Day three of the cruise was spent on the Big Island in the city of Hilo. We spent the morning at Volcano National Park. The trail we walked on to the volcano overlook was really interesting; we went through such diverse ecosystems in less than 2 miles... it was crazy.
After taking that trail we drove a little further to walk through the empty lava tubes. They were huge! You can see in the first picture how tall and wide they are in comparison to Mark and Joann. I had deja' vu during the tour - I think it may have reminded me of cartoons I watched when I was little with characters running through lava tubes... Scooby Doo maybe??
After we left the park we headed to the other side of the city to grab some lunch and see some waterfalls. Below is one of my favorite places of the entire trip... Akaka Falls. Words cannot describe the scenery on the trail to see the falls - unbelievably gorgeous. My cute Lauren believes in fairies and if they really do exist, I'm sure that they live in this park.
On our way back to the ship we made a quick stop to see Rainbow Falls. This waterfall is located in town, very close to a high school. It was fun to drive through town and see the locals going about school and work. Although this island wouldn't be my first choice for vacation, it might be my first choice if I had to choose one of the islands to live on.
On day four of the cruise, we traveled to the other side of the island - Kona. The water was too shallow to pull into port so we took a ferry from the ship to the island. You can't really tell from the picture, but the water here was blue - like a bright royal blue! It was crazy, beautiful. We spent half the day in the city, wandering around and playing on the small beach and then we headed back to the boat to relax and read.
The ship we sailed on was the Norwegian "Pride of America." As far as cruises go, it was a nice boat it was a great way to get a taste of each island. This ship was different than the other cruises I've been on because it seemed a lot quieter with a lot less night life. We went to some shows - a comic, a couple of dance/variety shows, a tribute group for The Four Seasons... but our favorite performers were a husband and wife team from a band called Toby Beau. Supposedly they had a hit in the late 70s but what we enjoyed about them is you could tell they LOVED music. They were probably in their 60s and they were in great shape; totally rocking out on the stage, the husband was an amazing guitarist, they harmonized beautifully, and they both had huge smiles on the entire set - fun performers. The food on the ship was great, the window in our room was huge, we both escaped getting sea sick, we had some great servers at dinner, and we went to bed fairly early almost every night. :)
Next up, our final destination... Kauai!
Our ship around Alaska didn't have a lot of 'night life' either, but usually because we were in bed by 10pm, we didn't want to miss a minute of anything so we woke early every day:).
ReplyDeleteI'm having deja vu!!! This was pretty much our exact cruise...except we were on Norwegian's Pride of Hawaii, the sister ship to yours. I'm glad you had such a great time!
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