Rick&Jeannie

Yes, I went to GS and that's what they explained it was for.

The Local has a pretty good Reuben sandwich...and EXCELLENT French fries. While the fries at the buffet are technically the same...every time I've had them there they had been sitting for a while and were somewhat cold. Maybe I've just been lucky but each time at The Local they have come out hot and fresh. They appear to be cooked to order.

Another alternative (with the wifi plan) would be WhatsApp. It gives you text and video calling capabilities for free.

Nepali Coast

We are staying 2 extra days before heading home.

Day 12, Kauai It's hard to believe that this is the last full day of our cruise! No port stop today... "Cruising the Napali Coast". I've got to visit GS today to find out what the 2 mysterious $50 charges are for that appeared on our account yesterday. They are labeled "shore excursion" but our shore excursions were booked and paid for long ago. We are due to dock in Honolulu tomorrow at 6:00am. Not sure how much I will be posting today...maybe some scenery looking at the coast.

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Beatles Tribute by The Power of Five. I think it safe to say that this band was the best, most energetic band on board. Most of their sets were *totally* non-stop for the entire 45(?) minutes. Rarely did they ever pause between songs to talk. High energy. Not like a couple of other performing acts we saw (which were not anywhere near as good, either.) My only "complaint" was that the asst. cruise director who introduced the band stayed out on the "dance" floor the whole set and would block anyone trying to take pics or video. And then of course there's always those annoying people dancing! 😄 (Apologies for poor audio...it's hard to get good audio in a setting like this, especially on a phone.) Am I concentrating too hard on entertainment? 20240420_220709.mp4 20240420_220927.mp4 20240420_221243.mp4

Smooth tunes from The Power of Five, Spinnaker Lounge 20240420_210506.mp4

I mentioned earlier that we had lunch in Hanalei at a nice little spot called Kalypso. This was pretty much at the end of the tour, though we still a bit of a drive to get back to the ship. I had a really good spicy chicken wrap with waffle fries while DW had an omelet. It's an open air type spot, complete with chickens roaming through the dining room! If you find yourself in Hanalei and are looking for a decent spot to eat, give Kalypso a shot.

It's really hard to convey the experience we had without the benefit of seeing the video clips that were shown and being able to just look at the exact location as it is today. Obviously, some of the sites have dramatically changed, especially areas that were hit by hurricane Iniki in 1992. The Coco Palms hotel was featured in many films...it never reopened after the storm. And, of course, just normal remodeling and area development has changed some locations. Anyway...if you can see the list of films that I posted earlier (hopefully it is readable) you can see that Kauai has had a very rich history in film influence.

We finished off the tour with a bit of shopping (required, I think...) before walking back to the ship. The driver said he was supposed to take us all back to the ship but about half wanted to hop off a few blocks before the pier. "Cousin Larry" was a great tour guide.

Overall, this was a pretty good tour. There's a lot of riding on a bus, but you really have to in order to get around to all of the filming locations. We had lunch (on our dime) at a very nice spot in Hanalei.