Aboard the Royal Princess

y 1 Calgary to Honolulu

Tim, bless his little cotton socks picked us up and had us at the

airport in good time. We found the Honolulu check in, and joined the

line up that snaked it's way to the counter. It all went quite smoothly,

our bags were weighed and tagged, both under the limit.

We pushed the buggy to an eatery, where we had a tasty chili and salad

lunch. It was now time to go through US customs and immigration, the

officer was very pleasant asking all the usual questions, then we had

our bags loaded onto the conveyer belt and joined another longer line up

that snaked it's way to xray, and screening.

Dorothy, due to her pacemaker assumed the position for the pat down, I

chose the regular wand scan rather than the new body scanner,got through

without a beep so no pat down for me, easy peasy for a change.

We had to wait for a late connecting flight, so after sitting on the

apron  waiting, the plane had to be de iced, this takes about 20 or so

minutes and by the time we joined the line up for take off, we were an

hour late, oh the joy of flying.

By my reckoning we are about 60 minutes out of Honolulu where we're

told the temp. is 26c. I like that a lot :)

The past six hours has flown by no pun intended, the plane

a Boeing B767 300 though old is reasonably comfortable, the lay out is

2 aisle 3 aisle 2, we're in a 2 which always seems more comfortable to

me. there's barely three inches knee room but still not too bad for a

short fellow like me. Tim and Grant would no doubt have a different

opinion.

I'll put this away for now but you know I'll be back later.

THURSDAY EVENING MARCH 24th.

ALOHA, we arrived at 6.15pm/10.15pm Calgary time and as the pilot made a left turn, we had an awesome view of Waikiki, the beach, hotels and  Diamond head crater,

 it would have made for a spectacular photo had I had my camera handy. By the time our bags were off the carousel and put onto the shuttle it was 7.00pm There were  7

Pax  on the bus staying at three different hotels. Ours was last call and we dragged our

Weary butts to the reception desk and were pleased to learn that we had a room overlooking the ocean on the 20th floor,  very spacious with all mod cons, the toilet has a bum washer and dryer which I've yet to try, Dorothy loves it, oops, TMI. :)

The International Market place is opposite the hotel, we were feeling peckish so went for some sushi then a look round. It was not awfully busy and after chatting to  a

few vendors it seems they are really feeling the pinch of the economic melt down, Dorothy picked up a few "do dads" just to help the economy, then feeling tired we headed for bed. Except I am sitting here composing the blog, it's 2.00am in Calgary, a

Four hour difference because of our clocks going forward a few weeks ago.

Time to say goodnight before I fall off the chair.  I'll be back..

FRIDAY AM MARCH 25th.

Mahalo and good morning, after a great nights sleep I awoke at 6.30am/10.30am Calgary time, truth be told I could have used another hour but we've plenty of time over the next 38 days to catch up on that.

I left Dorothy up on the lanai looking down on the surfers while I went in search of some free wi fi. The nearest is Starbucks It's just up Kalakaua Ave. but as I had a large cup of Kona in the room,  I'll pass and this may have to wait till we board the Royal.

The Moana surfrider is a top of the heap property celebrating it's 110th birthday beautifully decorated right on the beach. I'm sitting here in the open lobby as the trade winds gently cool, it's very peaceful and I'm nodding off, better get up to the room and see if Mrs. L is ready for something to eat.

=

12.30pm. Friday March 25th.

Sitting in the lobby waiting for transportation to the ship, I feel slightly over dressed for the weather, blazer and pants no tie though TG, no room in my suitcase as you will recall that we're abiding by our one piece of luggage rule. So far it's working well but we've done our best not open the cases too much. We had to really put some thought into this, making sure that anything we needed at the hotel was on top.

4.15pm.

Here we are aboard the Royal Princess, she's a graceful  vessel much like the ships of the 70/80s very easy to navigate our way, It's a shame she's moving to P&O after our voyage, but huge ships are the way the industry has been going for a number of years, as the Royal holds less than 700 pax, she is not a large enough profit center.

Must get ready for muster stations so until tomorrow or maybe the next day or perhaps later! Aloha.

Grrrrrr can't upload photos sorry