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 saw nothing but fog. No joke. Just fog. The Grand Canyon of the Pacific was a fail but shaved ice at Jo Jo's (recommended by Michelle's friend) was the best ever so that made up for the trip.
Day 2
Even with our failed trip to Waimea Canyon, Michelle was game to join Hubby and I the next morning to hike to Ho'opi'i Falls, as recommended by Moana a couple days before. We were already prepped to go tubing, so here we were hiking around in water shoes, which led to much slipping around but we all stayed upright. Made me appreciate those waterproof hiking shoes we bought everyone too.
After our hike we went back to the ship to collect the other half of our family and then realized we were all in the rental car early enough to drive to Wailua Falls before our excursion. We could definitely cross waterfall off our list of things to see on our trip!
My sister in law, A, recommended the Mountain Tubing Adventure with Kauai Backcountry Adventures and we had a wonderful time! They have a great system in place and have thought of everything. Natalie and I did a guess the celebrity game of famous people who had also done this tour and got a prize upon completion. I have already used my new shopping bag at Costco and I love useful souvenirs. All of the guides were great. It is always neat to hear stores from people who grew up on the island you are visiting. It was really interesting to hear about how the sugar plantations affected the island and her people. We got to float along the irrigation canals and through five tunnels along our way. This was a great excursion and I'm so glad A recommend it to us! P.S. One of our truck drivers was named Essay and he was hilarious. That's his Shaka in our family photo. We also have a lovely photo of his Crocs that will totally go in the scrapbook I make of our trip.
That night at dinner we played Kiss, Marry, Kill with the Hawaii islands we had visited. A lot of us agreed that if we were to live on an island, we would want to "marry" Oahu, but we would want to vacation "kiss" Maui, and The Big Island has been crossed off our bucket list "killed." It was a great conversation and I'm so glad that even though our time on all the islands was way too short, we at least got to make fond memories for at least a day or two on all of them. None of us were sad to be leaving the Pride of America but we sure were sad that we would be flying home the next day.
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