Hawaii & French Polynesia 2026

It is 43° and sunny today. Maybe we should just set out beach chairs on the black asphalt driveway and do a stay-cation. Then again, the white stuff surrounding us would not feel like sand between our toes, the breeze across it would be far from balmy, and tonight's forecast is 22°, so away we go. - - - - - Only going as far as Boston was not exactly a roaring start to the trip. Nevertheless, pulling out of the driveway signaled that we were through with the seemingly endless pre-trip preparation and planning. Rolling along, it occurred to me how much easier some parts of the preparation were than on trips we used to take. Paying bills on time came to mind. Between receiving most of them by email, using Informed Delivery to monitor incoming snail mail, and paying by credit card or having the bank send a check, what a difference it has made. We rode to the airport with two longtime friends who were catching a plane to San Diego this evening. What a coincidence that two couples from ...

  We spent the first part of the morning moving from hotel to van to terminal to concourse to airplane.  We were able to skip baggage check-in because we had opted to send the big bags ahead. They left Marion last week. We will next see them in our stateroom on the ship. LuggageForward kept us posted on the suitcases' progress; they arrived in San Diego last Saturday. We could validate that statement because each bag had a tracker that periodically updated us on its location. It was interesting to watch the route they took traveling coast to coast. Our JetBlue flight took off on time.  The plane's Wi-Fi didn't work, so there was no temptation to 'transition' into vacation mode by cleaning up a little desk work. It was straight into the deep end of the pool, including watching a movie, reading, doing some puzzles, and taking a nap. Visibility was good in places along the way, so Pam had her nose pressed to the window, particularly as we flew over the Rockies. Flying ...

  Star of India Today began with a quick wake-up when our house sitter called to say our alarm system had gone haywire, preventing her from leaving the house without summoning the police. Fortunately, there's an app for that, which enabled me to disarm the system. After a few phone calls, a plan to correct the problem was implemented.  After a nice, substantial brunch at the hotel, Pam & I set out for the Maritime Museum of San Diego . It was a 2+ mile walk; the first half was unattractive, but the second half was more interesting.  We first visited the Star of India , touted by the museum as the world's oldest active sailing ship. Among other things, during her career, she made 21 voyages from England to Australia, carrying as many as 400 immigrants. The transit took 100-134 days.     The museum has a replica of HMS Surprise . For  Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World  movie buffs, this is the ship onboard which the movie was filme...

What could be more romantic than setting out on an ocean cruise on Valentine's Day, complete with towel art on our bed? For those who can remember far enough back, cue the theme song to the TV series   The Love Boat . You should now feel free to begin cursing me for not being able to get that stupid song out of your head while seeing Captain Stubing's grinning face in your mind's eye.

Holland America photo After traveling southwest overnight, the ship pointed its bow at Hawaii, a heading 15° south of west (165°). The initial, more southerly course, was accompanied by an increase in speed to 22 knots with all five engines online. ( Normally, the ship cruises at about 16 knots, running on three of its five engines.)  During his noontime briefing, the captain explained that he wanted to put distance between the ship and a massive storm bearing down on the West Coast. The captain added that even with these actions, it could be a bit lumpy overnight and into tomorrow. Sea days are not known for generating blog content. If the weather does fuss up, maybe it will provide an interesting picture or two tomorrow. For today, if you are not interested in statistics about Nieuw Amsterdam , this is a good place to stop reading and do something more productive with your time. from the pages of Wikipedia History Name Nieu...

Zoom Earth Overnight, Nieuw Amsterdam moved to the back side of the low-pressure system to the north that hit the West Coast. Much of the day, the ship sailed through 10-foot waves out of the northwest from that system. The captain dropped back to normal cruising speed, and the stabilizers significantly reduced the waves' impact, but there was enough motion for some passengers to drink ginger tea and eat green apples. ---------------- This morning, I was reviewing some pictures. The biggest difference between the picture of my birthday cake on the left and the one on the right is that the one on the left was taken in 2017. I cannot recall where, but I must have been on a Holland America ship that day.

Garmin Navionics Boating app Early this morning, Nieuw Amsterdam crossed the point of no return on its passage to Kahului, Maui, Hawaii. This is the point where continuing on the Maui is shorter than turning around to get back to San Diego. Under overcast skies, warmer temperatures, and only a small sea swell, the ship cruised at 15 knots throughout Fat Tuesday . To arrive at our first port of call, Kahului, Maui, on schedule, the ship traveled at a reduced cruising speed to offset the faster speed maintained earlier in the passage to get clear of the storm. One of the nice things about Holland America ships is that their pool deck can be enclosed. When the weather is balmy, the cover retracts; when it is chilly or damp, it closes.  At midday, it was opened. This was short-lived because the ship soon entered a rain squall. Oops. Someone forgot to check with the bridge (the ship's control center) about the weather ahead of the ship. In the afternoon, the forward section of the pool...

This image was sent to us in an e-card. Google Search was not helpful in identifying the linguistic source of "anivernissary", but I rose to the occasion and was able to translate it. Yes, today is our 48th wedding anniversary.  Yesterday, our cabana steward, Firdaus, had latched onto something Pam said about our anniversary and arrived today with a cake.  Two can play that game. While giving it to us, he inadvertently revealed his birthday was next month. We teased the date out of him. It is now on my calendar. We may not have a cake for him, but I did pack a pop-up birthday card. At noon, the captain reported that we had traveled 1,622 NM since leaving San Diego. Our first port of call,  Kahului, Maui, is 632 NM away. ( NM - nautical mile, which is 6,000 feet versus a statute mile of 5,280, so 1,622 NM is 1,866 statute miles.) All day long, we cruised through short-lived rain showers. Temperatures were in the low 70s. This limited my time walking on the upper deck, but ...

  Cruising at 15 knots, with a 25-knot east wind and 11-foot seas, at noon, the ship was 282 NM from Kahului, Maui. Since we were traveling close to due west, the wind and waves were on our stern, making the ship's stabilizers effective in canceling much of the pitching motion. Pitching is vertical bow/stern motion, rolling is side-to-side tilt, yawing is the bow weaving through the water, and corkscrewing means there will be lots of available seating at meal times. Nieuw Amsterdam  is circled by the blue arrowhead circled in red in the middle of this Marine Traffic app screenshot. Dark blue are  passenger ships, red are tankers, green are cargo ships, orange are fishing vessels, and light blue are tugs. To help provide a sense of scale, the Marine Traffic app shows that the tanker north of us, heading east and appearing close to us, is 59 miles from Nieuw Amsterdam . Since leaving San Diego, neither Pam nor I have sighted another ship. Admittedly, we have not spent much ...

  After 5 days, land ho! The Kahului pilot came aboard at 7:15 this morning to help navigate the ship to its pier.  Pam and I were on the 5th deck forward of the bridge to watch Nieuw Amsterdam make her approach to the harbor, cutting through the slot between two long breakwalls. We were docked at 8:00.  We disembarked for our tour at 8:20, walking a short distance to a bus that took us to Maalaea on the south side of the island, along the way passing an enormous lemon orchard that was once a sugarcane field, before that crop became unsustainable for multiple reasons, including this water consumer and the labor required to harvest it. When we visited Maui in 2012, the ship docked in Lahaina, a port that would appear in the lower-left of  a larger map. It was devastated by a massive wildfire in August 2023. Although severely damaged, its famous 150-year-old banyan tree  spanning 1.94 acres is reported to be showing promising signs of survival. The locals have ta...

We approached Hilo's port under overcast skies with the threat of rain. What we saw of the shoreline from the starboard side was relatively uninteresting. We were off the ship and on the bus with only sixteen other people, rolling towards our first destination at 9:00 a.m. ---------- Today's Tour: Hilo's Wonders: Gardens, Falls & Stars Take a panoramic drive to learn about the Big Island of Hawaii and about the Hilo area as you make your way to Liliuokalani Gardens. A short drive through this serene paradise allows you to see the beautiful foliage. Head to Rainbow Falls to witness the resounding and deafening sound of this 80-foot waterfall as it rushes into a large pool below. The striking gorge is blanketed by lush, dense tropical foliage. Head to the Imiloa Astronomy Center to experience a full-dome planetarium show. Take an amazing space "voyage" with a Hawaiian sound and light show. On a self-guided tour of the exhibits, learn all about Hawaiian cultu...