Honolulu Christmas Eve

Friday, Dec 21, was rather uneventful and ended as a formal evening. It was also the day I gave up on the on board internet. I have sailed through this part of the ocean numerous times and this is the worst connectivity ever. The usual explanation is that satellite service coverage is poor in this part of the world. Given my past experience I suspect there is a different problem that they’d rather not mention. Never-the-less, there is little I can do about it. My first two posts consumed nearly two hours of connected time on the ship’s internet system. At home it would have taken 20 minutes and that would have included time to verify the posts and photos. Since those first two days the service has gone from appalling to impossible.

On this voyage, the entertainment programming has been rather mysterious.  Here it was a formal night and three of the major entertainment venues were without music after about 7 PM. Another mystery is why they schedule the show band for a “ballroom dance” set in the Piazza, the least desirable venue for any dance that might be considered “ballroom”. 

We have enjoyed some of the events despite the peculiar scheduling. There is a duo called Galaxy that plays popular music that is danceable and does attract enough passengers to make a busy dance floor. We have not spent a lot of time with them so far. We seem to have found our personal entertainment in the Sunshine Duo of two violinists from Ukraine. Their music tends to be too eclectic for most casual dancers but they cater to us by including tangos and boleros. Olga, who seems to lead, usually glances in my direction before playing something to which she expects us to dance. Ana, the other half of the duo, was among the first to greet us on the first night of the cruise. We rarely have company on the floor under these circumstances so although the Piazza floor is relatively small and circular, we can do whatever we want. The folk around the dance floor seem to enjoy what we do.

Although the ship is well decorated it feels less like Christmas than perhaps it should. I was thinking it was the lack of snow but we have not had snow for Christmas very often at home over the last few years. 

A Christmas show was presented on the evening of December 23. The theatre was packed for the early show to the point where there were people sitting in the aisles. I have been on other ships where this was strictly forbidden but not so here. Just one of the many unenforced regulations on this ship. I suppose one can hardly call them regulations if they are not enforced. On this Christmas cruise we have seen many more children visible during the day. Although there are, reportedly, sufficient staff to manage the kids programs it seems like many parents have opted out of such programs. They are not free, perhaps one reason for the opting out. The children have been no real trouble except possibly for an occasional child at risk on a dance floor.

December 24 has arrived and we are at our berth in Honolulu. As we made our way through the early morning darkness the moon shone through a filter of cloud and there was a fine mist as we docked. The sun rise was not visible from our port side stateroom but we could see the city and Sand Island come to life as the daylight arrived.

Honolulu is the first of our four island ports. We left the ship immediately after breakfast in search of functional WiFi service which we found a few blocks away near the Aloha Tower. A few Christmas greeting texts were sent. We were able to get our email and even view the Christmas e-cards sent to us. All this well within the 30 minute limit on the free WiFi service. It would have been unthinkable on the ship’s service. I will at least try to find free network access on the next three ports so I can post a few pictures. On the way back I may be able to make some text only posts.

So, as the say in Hawaii, “Mele Kalikimaka” and Aloha to all.

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