Day 12 Saturday 8 November

We got up at 6.30 pm & watched our arrival at Honolulu & marvelled how expertly the Captain moored the ship (he has been doing it for about 9 years so he should be good). We went for breakfast & said our goodbyes to Francisco, our favourite waiter & Thomas. Back at the cabin we collected our luggage, found Ramasom (who has an enormously busy day to get the cabins ready for the next onslaught of cruisers) & Jose. The debarkation was just a walk off & since we carried off our luggage no delay at all. We waited for while for a shuttle bus to take us into Waikiki to the car rental place. They didn’t have many cars so we ended up with a Mustang, now we really feel like “the Aussie tourists” in America. We drove around the north coast, even going off on some beaten tracks, stopping at some beaches & admiring the scenery. We stopped at a shrimp shack for lunch, we were disappointed this time (may be our taste has changed). Back in Waikiki we found our new apartment – it is an older place but clean, well appointed with king size bed (may be that is the norm because there are so many big Americans) dining area, lounge (huge T.V.) lovely kitchen, bath room & washing machine & dryer. We are on the 13^th floor, the building is right across from the marina so we have a million dollar view. We watched the Pride of America sail out. We phoned James, Monica & Ron’s sister Vicki. We went out for an adventure to find a place to eat. Everywhere it was so busy – we ended up in the Ala Moana shopping plaza where it was so busy too. After some wait, Ron had some seared Ahi fish & I got fruit salad from the food court (not cruise standard but not bad at all). Back at the apartment Ron crashed, he was so tired from all the driving, concentrating as it was a week-end with all the locals out, busy traffic & not to mention driving on the right hand side of the road.