Had an awesome 20th anniversary on the Pride of America-July 16, 2011

A little background about us. We are from Tucson, Arizona. I just turned 49 on the cruise and DH, Steve, is 48. I booked this Hawaiian cruise on the NCL Pride of America in December 2009 to celebrate our 20th anniversary which we celebrated on July 20th, 2011. We cruised without our kids this trip. ;) Two of our friends, Bill & Claire, joined us on this cruise. Bill is a Navy veteran and he really wanted to see Pearl Harbor and treat Claire to a vacation in Hawaii.

I have myatonic muscular dystrophy so I have some mobility issues but am not in a wheelchair so some of my review may help those with mobility issues. I used a cane that has a seat which helped since I have trouble walking long distances and cannot stand for long periods. I am also overweight by about 50 pounds so that doesn’t help my mobility.

We flew on Hawaiian airlines out of Phoenix airport on Saturday, July 16th so we stayed in the Hilton Garden Inn by the airport which included our parking for 10 days. We met up with our Arizona Cruisers friends from cruise critic forum for dinner at the Rainforest Café in Tempe, AZ. What a great send-off to our vacation.

The Hawaiian airlines flight was uneventful and took 6 hours. We arrived in Honolulu 15 minutes early (10:45am) and we received all our luggage from baggage claim. I had pre-arranged a shuttle pickup thru Mark at Hawaii23.com to take us from the airport to the cruise ship pier. We paid him $30 for the 4 of us which included a tip. He has a dark blue passenger van and doesn't pick up multiple groups. He is dedicated to just us which I thought was more personal. He also told us a little about himself & his company. He also told us various things along the way about Oahu.

I called Mark on arrival as he requested for our pickup to take us to the pier. Mark wasn’t expecting us so early since our flight was expected to arrive at 11am so we waited about 10 minutes for him to get there. He dropped us off in front of the terminal where a porter came up to us & grabbed our bags. He took us all to the front of the line and then directed us to the x-ray line. Since we are Latitudes members, check in was quick and smooth. All 4 of us were on the ship in less than 20 minutes.

Our rooms were not ready yet so we ate in the lido. Lunch was pretty good. When they announced the cabins on deck 8 were ready, we headed to our rooms. That was around 2:30pm.

As we walked toward our room, we saw all the luggage lined up outside the cabins. All our bags were ready when we got our room. I’ve never seen our bags show up that quick. That was awesome service. We unpacked and kicked back in our cabin until they called us for the muster drill.

Our extended balcony room 8520 had a huge balcony. I have been on an extended balcony on Carnival Spirit and RCI Mariner and this balcony was far superior with 2 lounge chairs and 2 regular chairs and small round table and still had room to move about. The room was not as spacious however. It was okay for our week stay but rather cramped for getting around and felt much smaller than our rooms on Carnival and Royal Caribbean.

We went to muster drill which was held in the theater and was rather entertaining. Each time the attendant demonstrated each task described over the intercom, everyone applauded and everyone was laughing. When the muster drill ended, we headed to the Key West bar & grill on deck 12 by the pool and had several mai tai’s and had a great time with our bartender Daniel. We stayed there until it was time for sailaway so we went toward the bow on deck 13 to watch sailaway. We headed back to our room to drink our bottle of wine that I had pre-ordered thru Bon Voyage department and watched the lights of Honolulu fade off in the distance. We were very tired after all the mai tai’s, not getting good sleep the night before, the tiring flight, and the time difference. Even though it was only 8:30pm, it was like 11:30pm our time so we couldn’t stay up.

The ship was rocking & rolling all night and that was consistent throughout the entire sailing time. We felt a lot of movement in our cabin which was on deck 8 toward the bow. I don’t think this ship uses stabilizers. It was so bad the last night when all the clothes were packed that I had to remove the hangers from the closet because they were swinging and clanging against each other. It was so noisy.

The movement usually rocks me to sleep but for some reason, I didn’t sleep real well the first night. I’m sure the mai tai’s contributed to me not sleeping well. I woke up at 4am which was 7am our time & we watched the ship pull into the Maui port.

Maui, Sunday, 7-17-2011:

We picked up our Thrifty car. We reserved a mid-size SUV which was supposed to be a Jeep Liberty and they gave us a Ford Edge which was pretty nice. They said it was an upgrade for our anniversary but I think either would have been fine.

I forgot my GPS at home. GRRRR. Of all things to forget, it had to be something I really needed. I had all my preprogrammed destinations in mine but I ended up having to rent one from Thrifty for $12/day at all my port stops. Darn it. I knew I would forget something but it is really nice having one in unfamiliar territory and worth having to spend the extra money.

We set out on our journey in Maui which first included the Iao Needle. That was nice and the temps were wonderful. We got some good photo’s.

Then we headed to the Baldwin Sugar Museum. That is where the smoke stacks are that you see from the pier. Veteran’s and family get in free. It was a little boring to me but it was something on my list to do. Then we headed in to Lahaina where we picked up snorkel gear at Snorkel Bob’s on Front Street for the week. You pick it up on one island and return it to another island within 7 days. We paid $35/per week per person for the upgraded custom fit set.

Then we went to Cheese Burger in Paradise and that was awesome and on my list of things to do. $80 plus tip for the 4 of us so it wasn’t cheap but sure tasty. Tropical breezes while you eat. Awesome!:)

From there we headed to see the banyan tree on Front Street. We drove by it and passed it so I would have had to find a way to turn around to go back to it but nobody wanted to get out of the car. Said we saw it now lets keep going so we headed to Whaler’s Village mall and Ka’anapali beach. We took some other photo's from there. By then we were tired and feet & legs were sore from all the walking so we headed back towards the ship and stopped at Walmart for water, soda and a few things. I scored a couple decent Hawaiian shirts & some souvenirs.

We returned to port around 4:30pm to find a front row parking space right in front of the pier. You can see my navy blue SUV in the picture front row 2nd spot between the silver & red car and it has a black line/cable going thru it.

We got back to the cabin and found our room steward had cleaned our room but she totally ignored my note to her which was stuck to a $5 bill that was wrapped around a Kit Kat bar asking her to fill our small collapsible cooler with ice and remove the contents of our fridge. So we had no ice for our water & soda we had just bought & there was no room in the fridge to store them. Later that evening we found our room steward and asked her to take care of those things. She didn’t understand English very well which is why she didn’t handle the things we asked earlier. She removed the items from the fridge and placed them on one of the shelves in our cabin which eliminated extra storage for us. Also makes the beer skunky for future passengers so if your beer in the fridge tastes nasty, it is because they aren’t able to keep them stored cool.

Great review so far, Lisa! Looking forward to reading more about your cruise!:)

Thanks Lisa

Looking forward to the rest of your review.

Still remember those cocktails we all had together on the Mariner, that Ist day:)

Cheers

Tanya

I love it when I get to read reviews. I check in daily for reviews...Thank you for taking the time to feed my obsession!!! I look forward to more:D

The second day in Maui was more relaxed. We went to Baldwin Beach park that wasn’t very far from the ship. If you walk all the way toward the right from the parking lot there is calmer water that is protected by a reef and not very deep. It made for great swimming. At the main area near the parking lot there is a lifeguard, restrooms and a shower to rinse off. We returned the rental car and headed back to the ship.

It was my birthday so we went to Teppanyaki for dinner and had a really great dinner. We told them we were celebrating my birthday and our anniversary was Wednesday and he created a heart out of the fried rice and put his spatula under it to create the effect of a heart beating. That was pretty cool. After dinner they brought us an unexpected little cake and sang happy birthday to me and then followed with the song let me call you sweetheart. I had preordered a bottle of White Zinfindel from Bon Voyage dept and that was in our cabin too.

We had a pre-arranged tour with Big Island Aina Tours. Gil was our guide for the day and we had an awesome day. I would say it was the highlight of our trip. This is a picture of Gil with Rainbow falls behind.

We had prepaid for 4 of us but Bill didn’t want to go and we had trouble finding Claire. We finally reached Claire just as we were loading in to Gil’s van. He was very nice and left for a few minutes to give Claire a chance to get off the ship. I called him when we were all out front and he picked us up and we headed on our tour. Our tour was scheduled to start at 9am but we really started around 9:15am. His wife Tina handmade wrist leis for Claire & I which I thought was very nice. They also gave us a box of chocolate covered mac nuts with a thank you card which was a nice touch.

It was sprinkling on us off and on throughout the day but we still thoroughly enjoyed our tour and didn’t really have a bad impact on what we did. He offered us rain poncho's but we declined cuz a little sprinkles never hurt anyone.

Our tour took us to various lookouts & points of interest which included a chinese garden, the King Kamehameha statue, and various little waterfalls.

We arrived at the Botanical Garden and we paid our admission fee of $15/pp plus $5 for the golf cart ride to the bottom of the garden walkway. I probably could have walked it but I have muscular dystrophy and my muscles get weak and tired very easily so the golf cart ride was worth the $5 to me especially knowing the rest of the day had lots of walking and stairs to follow. The gardens were beautiful. So many flowers and tropical plants and we even got some great photo’s with a waterfall behind us. In this picture you can see Aina Tours gold van in the parking lot.

The path that the golf cart also goes down:

Onomea Waterfall

There were various flowers, birds, and a huge leaf.

We went to see Rainbow falls and Akaka Falls. Akaka falls was a bit of a hike down some stairs. There is a long path or a short path which is basically just a loop around. We took the short route because Claire & I weren’t feeling the energy to take any extra stairs. It wiped me out just making it back up to the top. Rainbow falls was nice and required no extra walking.

And a few other little falls along the path.

We also visited the Macadamia nut farm. We saw wild pigs in the fields eating up the mac nuts from the ground.

We ate yummy ice cream from the snack bar. We ran in to Gil’s wife Tina at the Mac nut farm as her tour group had just arrived after visiting the volcano national park. We got to eat ice cream together where we thanked her for our leis.

We then went to Richardsons Black Sand Beach Park. It was starting to rain on us so we made that a quick stop. Tide was high so we didn’t get to see any sea turtles but Gil said they are often there when the tide is low. He returned us to the ship around 3pm. Our friends had bought us a bottle of wine which was waiting in our room when we returned.

We arrived in Kona and we had a snorkeling excursion thru Fair Winds II at K-bay. Note to remember to check out towels from the lido deck the night before since they don’t open until 8am. We had no towels for our snorkeling excursion so we ended up buying a couple from Fair Winds for $10/each. We got our tender tickets from Pinks Champagne bar at 6:45am and we were on one of the first tenders off the ship. We headed to one of the taxi vans that was lined up out front and one of the taxi’s took us to K-bay. It cost $26 each way so we paid $30 each way with tip. We asked him to pick us up at 1:30 and he was there waiting for us.

We had a great day of snorkeling. There was one thing that irritated us. We arrived before they arrived to check us in. We were the first ones to check in and receive our boarding passes but they don’t load the catamaran in the order you check in. I am handicapped to a certain degree and not easy for me to stand in line. We saw people lining up to load so we stood in line too. We stood in line for at least 20 minutes before they started loading. We weren’t at the front of the line so by the time we got onboard, all the lower deck seats were taken. People had their bags, snorkel gear, towels etc on the seats which didn’t leave any room for bodies to sit. I didn’t want to climb stairs to the top deck. Not only because I am handicapped and have a hard time with stairs but also it was in the sun. We sat on barstools where they were serving continental breakfast so we really weren’t supposed to sit there but we didn’t have much choice unless we wanted to climb to the top. That started the day off on a bad note. Once we arrived at K-bay, they made everyone climb to the top deck for the mandatory safety speech. So I still ended up having to climb the stairs. ??????

The snorkeling was great with clear water, good visibility, and lots of fish to see. I used a 35mm underwater camera and don't have electronic images of the snorkeling yet but I developed them and they aren't that great. Coral wasn't super colorful like I imagined but the fish were colorful. We were next to Captain Cook monument. They rang the lunch bell where they served burgers, hot dogs, pasta salad, chips etc.

We got back to our cabin which was decorated for the Bon Voyage Anniversary package I preordered. All the decorations weren’t sticking so most of it was just laying on the bed. We tried to retape them but woudn't stick from the humidity. Kind of a waste of $30 but we had another bottle of wine and a nice anniversary cake. We had not eaten the first cake we got from Monday night and here we had a second one that was even bigger.

We had dinner reservations at Lazy J steakhouse at 6:30pm and we had an awesome dinner. Their special that night included a prime rib that was topped with crab, lobster and shrimp with a sauce and fried onions on top. We also ordered the full lobster to share which was an additional $20 to the dinner surcharge. OMG. It was delicious but most of it went to waste. We had 3 giant shrimp in a shrimp cocktail plus dinner rolls and a huge bowl of clam chowder. By the time I got done with one roll, one order of shrimp cocktail and one piece of bread, I was full. I ate the lobster and just a few bites of the prime rib and the rest went to waste. I sure wish we had microwaves in our cabin. We were unable to eat our dessert so we had that packaged to go. Our cruise consultant also gave us a free anniversary cake so they sang to us let me call you sweetheart in the steakhouse and gave us our 3rd cake to take back to the cabin. Okay so we had 3 cakes and hadn’t eaten any of them. I finally broke down and had one piece from the big cake but most of them were just wasted. But it was thoughtful and special to receive it.

Love reading your review...it sounds like they treat you really well when you are celebrating something...that is awesome. And that dinner at Lazy J's makes me want to make reservations for that place....love me some seafood.

Sounds like you guys had a fantastic time!! Can't wait to read more.

Lisa, your review is great! I am really enjoying it. You went to some different places than us. It gives me a motive to go back soon.:)

Sounds like your trip was fun, I am enjoying your review. The photos are lovely - brings back the memories for me!:D

We picked up our rental car in Kauai at Thrifty. We dropped off our 2 rolls of snorkeling pictures at Costco to be developed and then drove to Waimea canyon. We knew we would see it on the airplane tour the next day but Bill & Claire would not be going on the plane with us so we did this for them. It wasn't as nice as I expected but that may have been because we didn't stop at every pullout. It is considered to be the grand canyon of the pacific. However, it wasn't as exciting to me because I come from the grand canyon state which I think is really spectacular. We made the mistake of skipping all the lookouts on the way up and thought we would catch them on the way back down. There are not very many places to pull off on the way down the hill so I suggest taking advantage of the lookouts on the way up. Last trip in 2007 we drove to the north shore all the way to Ke'e beach at the start of the NaPali coast which I think is a better option. Just my opinion as I'm sure others will disagree.

a picture of our rental car along with the coast from the lookout at Waimea and the red dirt really shows here. The red dirt will stain your shoes and clothing so beware.

After a few photo opportunities there, we headed to Wailua Falls. Parking there is ridiculous. There is nowhere to turn around there. They really should consider adding a culdesac so people can turn around. We finally got a spot to park by waiting for someone else to leave.

Then we drove to O'paekaa falls which has much better parking but the falls are a little further away. This picture is zoomed in.

Then we got some lunch at Panda Express. Bill wanted fast food. Then we went to Lydgate Beach park. When I visited Lydgate in 2007, the water was crystal clear and you could see fish swimming along the sandy ocean floor by our feet. So we put on our snorkeling gear and were amazed at how murky the water was. You couldn't even see your feet and this was at waist level water. We went deeper toward the reef and the only place we could see fish was in the corner. Maybe an area 20' square and it wasn't real clear but we were able to see the reef, the fish, the sandy bottom etc. We were disappointed. I won't be raving on the boards trying to convince people to go to Lydgate anymore. Maybe that is why some people have disagreed with me when I have recommended Lydgate. It was far different than my first encounter there.

We picked up our pictures from Costco then returned the rental car and shuttled back to the ship.

I had trouble sleeping because I felt I was getting sick. Sure enough, I started coughing and feeling lousy. But we had our airplane tour over NaPali coast that we had paid for and I didn't want to miss. Our tour left at 8:30am so we walked to the ABC store at the Anchor Cove shopping center at 7:30am to meet the shuttle at 7:45 that picked us up for our tour. The plane tour was amazing. The photo's prove that and I just have a basic Nikon Coolpix camera and my pictures were wonderful. We were concerned when we left because it was raining in area's and clouds overhead but the shuttle driver assured us that the plane fly's below the clouds and we would still get to see everything fine. He was right. It was amazing. I have lots more pictures on webshots if want to see them, just click on one of the pics below.

The girl in the seat beside me got sick and threw up in her barf bag but I just kept looking out the windows away from her. All is good. I coughed a few times but I did my best to cover cuz I really didn't want to get anyone else sick.

We got back to our cabin at 10:30am and I crashed. I slept for a good 2 hours while Steve met up with Bill & Claire at their favorite hangout – the Key West bar & grill. Daniel was our waiter every day and he took really good care of all of us. So Steve enjoyed himself while I slept. He came back to the cabin and I asked him to get me something to eat from the buffet because I didn't want to go out & expose anyone else to my illness with whatever it was. I stayed in the cabin the rest of the day & night and spent a few hours packing that day since we were to disembark the next morning. I am still coughing today 6 days later. Grrr.

We got off the ship around 8:30am and a porter was waiting for us when we got our bags and he walked us to the area where the Thrifty shuttle drivers go. We rented a car thru Thrifty in Waikiki instead of the airport. All the shuttles at the pier are from the airport location but we specifically chose Waikiki because we were staying post-cruise in Waikiki. Since they don't typically send shuttles, I had to call them to request a pickup. We waited about 45 minutes for them to come. Meanwhile, other Thrifty shuttles were coming & going from the airport location. It probably would have been faster for us to go to the airport. Oh well.

Bill is a big guy and he was really struggling with my mid-size cars and said he would pay extra for an upgrade to a larger vehicle. I called Thrifty to ask them if they had any larger vehicles for me to upgrade to and they said no. By the time we arrived, we saw several and they upgraded me to a Jeep 4 door for $44/day more. Bill was much more comfortable & a happy camper.

We drove to Dole Pineapple Plantation. We all ordered our Dole Whip. Yum.

We didn't do the train or the maze but we wandered around a little and went to the pond where some kids were feeding the fish. Those fish went crazy when food is given to them.

Then we drove toward the north shore. We wanted to see turtle beach and traffic was horrific. Stop & go for miles. We thought there was an accident that we would soon pass but it was just people trying to park along the streets at the beach and causing traffic jams. We drove for miles thru this mess passing Laniakea Turtle Beach where we saw no turtles. People were snorkeling so I'm sure they were swimming but none were ashore. We continued on the Waimea Bay and finally turned around. Forget it. Traffic was not worth it. But the drive thru the hills of Honolulu was amazing. So beautiful. The pictures of us driving on the highway is far different than my Arizona desert landscape. LOL.

We went to Punchbowl cemetary then back to the hotel. We watched the Pride of America sailaway from our balcony.

We got up early and went to Pearl Harbor. We arrived there at 7:45am and got our 9:15 tour time tickets. It has changed a lot since we were there in 2007. They did a lot of renovations to the museum and grounds. Of course the Arizona Memorial was the same but the grounds were completely different. Much improved. We took tons of photo's including a touching moment when our friend Bill saluted those entombed in the sunken ship. It brought a tear to my eye.

and the oil tears:

We returned the snorkel gear to Snorkel Bob's in Waikiki then returned the rental car and returned to our hotel to get ready for our luau.

We booked the Germaine's luau. There were 860 people that attended this luau so you can call it a cattle call but it went smoothly and food was good. Not our best dining experience but it was okay. We didn't go for the food. We wanted to see a luau on a beach setting and that is what we got. It was entertaining.

Cousin Kale was our tour guide that picked us up from the Ilikai hotel. One of several bus's from Robert's Tours that ran to this luau. The drive was long but he made it fun and made the time pass by. Someone from the audience was proposed to which was one of those "awe" moments.

It rained on us as we were approaching the luau. So they handed us yellow poncho's as we exited the bus. All the tables and table clothes were wet. Since it wasn't raining anymore, we used the poncho's to sit on the picnic tables so our clothes didn't get wet. But the table clothes were soaking wet and we had to deal with that. This is an outdoor luau so you have to make the best of it when mother nature calls.

Monday, July 25rd – Back home:

Was a lazy day. We had to check out of the hotel by noon and our flight didn't leave until 3pm so we had Mark pick us up to take us to the airport. I called him at 11:45 to remind him of our pickup and said we were ready when he was. He was 3 blocks away so he came right away to pick us up. We went to the airport to await our departure back to the mainland. We got back to Phoenix airport at 12:15am Arizona time and called the hotel shuttle to come pick us up. We got to our car & drove back to Tucson arriving home at 2:15am.

Now a little about karaoke which is fitting since I'm AZ Karaoke Girl. LOL. We had a blast in the Gold Rush Saloon. Bill was quite the comedian. He isn't the greatest singer but he can entertain a crowd. They could not play my cd's which was a disappointment because I like my versions. They had a large list of songs and I had no trouble finding songs to sing, however, the versions are far different than I am used to. Lyrics or music is different as well as background vocals so it makes the arrangement not as good. But it was still fun and we all had laughs and a good time. We had 3 different KJ's during our cruise including the assistant cruise director that was filling in one night. It seems they don't dedicate much to their karaoke but they had it every night. Two of the 7 nights were the contest and I didn't attend either of them. Bill went and even entered the contest. Their karaoke started nightly at 9:15pm which was rather late considering we all had early morning activities. But we were there singing usually until they closed around midnight. Rueben was our waiter nightly in the Gold Rush and he was excellent. If you see him onboard, tell him Lisa from Arizona said hi.

The food was good. Dessert wasn't the best and I missed my Carnival desserts. Aside from that, I can't really complain. We enjoyed our food in the dining room, buffet, Cadillac diner and the specialty restaurants we visited. The steak in the main dining room had a lot of gristle but it was tasty. Fish & chips from Cadillac was awesome. I had no problem finding something to eat. I had a banana crème pie crepe with chocolate drizzled on top and whip cream. YUMMY! On Carnival cruises, I always go to the deli and order a grilled rueben sandwich and NCL didn't have a deli onboard that I could find so I missed that. Guess what I'm eating for dinner tomorrow night.:D I came home & bought the ingredients to make my own.

The Latitudes past guest party was okay but it started at 5pm on the same day we had reservations at Teppanyaki for 5:30 so we had to leave before all the raffle prizes were passed out. I had 2 or 3 mai tai's and a few appetizers then we left for Teppanyaki.

We didn't go to any of the shows. This trip was all about Hawaii and less about the cruise or the ship so we didn't have much time for entertainment other than karaoke.

They have the spyrosphere I think it is called. We watched people get spun around on that thing while we sat in the sun and that was entertaining.

I think I forgot to mention the Napali coast sailby. We had a port side balcony and enjoyed watching the NaPali coast from our room. That was the day I was sick so I was packing as we approached the coast but did sit out on the balcony once we got there. Had some amazing shots and God blessed us with a beautiful rainbow.

Other than that, I think I've pretty much filled you all in on my 10 days of travel. Feel free to ask any questions if you have any.

I took over 800 photos and didn't upload them all to webshots so I have some others that I may add eventually. I hope you enjoyed my review and that it helps others in the planning stages. I rely on cruise critic so much while planning my cruises and want to return the favor.

Thank you for all the details in your trip report! So sorry you got sick on your last day, but sounds like you managed to still enjoy yourself. Good you had a port side balcony!

We(family of 4) are going in January 2012, so we are in the "planning stage".

Can I ask about your Hilo guided tour? I've noticed many people here use Ricky's, and you seemed to have been pleased with your choice with Big Island Aina Tours. I've looked at both websites since reading your review,and noticed Aina's are a little more expensive, but do you know if there are any other differences in the tours?

Thanks in advance! Oh, and thanks about the towel tip(get the towel the night before from lido deck)

Welcome Home Lisa and Steve. We enjoyed our impromptu Bon Voyage dinner with you. Great review! Can't wait to see the pics. Hope you feel better soon.

Sue

Thank you for all the details in your trip report! So sorry you got sick on your last day, but sounds like you managed to still enjoy yourself. Good you had a port side balcony!

 

We(family of 4) are going in January 2012, so we are in the "planning stage".

 

Can I ask about your Hilo guided tour? I've noticed many people here use Ricky's, and you seemed to have been pleased with your choice with Big Island Aina Tours. I've looked at both websites since reading your review,and noticed Aina's are a little more expensive, but do you know if there are any other differences in the tours?

 

Thanks in advance! Oh, and thanks about the towel tip(get the towel the night before from lido deck)

I'm glad I'm helping you plan.

I personally chose Aina tours because of the tour size and the description of what we would see. We wanted to see the coast, the gardens, greenery, flowers, waterfalls etc. I believe Ricky's uses larger vans and more than just your group.

If there are 4 of you, I am pretty sure you will be on the tour with just the 4 of you with Aina. With Ricky's, you will likely have others with you. Not that it's a bad thing to have more people but you will have less freedom to do what "you" want to do. Aina will customize the tour to what you want to see. Let's say we had someone in our van that wanted to spend more time at the black sand beach, or really wanted to see parts of the volcano, we might have had to go along with it. In our case, Gil asked us if we wanted to see the volcano at all. The 3 of us did not and Claire & I were most interested in the botanical garden so we spent a lot of time there. I'm sure you will be happy with either Ricky's or Aina. I would avoid Roberts tour bus's for this type excursion. Aina tours will likely be the 4 of you plus the guide in a mini-van. Ricky's uses several vans that are larger capacity - at least 9 passenger. I remember seeing their vans and they were larger than ours. I'm not saying that Ricky's does this but I know other tours were outside drumming up business and I've read before that people have a tour booked and since it isn't full, the tour guide will make them wait while he tries to drum up more passengers. Not cool. Good luck.

Welcome Home Lisa and Steve. We enjoyed our impromptu Bon Voyage dinner with you. Great review! Can't wait to see the pics. Hope you feel better soon.

 

Sue

I'm uploading another 137 pics now Sue. We enjoyed our dinner with you too and Bill talked for days about still hearing thunder from the Rainforest cafe. :D

Well written review, Lisa! It sounds like a wonderful time, even though you got sick.:( It seems to have gone by very quickly. That's the bad part. We plan for months, sometimes more than a year and then it is over so fast!:eek:

We also enjoyed our dinner with you before you left. It was nice to meet Bill and Clare, too.:cool: