We had a great time on our cruise. We boarded the Celebrity Century in San Diego on November 4th. It's an older ship and needs a little sprucing up but everything was nice and clean. We had wonderful food including an herb crusted flounder, lobster and chateaubriand to name a few! The ship's crew were all very friendly and great! The entertainment was great. The muscians around the ship were really great and enjoyable. There was a guitarist, pianist and an acapella group that were especially good! We attended a few nighttime shows including the "clean comic" and a few of the variety type shows and musicals.
There are lots of things to do on the ship on sea days and we participated in some of them. They have a casino which Jeri and I frequented, bingo, pool activities, trivia, golf, bowling (on the X-Box) and more. There are great places to read your book, banana daiquiries to drink and lots of ocean to see! Jeri and I also had tea (or a latte for me) every afternoon with a little cookie to munch on!
One afternoon the four of us had champagne high tea in one of their special dining rooms. It was very elegant. The waiters were dressed formally and they had four at our table to pour the first cup of tea to each of us. I had the Vanilla Orchard tea and it was delicious. The sandwiches and desserts were also yummy!
We arrived at Hilo on November 9th. We had to tender in to shore and boarded a Waterfall and Rainforest Tour! Our first stop was the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory. It was quite interesting and we purchased some Macadamia Kisses! You can watch some of the process through windows. Next stop was the Waterfall. Unfortunately they had three days of a drought on Hilo and there was only a small bit of water falling! They have 113 inches per year of rain! We also visited a black sandy beach and could see smoking lava, cliffs with the ocean crashing on them and drove through a rain forest. We stopped at a park that lava had gone through and saw lava trees!
Our next stop on the 10th was on Kona. There we took a glass bottom boat out to see spinner dolphin. There weren't many fish to see but we did see the spinner dolphin, spotted dolphin and bottle-nosed dolphin. After we got off the boat Jeri went to visit her friend's mom that lives there. Ted, Stach and I went shopping. Jeri met us back at the Kona Inn for lunch.
On the 11th we stoped in Lahaina. Our friends David and Debbie Hawkins were also there and so we met them in Napili for lunch at the Sea Horse Restaurant. We had a great lunch and then we headed back to town. Ted and Stach went back to the ship while Jeri and I did some shopping!
Our last stop in the Islands was at Honolulu. We got off the ship and went to the International Market Place to shop. We bought a few things then walked across the street to the Royal Hawaiian for their famous Mai Tai and lunch! It's a beautiful view of Diamond Head from there. The guys headed back to the ship and Jeri and I went to find a nail place without success, they were a little far to walk to! But we managed to find a Starbucks and had coffee! We went to catch the bus back to the ship and it took us back to the shopping center where we caught the bus that would take us to the ship. Unfortunately we had to go all the way back around to where we started and then the bus broke down. They had to send another bus which took awhile and then they took us on a long ride back to the ship! We were tired by the time we got back and ready for our sea days!
We arrived in Ensenada at 7:00 p.m. on the 18th. We didn't get off the ship because we wanted to go to the final show after dinner. We arrived back in San Diego around 5:00 a.m. on the 19th. Ted and I were awake so just got ready to go to breakfast and watched the ship dock!
It was a very enjoyable trip and here are some pictures:
Hilo
Kona
Lahaina
Honolulu
Cruising to Hawaii..."Ain't Life Grand!"
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