Spring Break Cruise in Hawaii - Day 6 (Pride of America)

 

Today we are docked at Kailua-Kona (Kona for short), a beautiful unincorporated area on the Island of Hawaii. This is a tender port. Today we signed up for the Glass-Bottom Reef Tour, which doesn't happen until this afternoon so we used this morning to do a little sightseeing of our own. 

The area where the tender boat drops you off is very walkable. There was a man doing a free storytelling of the local history which I thought would be interesting so we took a seat for a little while. Unfortunately, he was about as boring as it gets and when people clearly showed loss of interest, he started calling people out and trying to get them to answer questions to see if they'd been paying attention. No thanks. We are on vacation.

There were some beach areas right here also, so this is a good port to not sign up for any excursions at all and just wing it. Also next to the tender port, is the Kamakahonu National Historic Landmark. 

Kamakahonu National Historic Landmark

The company Kona Boys has a lot of activities right in this area also. I wish we had booked for an outrigger canoe experience with them instead of the glass bottom boat because it would have been a lot cheaper and more enjoyable. 

Kona Boys Outrigger Canoe Ride

Next, we walked to Kona Brewing Company. It was not a bad walk. 

Kona Brewing Company was quite busy but we were able to get a seat after a brief wait and the service was pretty fast. They had lots of great choices on tap.

We got a flight of 4 beers to try (took the picture after finishing the first one):

There are some good looking seafood restaurants in this area as well, which we didn't try. Next, we went to our meeting spot for our Glass-Bottom Reef Tour excursion, which is near the tender port. This area is called Historic Kailua Village. This is also the official starting point for the annual World Ironman Triathlon.

Our glass bottom boat

The picture above shows the glass bottom boat in front of our cruise ship. Notice how small it is? Yeah. It was VERY rocky. We looked down through these glass panels on the bottom of the boat, and managed to see some colorful fishes and spiky sea urchins, but I had to look up and far out periodically to not get seasick. The staff passed out ginger candies liberally and seemed to be no stranger to our reactions. I saw SO many people puking into pukebags that I wonder if it was just a particularly bad day or if this was just average. Our trip didn't last an hour as advertised. About 45 minutes into it, the crew said something like, "ok we are losing everyone. Let's go back." Honestly the crew was excellent and I don't hold them responsible for "short changing" the amount of time - I was thankful to be returning back to shore. But it was not a cheap excursion (about $200 a person at the time, which interestingly seems to be dropping in price now I checked 8 months later on NCL, and only $71 if you book from TripAdvisor). I guess I just wish we had chosen something different because it definitely wasn't worth it. 

Viewing panels in the glass bottom boat

After the boat tour was over, we walked over to Kona Wave Cafe. We've all heard of Kona Ice so we had to try it. They had lots of pictures of their signature shaved ice bowls that looked awesome. When we placed our order, we sensed some attitude but we brushed it off. They told us to go wait outside, which we thought was odd but we followed their directions. We kept our ears perked to listen for our name since we figured they didn't want us to crowd their indoor space, but never heard anything and saw other patrons came and were allowed to wait inside, then getting their food, so we decided to go in and check on our order. That's when we saw our shaved ice bowl half melted on the counter. 

Our half melted shaved ice

We thought about not saying anything, but as we started eating, we saw more and more patrons being allowed to wait INSIDE and walking out with HUGE shaved ice bowls that it just started to really making me mad. I know they can probably tell that we are not locals and probably think they don't need to worry about return business, but to me, it should be at least equally important to treat all customers with the same kindness because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth for their whole community. How you treat me will translate to me for your entire community because my experience with your region is limited. So far, Hawaii has not been the kindest to us.

Tonight's dinner is a special treat because we were invited to dine with some NCL officers! At our table was General Manager Dustin Brown and Food & Beverage Director Ben Adams. I absolutely love these dinners. It's so nice to be able to chat with the officers and ask them whatever questions you wish to ask. They also always give us a photograph for memories.

Dining with the officers

We attended the nightly entertainment tonight, but I wish I could recall what it was...