weren’t many people there and we were missing everyone from our team.   We did run into Arthur who was teamed with another woman we didn’t know so we joined them.  Today was the grand opening of the Tiki Bar by the Lido Pool and they were having a happy hour, so a lot of people were there.  We did pretty well on the trivia today, but not well enough to win.

After trivia we returned to our room where we relaxed until dinner, although I did go down to the Promenade Deck and walked a little over a mile as it has been a while since I had gotten any exercise and it felt good.  The Promenade Deck wraps all the way around the ship and walking around it three and a half times equals one mile.

Dinner was much faster tonight, and we finished eating in less than forty-five minutes.  So far, the food has been very good on this cruise, we hope it continues that way through the entire cruise.  The casino has been very busy and crowded so far, but tonight it was less crowded which was nice for a change.  Both Val and I had some luck tonight, so we stayed a little later than usual.  There is another time change tonight, so we get another extra hour of sleep.  This is the halfway point of our six sea days before reaching Hawaii.

Cruise Day 5

At Sea

Friday, October 3, 2025

We woke up well rested as we got an extra hour of sleep last night.  Val said she had trouble getting to sleep, so the extra hour helped her recover from that.  After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, it was off to the World Stage for another port talk.  This time it was for Maui and Hilo on the Big Island.  We were particularly interested in Hilo as our plan there is to go into town and explore on our own.  Kristin again gave a very informative and detailed talk, she is very good.

After the port talk, we stayed for another talk by Kealoha on Hawaiian traditions.  Today he talked about all the different types of Kahunas there were in the Hawaiian culture.  It was very interesting as we had only heard about “The Big Kahuna” in the old “Gidget” movies. 😊

After the lecture we returned to our room where I spent the time before lunch updating the blog and Val researched things to do in Hilo.  After lunch we spent some time out on the balcony reading until it was time for the 4:00 team trivia.

I haven’t mentioned the weather so far because it really hasn’t been a factor.  The sea started out a little rough, but it has gotten a little calmer each day; a little rocking is always nice, and it makes sleeping much easier, like being rocked in a cradle.  It has been mostly sunny with a few clouds, but pretty much perfect weather.  It was slightly cool leaving San Diego, but each day has gotten a little warmer and a little more humid as we sail south towards the tropics.

Trivia today was in the Ocean Bar because of a private event in the Crow’s Nest.  It was a little confusing as not everyone realized the location had changed, so we again ended up on a slightly different team.

After trivia we hurried off to the Crow’s Nest as we were invited to the private event there.  Our travel agent Ingrid’s business, Gulliver’s Travels, is a member of a large travel group called the Signature Travel Network and occasionally on a cruise they have a representative on board  I believe the last time we had one was on our Voyage of the Vikings Cruise, and this time Jessika is on board representing Signature Travel and is hosting a cocktail party in Crow’s Nest today.

We arrived late and missed Jessika’s introduction so she sat down with us and introduced herself and let us know what services she could provide.  She was very nice and a very enthusiastic traveler.  It turns out both she and her husband had worked for Holland America for many years until they retired.  He was a Staff Captain (second in command behind the captain) and she worked in the excursion group.  We spent quite a bit of time talking to her discussing past cruises and what we’d like to do in the future.  As I said, she loves to travel, and her enthusiasm really shows.

After the cocktail party was over, we headed back to our room and relaxed until it was time for dinner.  Our dinner was served even faster tonight, and we were actually done in less than a half hour.  I don’t know what changed, but we hope it keeps up.  We spent our usual time in the casino and called it a night.

Cruise Day 6

At Sea

Saturday, October 4, 2025

Today is the start of the second week of our trip, and the sixth day of the cruise.  We continue to be up by eight despite the temptation to sleep late on these lazy sea days.  After breakfast in the Neptune Lounge, we were off to the World Stage for the morning presentations.

The first presentation was again done by our Port Specialist Kristin called Hawaii Up Close: Extreme Paradise, that highlighted how volcanoes shaped Hawaiian culture.  She also showed a video that she narrated, and it was very interesting.  As you might guess from the title, it not only talked about the volcanoes themselves, but how they affected Hawaiian life.

After Kristin’s talk, Kaeloha did another talk on the Hawaiian gods called Demi-Gods and Other Supernatural Beings.  It was very confusing and complex, but very interesting and mainly focused on the god Maui and goddess Pele.  Kaeloha is a good storyteller and weaves many of his own experiences into his presentation to make it very entertaining and interesting.

After the talks we returned to the room and Val went out to the balcony to read in this very pleasant balmy weather and here I am sitting at my computer updating the blog before we got to lunch.

On the island of Samoa, the ship was offering a private tour with a car and guide, so Val and I signed up for that.  The ship excursion department had sent us a form to fill out asking what we wanted to see, but we really had no idea, so after lunch we decided to go down and talk to Kristin, the port guide, during her office hours.  She didn’t have too much to offer as she hadn’t been there before and since it was a couple of weeks off, she hadn’t started researching it yet.  Next, we went to the Excursion Desk but got a bit of a confusing answer from them, so I think we’ll do some research on our own and play it by ear.

We returned to our room and had a little time to relax before trivia and then headed off for that.  It looks like we pretty much have a team of four now with Arthur and Donna joining Val and I.  We didn’t have a very good day, at answering the questions, but we had fun and some good conversation.  It turns out that Donna will also be on the Grand South America Cruise that we signed up for, so we talked about that for a bit.

We spent the afternoon and early evening reading and relaxing but tonight is a formal night, so we had to start getting ready a little early.  After dinner it was the casino as usual and although we didn’t come out ahead, we did win enough to play for a while.

Tonight was the Zaandam Ball in the World Stage area so before returning to our room we stopped by there and it looked like everyone was having a good time, lots of dancers on the floor and lot of people seated listening to the music.  We didn’t get to see it, but evidently the ship’s officers kicked things off with a dance routine and then the cadets (officers in training) had to do one of their own.

It was a fun evening, but a little too crowded for us so we returned to our room and relaxed until bedtime.  We set the clocks back another hour tonight, so we get another extra hour of sleep.  This puts us on Hawaiian time, but we have one more day at sea before we arrive in Kona.

Cruise Day 7

At Sea

Sunday, October 5, 2025

Today is our sixth and final sea day before getting to Hawaii.  After doing our morning routine and breakfast in the Neptune Lounge we headed off to the World Stage for Coffee with Clare.  Clare is the cruise director, and she periodically has some of the ships staff or entertainers join her for a talk and a question-and-answer session.  These Coffee with Clare sessions are quite popular so we got there early to get good seats.

Today she had the Staff Captain as her guest, and it was quite interesting.  The Staff Captain is the second in command on the ship so there was a lot of interest and many questions.  We did find out that he and the captain will be leaving the ship in Honolulu, so we’ll be getting a new Captain and Staff Captain.  This often happens on a voyage as the staff all works on a contract basis.  They essentially work every day for four to six months and then get a few months off before they start their next contract.

After Coffee with Clare, we stuck around for a talk by Kaenoha on the customs and annexation of Hawaii.  While we were waiting for his talk to start, Jessika, the Signature Travel representative, came over to us and told us she was working on getting some ideas for our private tour in Samoa.  We were surprised, we had mentioned that we were wondering what to do when we met her at the cocktail party she hosted, and she jumped right on it.  That was so nice, we are going to get together with her probably after our Hawaiian ports and she will go through what she found.  I had no idea these signature travel reps got so involved, we’ve never had this happen before, so we are impressed.  She is also very nice and interesting to talk to, so we are looking forward to meeting with her again.

Kaehola’s talk was very good and entertaining as usual, but sadly, we found out that he and the other Polynesian Cultural Ambassadors will be leaving the ship in Hawaii, so evidently, they were for Hawaii only.  We hope that when we get down into the Polynesian Islands there will be a new set of cultural ambassadors. 

After returning from the talks, we had a little time to relax.  Val had some work to do on her computer and had some problems with it so by the time we got things sorted out it was time for lunch.

After lunch, Val got her business done and I caught up on the blog and then we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon until it was time for trivia, but we almost missed it.  We forgot about the time and had to rush up there at the last minute and made it there just in time.  As usual our team didn't have a top trivia score, but we weren't at the bottom either.  We had a good time so that’s all that counts.

After trivia we relaxed until dinner and then did our usual routine of dinner and the casino.  Tomorrow we are in Kona on the island of Hawaii (The Big Island).