Rick&Jeannie

I hope that I'm doing them justice!

The thought just occurred to me that people *might* get the wrong idea about the pictures of all the food dishes I've been posting....those are NOT all of *my* meals! 😄 Traveling in a group of 6 gives plenty of opportunities for variety!

Day 11, Kuaui This amazing itinerary is very quickly approaching the end! I have to admit, a lot of it is becoming just a blur with it getting harder and harder to remember what we did in which port! Today we're doing the "Director's Cut" movie location tour. Another long tour at 6.5 hours. This is one that our group has been looking forward to. Lots of movie filming locations. I'm glad I'm not using a film camera! I'd go broke burning through rolls of film! I'll get some posted when possible. I'm "fueling up" right now at The Local!

I don't remember separate lines...but they very well may have. My memory has been blocked out as far as embarkation goes back to the beginning of *this* cruise. (We're currently on an NCL cruise right now.) We had to stand in line almost 2 hours just to get on the ship in Papeete. We've embarked 5 or 6 times in Southampton now and I don't recall ever having any real issues.

We have, on a transatlantic where we flew over and came back to Fort Lauderdale. We had our medallions before we left.

6:00pm Spinnaker Lounge, Nature's Rhythm Tribute to the Eagles. Ummm...no I give them an "A" for effort, but if you're going to try to do Eagles, you'd better be pretty good.

A most amazing meal at Mama's Fish House! Highly recommended. (Bring money!)

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This has not been our experience...

Day 10, Maui Yesterday (having missed Hilo due to the POA blocking our dock) was a bit of a disappointment. NCL of course scrambled to come up with new excursions to replace what had been missed...but on such short notice (and given the madhouse at the excursion desk) we just decided to go on a walkabout (apologies to our Aussie friends!) We had planned on seeing the volcano area. Our excursion costs were refunded to our onboard account...I had hoped that it would go directly back to credit card. GS *says* we can cash out on the last day...I hope so! Today, no ship excursion. We are going to visit a favorite restaurant that we've been to a couple times before. Mama's Fish House is about a 20 minute ride from the port. We'll have lunch and have plenty of time to get back to the ship.

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Got through the immigration "face-to-face". Abita of a joke. A long single file line of passengers threading between 2 customs officers who basically just looked to see that you had a passport in hand. No way they had time to look at your passport photo and then compare with the person walking past them. All of seconds max. Fastest "entry" into the US we've *ever* had! Not complaining. Here is the scene just after with everybody heading for the tenders.

We are currently on the Spirit...was supposed to port call in Hilo today. Our Hilo call has been canceled and we are heading to Kona.

Here is a link with more info... https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/3003839-pride-of-america-technical-problem-in-hilo/&ved=2ahUKEwjAraH9sMyFAxWKGDQIHZhgDT0QFnoECBwQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1KvQdkc5VbV-iQFXHpm6ur

Hah! Well, I spoke too soon. Our Hilo port stop has been canceled due to the Pride of America being stuck in Hilo. We are instead going to Kona. A bit of a disappointment...Konami I'm sure is very nice (much smaller) but we were looking forward to seeing the volcano area. I guess we'll just get off the ship and walk around a while. POA apparently has some serious issues going on...

Day 9, Hilo We have to do our Customs "face-to-face" interview before we get off the ship. We have our first ship excursion today, a long one! Volcanoes and Tastes of Hawaii, 6.5 hours.

Another great meal at Le Bistro!