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My Portrait
Photography
My Nature Photography
We woke were awakened early as the ship anchored in Kona. I'm sure due to our cabin location the noise was louder. When they drop anchor it is very loud and it actually vibrated our cabin a little. 6:00 AM was fine for me, but everyone else was a tad groggy.
You need to snorkel at least once in Hawaii so we did it here with Fair Wind Cruises. They had excellent reviews and their equipment was family oriented.
As breakfast and lunch were included in our tour, we could have slept in a bit longer.
Check-in was at 8:30 for our tour and we knew it was a 20 minute ride in the taxi, so we headed down at 8:00. We did not know which deck the tenders would be taking us to shore, so we just headed down and got off on deck 6 to look for signs. As we were headed through the ship I spotted a crewman and asked where the tenders were. He opened a door and said go down and follow the carpet. When we got down we were on some secret back way and had bypassed the line. This seemed good until we found out that the towels we needed were a the back of the line. A few minutes later we had our towels and boarded the tender.
The Ironman competition was going to take place in Kona this weekend, so the town was crowded with athletes preparing for the competition and spectators to cheer on their favorites. This made traffic much heavier than usual. We found Taxi fairly quickly, but the traffic was tough. The driver suggested we call the tour to let them know we were on the way. It took us a good 35+ minutes to take the usual 20 minute drive. We were one of the last to check-in for the tour, but we did make it.
The boat is a large catamaran with upper and lower decks. Sail is just decoration and for making shade. But I knew that going in that we would not be actually sailing.
We sat on top deck as the lower deck was full by the time we got on board. The shade would have been nice. The service though was great. First they brought up fresh fruit, then rolls, pastry and muffins from the breakfast bar. Then the brought fins to everybody, make sure that everyone had a set the fit properly. We did venture down to get more food and drink and found it to be plentiful and the lines were quick moving.
The onboard videographer was quiet the character. He did a short interview with everyone. He scuba dived and got some amazing things. My video was good too, but could not get all the things he found. Later on when he showed the video he made both onboard and underwater he explained about the sea life and it was apparent that he actually knew something about it. You could order a video or DVD from him that he would deliver later as it had to be edited and copied. Here is some of my video.
They offered snuba as an option. I was going to do it, but after snorkeling, I am glad I didn't as the highest concentration of fish was in the shallows. There were some things that I did not see that were in the deeper water, but for a first time I didn't miss it. If I go again I may try it. Here are some video captures.
Finding "Nemo" was great fun for the kids.
Saw an amazing variety of fish.
Some fish were especially tricky to get.
My kids enjoyed the snorkeling a lot as they saw lots of fish. My mother-in-law did not like the idea of using the snorkel and mask. Instead they provide viewing boxes that allowed her to see the fish perfectly. This is something I hadn't seen on any other tour. My kids liked the boxes too.
Later in the day my kids decided they wanted to play and the boat was perfect. They have a 15 foot water slide and a diving platform from the upper deck. These were a blast!
Around noon they rang the dinner bell to let us know food was ready. Lunch was good - burgers, hotdogs, veggie burgers, sodas, pasta salad, chips. Plenty of food. They kept cooking until people stopped coming for food. Lots of people made two or more passes thru the line. The also had a bar available for those wanted something stronger than soda.
After lunch you could continue to snorkel, relax or play. We did a little of everything. I never felt rushed at any time on the tour.
They called all aboard and we were soon on our way back. Before we left they went through the entire passenger list and verified everyone was back. Great safety check. During the return the videographer showed his footage and talked about the various fish. He was interrupted by a large group of dolphins that decided to put on a show with our boat. Both spinner and bottlenose entertained us for about ten minutes.
A few people got started to get a tad seasick and they had ginger candy to available (a good natural remedy for minor queasiness). The coastline showed just how rough the open water could be for snorkeling.
Smoking was only allowed on the rear lower deck outside, which kept smoke from blowing on non-smoker and still allowed those who needed it a place to smoke. I didn't see it get much use.
This tour was better than I had imagined and I highly recommend you consider it if you are interested in snorkeling.
You have call for return taxi which takes 15-20 minutes to arrive. If you have cell, get a number before you leave and call when you get close to the dock. We got lucky - a drop off had just occurred and the taxi was back in 5 minutes. Our taxi driver was not enjoying the traffic. Several times she claimed the road up ahead was closed and we should get out and walk the rest of the way. We weren't about to get out until we saw a closed road as it was still a very long walk. The road wasn't closed - the traffic was just horrible and we finally got dropped right at the pier. If you are not here during some major event, I'm sure this would not be a problem.
The security line for the tender was not too bad. We made it back on ship with time to spare.
Received a call from our hiking tour confirming our trip and giving us additional information. Once again a company that proved to be customer focused.
For dinner we ate Crossings again. We tried to get our "regular" table, but it was not available. Tonight my wife and mother-in-law decided to try one of the drink specials. First they took forever to made. Our waitress apologized and told us that the bar that serviced the restaurant was way too small and could not keep up. Worse yet they got the order wrong - it was supposed to be bigger and in a souvenir glass. Our waitress went back to the bar again and they still came back wrong. Third time was a charm and she only charged us for the small drink to make up for the hassle. We had ordered drinks another time and found that it slowed the dinner process then too.
Well that extra time just went to make me extra hungry. Tonight I enjoyed (menu):
This was the first time I had something for which I didn't care. The salad had a bitter taste that I do not like. My wife had it another night and confirmed the taste was there. Everything else was good.
My father-in-law decided to skip dinner with us as he wanted to rest a little after a long day in the sun. Later on he decided to get a snack and went to the buffet. He said he enjoyed to food, and sat at a stern table and watched as we sailed out of port.
We decided to skip the show as snorkeling made everyone tired.
We stopped by the photo gallery to check out our formal pictures. It turns out the memory card used went bad and all pictures were lost for a huge batch at the location where we had our photos.
We we returned to our cabin our room steward had not gotten to our cabin yet. She always ran late, as our cabin was one of the last rooms she would do in her group.
After a good night's sleep we'll be in Maui.
| Our Trip | Pre-Cruise | Sun-Board | Mon-Kauai | Tue-Kauai | Wed-Hilo | Home |
| Thu-Kona | Fri-Maui | Sat-Maui | Sun-Honolulu | Ship Tour | Videos | Back |
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