December 29 - Christmas came and then came Boxing Day

Where to begin?  Christmas Eve dawned as another sunny, warm day with moderate seas.  We had the usual sea day activities including lectures, games, and random caroling around the ship.  It  was a formal night and most people got very dressed up, more so than I’ve seen on the other formal nights on this cruise.  I had dinner in Solis, the alternative restaurant, with a friend from Honolulu and a couple who are the parents of my friend’s daughter-in-law.  (She calls them her “Outlaws.”)  We had a lovely dinner topped off with a special anniversary cake for the couple who were celebrating their actual 50th wedding anniversary.  Following dinner we went to a special Christmas show in the Grand Salon.  The onboard cast sang Christmas songs and then the highlight of the evening was the crew choir.  There were members from all the ship’s departments including housekeeping, food & beverage and even a couple from the deck crew. They sang some traditional carols and then they performed two in Tagalog since many are from the Philippines.  And to end it Santa made an appearance.  It was a lovely evening.

The crew choir on Christmas Eve

On Christmas Day we had another galley market lunch, which I’ve written about in the past.  This one was well organized unlike the one earlier on this cruise which was utterly chaotic.  The galley staff outdid themselves in their presentations.  I think we all rolled out of the restaurant.  On Christmas night a couple of friends and I were going to forego dinner and instead  just eat some of the tapas always available in the Observation Bar.  While we sat there we realized that my friend from Honolulu was looking pretty down.  Her husband died on Christmas Day several years ago, so it’s a tough day for her.  We decided to join her for dinner at the outdoor Restaurant, Earth and Ocean.  After we all went to the show which featured a black female singer with a very powerful voice.  Then we headed to the Observation Bar for a nightcap.  It was a nice Christmas.

Scenes from the Galley Market Lunch

Yesterday the 26th was Boxing Day (that’s what the British call it) and I organized a dinner for nine of us.  A British friend arranged with the chef to serve us traditional Boxing Day food.  That’s basically leftovers, but oh, what leftovers they were!  We had Bubble and Squeak which is a dish made with potatoes, cabbage, and any leftovers from Christmas dinner chopped up, mixed up and fried until it has a crisp top and bottom.  We had sausage rolls, coleslaw, turkey and dressing, baked potatoes, and too many more things that I can’t remember them all.  Dessert was a delicious English trifle.  I organized the same game we played on Thanksgiving and we had great fun with people stealing each other’s wrapped and unknown presents.  Everyone got really into it and we laughed so much that I noticed people at the tables around us looked jealous that they weren’t having as much fun.

Boxing Day and more food photos

After dinner we went to the evening’s show which included a very good Irish singer and then we were off to the O Bar for nightcaps.  You may have noticed I’m not writing much about the Club and dancing.  That’s one of the only things about this cruise I haven’t been totally pleased with.  One band is quite good; the other is so-so.  The issue though is in the schedule of their performances.  The Entertainment Manager is new to Seabourn, doesn’t know what he’s doing really, and is, to put it quite bluntly, an idiot. His schedule includes things like a half or full hour of no music in between the two bands performances.  We people who go to the Club to dance don’t want to sit and drink in silence waiting for the music to begin again. So, when one group finishes their set and announces that the next will be coming after whatever break time there is, people leave and don’t come back.  I have a sneaking suspicion that one of the motivations for the scheduling is that if the next band comes and there’s no one there, they can call it a night and get off duty early.  As a result I’ve been gravitating to the Observation Bar where I know friends who don’t like dancing anyway will be and where I like listening to the duo playing there even though it’s not a dance venue.  We have a new cruise director coming on here in Hawaii, so maybe he’ll get things back to the more normal routine.

I’m writing this sitting in the Square as we’re docked in Honolulu harbor. It’s the 29th and tonight my last leg of this voyage will begin.  We’ll have new people boarding in a little while and as usual, many will wander around lost for a day or two. What’s happened in between Boxing Day and now?  We spent our last sea day of our crossing playing our final trivia.  Our team came in 4th, not bad out of 17 teams, but it could have been better.  We played Name that Tune and won.  (Truthfully I think the two New Zealand guys on the team were scoring us pretty liberally; we got to mark our own papers.)  I didn’t go to any hosted tables and instead dined with friends.

Yesterday, the 28th we arrived in Honolulu and since it was Sunday I roused myself from bed early enough to have Sunday Champagne Breakfast in the restaurant with 7 of my friends.  I had forgotten how nice breakfast could be since I hadn’t been getting up early enough to do it for so long.  After breakfast I took a cab to go to the Ala Moana Mall.  It is enormous!  I walked the length of each level and in doing so managed to get in a little over 10,000 steps.  Near the end my feet were killing me and since I was near the Nordstrom I went in and bought a new pair of shoes.  I figured perhaps a new pair would make my feet feel better. What really felt good though was keeping my bare feet on the cool marble floor while the salesman was in the stockroom finding shoes for me to try on. I could have stayed there all afternoon just letting my feet chill.  

Friends and I had arranged to meet and go in the late afternoon to the Halekulani Hotel on Waikiki Beach to sit at the lovely bar called Earl’s at the House without a Key restaurant (isn’t that a neat name for a restaurant?).  I’d been there a couple of times before with Al and Katie to have a drink and watch the sunset.  The place is beautiful and  each evening there is a trio playing traditional Hawaiian music and a lovely young woman performing Hawaiian dance.  I won’t call it hula because that to me evokes images of wildly moving hips and this dancer is gracefully telling a story as she moves and sways.  Unfortunately, the clouds didn’t fully cooperate so we only got fleeting glimpses of the sunset in the west.  To the east we had a wonderful view of Diamond Head.

Scenes from Earl's at the Halekulani

As it darkened we came back to the ship where Carole, one of my friends was scheduled to have a farewell dinner since she left the ship today.  Colleen, my Aussie/Kiwi friend and I first went to one of the bars which has a special cocktail called the Brigitte Bardot.  Since BB just died we had to have one of her namesake drinks in her honor.  We debated what to do about dinner and decided to have what we named C & C;  that stands for Caviar and baked Camembert Cheese with honey pommery mustard.  It may sound odd, but I can assure you it is a meal fit for the gods.  We ended the evening up in the O Bar listening to Barry and Merle, my favorite performers on the ship.  It was a lovely day.

I’ve finally caught up to today.  I was scheduled to go on a tour to the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum on Ford Island and to the battleship USS Missouri.  The tour was canceled (I’ve no idea why) and so I’m spending the day on board.  I’ve seen most of the other sights on previous visits and I’ve taken tours that went round the island.  My feet are probably grateful for the day of rest.  And this has given me a chance to catch up on things.

Tomorrow we’ll be in Kauai where I’ve rented a car.  Two friends are trusting their lives to me as we see a few places I want to revisit there.  After that we have nothing but sea days until we get to Tokyo.  I think it will be 9 sea days, but I’m not absolutely certain because we’ll cross the International Date Line at some point and lose a day.  Just think of the poor people whose birthday falls on a day that’s lost.  I’m caught up and I can breathe a sigh of relief about that.  So, aloha for now!