I woke up bright an early to get into breakfast bang on opening. When I arrived there was already a few people standing outside, so I waited a few minutes, then walked to the front, only to see the sign saying it was still another 30 minutes until opening. I was so annoyed because I could have had an extra 30 minutes in bed, but more than that, I had specifically asked 2 waiters the night before what time it opened and confirmed it with the opening times on the way out, because I wanted to have a quick and early breakfast and then get off the ship to make the most of the day. Instead, I had to just walk around the ship and enjoy the view instead.
Once I finally had breakfast and left the ship, I walked through and made my way around the port and to the first of three beaches. I started at Ala Moana Beach was supposedly the least pretty beach but it was still beautiful. It had the port on one side and the city on the other, backed by a park which was lovely. I wasn't planning on stopping, but it was a much longer walk than I anticipated so I decided to go for a quick swim, sunbathe and read.
After drying off, I then walked through the park and went to the toilet. The one nice thing is that they have so many toilets and shower facilities throughout, but I loved seeing the rowing boats and the freshwater lakes, next to the incredible Banyan trees and palm trees. I then walked along the coastline and round to the smallest beach called Fort de Russy beach, but didn't get settled enough to swim.
The path then took me through to Waikiki. It was beautiful and the hotel complexes are huge, but they all were sadly having staff protests due to the working conditions and it really did ruin the peaceful environment.
The beach I spent most of the time was Waikiki Beach, which turns into Kuhio Beach, Queens Beach and Kapiolani Park Beach along the way. I didn't go all the way to the end and stopped next to the zoo. Had I have been in Hawaii an extra day, I probably would have tried to visit the zoo because it looked lovely. Whilst the other beaches were more so for the locals, this one was defintely for the tourists, surrounded by hotels and individual paid for sunbeds as well. I happily stayed on the sand, but normally I would be at an all inclusive with the sunbeds included.
Sadly, I then had to return to the ship because I'd prebooked a couple of experiences. I was going to walk back but I decided getting an Uber would be quicker. I was so so wrong and regretted it. I got off the beach with plenty of time and planned to get back to the ship, shower, do my hair and change. Unfortunately, the Uber took forever. It kept getting longer and longer, further and further away. I ended up cancelling after the 10 minute wait turned into 30 minutes, still being 12 minutes away. I'd even and messaged and rung for an update. I didn't want the same driver after I cancelled so switched to the eco Uber, and still the same drive picked up. After what felt like an hour, I finally made it back onto the ship, ran to my room, got dressed and then ran back to the top deck with definitely no time for lunch or showering.
There are quite a lot of activities on board the ship and some of them are free, but some of them do have a cost when at sea. The North Star is the highest Observation Deck on the ocean and it was lovely to see Honolulu, as well as the ocean and ship, from such a high vantage point. It's half the length of time as the paid version, which takes you over the sides of either side of the ship, but still, I think the view is better worth it from the port.
I then also booked the free iFly experience. Sadly, there was a malfunction with the equipment, so despite getting dressed and fitted ready to go in the tunnel, we then got rescheduled for the next day.
After the experience was cut a little short, I decided to get changed and head back out off the ship. I walked the opposite direction to Waikiki and headed to where we were originally meant to be docking, but sadly another ship was already there. I headed to see the Hawaiian dancing statues and then walked alongside the port shops and to see Aloha Tower which was beautiful.
Along the coastline, there was then a perfect view of both cruise ships and it was great to be able to see it all at once. Sadly, because of the safety procedures, you couldn't see the whole picture from the other side with the pandas and rock wall etc, as they blocked off both ends and only let you walk in the middle.
Once back on the ship, I headed to the room to freshen up for a hopefully early night. There was yet another towel animal (they had a different one most days) and the theme of the night was casual. I was a little annoyed because originally it was supposed to be rock so I had bought some clothes to wear for it, but I didn't feel super comfortable in it so I decided to just wear one of my normal dresses. I had already done some research and saw that one of the hotels did fireworks on the beach every weekend, but the cruise sold it as a special for them, so we did wait at sea a little longer than planned, so we could watch that from the ocean, before sailing to the next island.
The evening show was an acoustic country band and I was actually so excited for this because acoustic and country is my favourite type of music. Sadly, I was disappointed. One of the singers in the trio had a very high voice which just didn't suit my ears, and the other over sang every single word completely unnecessarily. The third I really liked (the guy playing the guitar) but his lead songs were quite depressing, so I would have loved to have hear more from him.
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