Welcome to our World

 After breakfast we disembarked (super easy with NCL) and took two Lyfts to Pearl Harbor.  Hubby and I joked that I always get the nicer cars and drivers, which remained true when we went to the airport later as well.  Since no baggage is allowed at the memorial, they had a neat little building we could check our luggage into for the day.  We signed up for everything since we didn't have to leave for the airport until closing time.  There was a shuttle bus to take us to the USS Missouri and our tour guide was actually in the movie Battleship .  Not many of the people on the tour had seen when the Mighty Mo had stepped in to fight the extraterrestrials but Hubby and I insisted on taking a photo with him.  His real name is George M. Arine but he played Admiral Hashimoto and said many of the tour guides for the USS Missouri were invited to be a part of the film. Next stop was the Pacific Aviation Museum, which my grandmother had donated to back when it wa...

When we woke up in Kaua'i it was raining so we were a bit worried about how that would affect our plans for the next two days but the weather ended up being much nicer than forecast.  A top priority for our trip was to try out surfing for the first time.  I chose Kaua'i Surf School at Poipu Beach and we can all highly recommend going to them!  Since only four surfers were allowed per lesson, they let us sign up for one group lesson and one semi-private lesson and then they took all of us on and 4 of us would take turns in the water for the duration of both lessons.  That worked out great because learning how to surf so sooooo much fun but sometimes you just need to take a breather too.  Worth every penny and I would totally go surfing there again. After returning to the ship to shower and eat, Hubby, Michelle, Natalie, and I ventured out to see Waimea Canyon.  We enjoyed the hour long drive, paid our $30 to park at the view point, hiked up the stairs, and s...

Volcanoes National Park was a major reason we decided to take the Pride of America around the Hawaiian Islands. We stopped at the must see sights and hiked about 3.5 miles around and through Kilauea Iki Crater.  The rainforest area was so enjoyable and the crater floor was other worldly. After finishing up at VNP the children all wanted to go back to the ship so Hubby and I dropped them off and kept exploring together a little while longer. The Kaumana Caves were so unique and fun to explore! Rainbow Falls had a really neat story about a battle between Maui and a giant lizard that helped form what you see at the Wailuku River. I’m pretty sure if we thought to get shaved ice or an açaí bowl sooner the kids would have stayed with us!  This place was great and had a neat market next to it. Our itinerary included a second day on The Big Island, with day two being out of Kona, but after docking there they realized the water was too choppy to use the tender boats. I was sad we would...

Here we are trying new things and going places we have never been before! We wanted to take the children to as many islands as possible so decided to book Norwegian Cruise Line’s 7 night cruise around Maui, Hawaii and Kauai. Back in 2020.  We have only done Disney Cruise Line so we noticed a lot of similarities and differences before we even got on the ship. Let’s just say Disney MIGHT always be our favorite. But that first day we were able to get on board super easily, eat lunch at the buffet, take ourselves on a tour of the ship, lounge on the deck and watch the departure show, the boys played basketball, Natalie played a couple arcade games, and we got unpacked. The restaurants are easy to choose from and it amazes me they can make it work so well with only 3 restaurants available for dinner and no assigned dinner times. We do miss having the same waiters every night but we like being able to show up whenever we want. Anyways, this was our first time to Maui and we absolutely lo...