Day 4 of the cruise - Hilo - Part 3

Tonight for dinner Dad wanted to try out the Liberty dining room. Same menu as Skyline but in this restaurant, the dress code of needing full pants versus shorts and collared shirts on the guys applies. When it was close to the reservation time Spencer arranged for us, Adam called Spencer to ask that their next bottle of wine be brought from where it sat all this time chilling in their cabin fridge to the Liberty dining room. When we had called to ask Spencer to make the reservation, we asked for 6PM. He told us that the restaurant reported only 5:30PM or after 9:30PM was available which was a surprising change from the "use your butler and get past the front people saying no" concept which had worked the other night. However, when Spencer called us back to tell us this, he said he'd make the reservation for 5:30PM but feel free not to show up until 6PM. We ended up heading down there a little early anyway but by the time we figured out the steps to reach the dining room, it was closer to 6PM. When we approached the hostess, you could tell there might be an issue when she took a bit of extra time looking up our reservation and she lost that polite smile. Soon we breathed a sigh of relief though as she suddenly pronounced that she'd "found" the reservation after doing a bit of feverish typing and printed off a receipt for the waiter. She was obviously too professional to say anything but what we suspect was that they'd dumped our 5:30PM reservation when we hadn't shown within 15 minutes like they warn with all reservations. Rather than get on our case, she made up a reservation on the spot and we were directed to a 6 top table right between the waiter's station and the tables for 2 by the windows.

Upon being seated, we were greeted by our waitress Grace who handed us our menus. An assistant waiter poured water for us. Amy and Adam told Grace about the bottle of wine they'd had Spencer bring down and she agreed to get it right away. In the meantime, she tended to the couple at the table for 2 by the window. Soon she rushed off and I watched her come back with the same bottle of wine Adam and Amy had requested and put it in the chilling bucket between their table and the other 2 top. I expected her to then return to our table to pour the wine and take our order but instead she presented the wine to the other couple. They must have ordered the same wine or were enjoying a happy surprise because they made no attempt to turn it down. I watched Grace run back and forth to fetch food orders for her other tables and to get drinks from the bar yet we still sat waiting to even place our order. We've cruised enough, chatted with the crew, and seen many backstage tours to understand that she was doing the tasks meant for her assistant waiter which would prevent any table from having to wait as long as we did. At one point when she finally bothered to come back to take our order, she realized that she had yet to serve our table any of the requested wine. Both Amy and I overheard her telling her assistant to run and get another bottle. Only once he came back, did Grace come pour wine for our table and she did so from this second bottle. Right away, Adam and Amy could tell that this second bottle was not the bottle they'd had Spencer send down because it wasn't cold at all. Amy didn't like the taste and left the rest for Adam to drink anyway. Never once did Grace admit that she most likely gave the other couple our bottle or make any sort of apologies for the delay.

Service level continued to go downhill as we waited nearly an hour just for our appetizers to come out. Several of us ordered the Cheesy Mashed Potato Croquettes and I also went with the Shanghai Pork Pot Stickers after Dad had enjoyed his the other night.

The potato croquettes were good but the pot stickers were cold and tough, almost to the point of leather. I had to saw with my knife just to cut into one. We continued to have another long delay waiting on our entrees to arrive. When we finally got Grace's attention enough to have her refill water glasses, Dad asked her why she doesn't have an assistant. She replied "Oh I have an assistant, he's the one getting all my orders" and laughed as she walked away again from our table. I believe her assistant must have been doing the work of 5 assistant waiters leaving her to do some running of her own. Finally we'd had enough of the wait and motioned over one of the crew members wearing a suit. We all tried explaining about the wine bottle not being the one we'd had sent because it wasn't cold but this woman was focused on our complaint being about the wrong kind of wine or the wrong bottle because it had less in it than when we used it last. I told her what I'd seen Grace do with the first bottle and this crew member did a lot of that "I'm gonna nod and say uhuh a lot so it looks like I'm really listening." However to her credit, she did go over to the chilling bucket after talking to us and compared the two bottles. She confirmed that our service should have been better and since our table was right by the waiter's station, we were in full view of her talking to Grace about our report. After that little talk, it was like someone lit a fire under Grace and we had the fastest most attentive service possible.

Dad had been looking forward to trying the Mediterranean Sirloin Beef Brochette but was disappointed when it came out looking only slightly larger than a beef cube on skewers and just as tough to chew. I ordered the same 3 Cheese Baked Ziti I'd admired from when Amy ordered it the other night. Once it came, Amy wanted to know what I thought of it because she found hers to be very bland. While I enjoy stronger flavors in my food than the rest of my family, the fact that this was a simple tomato sauce based cheesy pasta tasted fine by me. Could it have used some more flavor? Sure.

While Adam and Dad went with desserts off the menu, Amy and I asked simply for ice cream. I chose vanilla and Amy ordered both chocolate and vanilla. What we were delivered was small glass bowls with a single scoop of ice cream in each. Grace brought Amy one with the scoop of chocolate ice cream and one with the vanilla ice cream. Amy dumped the chocolate scoop from the first dish into the dish with the vanilla scoop as we laughed at the absurd presentation. Guess we weren't deemed worthy of the nice tall glass of a few scoops of vanilla ice cream Amy got on the first day as her lunch dessert in Cagney's.

We later reported the disappointing dinner when we next saw Thomas our concierge. We certainly didn't expect anything from it after the fact, especially since this wasn't one of the restaurants we paid to dine in but we do feel it's important to share when we've encountered issues so that changes can be made. Whether those changes are bringing in extra help (some cruises have had two assistants per waiter) or some more training for the crew member to help prevent the next cruiser from having such a bad experience. Thomas was apologetic and also confirmed that we should have had better service but left it at that.

After dinner we tried out another suite perk of being escorted to reserved seats in the Hollywood theater. The seats were fairly good view wise and we had no issue using the perk once we showed our card but Dad feels that the seats in the back sets of rows in the corners are better for easy access in and out of the theater. Dad's favorite shows on cruises are comedians and magicians so we split off with Adam and Amy to see "Wonders! A Magical Experience" featuring a full show performance by magician Charles Bach. Dad loved it all but I found that it was a little predictable. Guess I've been watching too much of Penn & Teller: Fool Us with Dad.

Day 4 of the cruise - Hilo - Part 2

A little break from seeing what happens underground to see what grows above ground. The Akatsuka Orchid Nursery was our next stop and we were invited to browse the handful of rows that were inside the main building but not the large greenhouses behind it. The nursery owner encouraged us to find the orchids that smell like chocolate and root beer. I'd remembered the chocolate smelling orchid from our Road to Hana visit but don't think I found the root beer orchid. I did however spend $2.50 to get a root beer from the nursery's vending machine because they had my preferred kind. There were surprisingly a lot more people into ordering arrangements to send back to family and friends this time though. I recall hearing one lady counting off relatives' names like she was introducing someone at a family reunion.

You've heard of message in a bottle? Well here's orchid in a bottle:

Even with my house potatoes addition at breakfast, we were ready for some sustenance by now so Cousin Harry drove us to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory. The "factory" part is a row of windows you have to climb a bunch of stairs to walk past. Most of us instead headed into the gift shop and through to the café which featured a covered but open on the sides area with tables and chairs. 

For the macadamia nut obsessed sweet tooth

Cousin Harry had told us about his favorite item here, a Portuguese hot dog which was more like a spicier sausage. I decided to try the hot dog while Dad ordered a turkey sandwich. The woman working the counter went in the back only to come back and announce that they no longer had turkey sandwiches. He reluctantly ordered a hot dog for himself instead.

It was a little tough finding a table and I snatched one as its occupants left while Dad paid for our food. Shortly after we started eating, we spotted an older couple wandering around with their food and offered to have them join us. Together we ate and chatted about our slightly different tours as they were doing almost the same itinerary in a different order via a Princess cruise line tour. I'm all for holding a table for your party in crowded situations like this but we will always let someone share our table if we have extra seats. You end up meeting some interesting people by being kind and sharing polite conversation.

Inside the gift shop, there was a woman at a counter offering to dish out samples of any flavor of macadamia nuts you wanted to try.

Cousin Harry told us about the sample counter and said his favorite was the Maui onion flavor. I gave in to my aversion to nuts to try his favorite. He saw me trying it in the store and quizzed me about how I liked it. I politely told him that it really did taste like a sour cream and onion potato chip and discreetly dumped the nut I'd tried into the nearby trash can after he'd walked away. Taste was great but once the seasoning came off the actual macadamia nut, I couldn't bring myself to eat it anymore. Dad tried a couple flavors but found the chocolate covered one so bad he got another drink trying to get the taste out of his mouth. We browsed the multiple containers of flavored macadamia nuts but Dad was hesitant to buy such a large package of any flavor. There were only a few containers that were personal snack size. The bulk of the inventory was packaged with the idea that you would be sharing it and gifting it to hundreds of your closest friends. It obviously was a marketable strategy though as we saw people walking out of that store weighed down with multiple bags of large variety boxes and packages. You'd think this was a $10 sale in the cruise shops on board or something! On the perhaps ironic side, Dad was so bothered by the displeasing taste of the chocolate covered macadamia nuts he tried, that he went back to the café and bought chocolate macadamia nut ice cream to change the taste in his mouth and happily polished off the entire thing. There's logic in there somewhere I tell you!

These soaps for sale in the gift shop cracked me up. Doesn't everyone want to rub soap all over their body that has a face on it?

Our next stop was Rainbow Falls. The actual falls is tucked away off the parking lot so there are multiple levels and means to get to where you can view the falls. The easiest path is to the right off the parking lot where there is a staggered set of stairs or a ramp that lets you climb to varying heights and view the falls from across the chasm.

The ramp goes up the center and the right side. Steps are on the left where the bulk of the people are heading.

Look at the top left of this photo and you can see the people who chose the steps.

This is what the steps look like from the parking lot.

Still a great view regardless

The other option is to veer slightly to the left from the parking lot and walk up a bunch of stairs to a viewing platform located behind the falls. This, we were told, was the best place to see and get a picture of a potential rainbow reflecting on the water. I headed to the right thinking that's what Cousin Harry had meant was the best view and got some nice pictures of the falls. Wasn't until I'd returned to the parking lot that I saw the tall staircase that went up behind the falls. By then we didn't have much time left so I opted to stay on the ground. 

One of the other things Rainbow Falls is known for is the wild boars that wander around. I soon noticed a group gathered around the trash cans at the far end of the parking lot and as I walked over, another guy walked past me to head toward them and announced "Oh I can smell the reefer from here!" Once I reached them, I saw a mama boar and several babies wandering around the trash can in hopes of finding their lunch. One of the group tossed their empty chip bag nearby the already overfull trash can and two of the babies ran right for it proceeding to fight over the crumbs.

Once back on the bus Dad joked that our tour must be about over because we'd already visited the money making venues. Cousin Harry soon announced that our last and final stop would actually be the Big Island Candies company. This store was much bigger than the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory store. In the back of the store, they had large open windows where you could watch them making the candy. It was really interesting to see how they have to hand dip each piece.

Cousin Harry talked up the brownies sold here that while small are very rich tasting the entire drive over. Frustrated at not being able to find something local to enjoy that appealed to my taste preferences, Dad thought to ask one of the employees to point out products that don't include nuts or some of the more tropical fruit flavors. I was surprised with how much she was able to produce that fit my likes. So much so that we walked away spending $56 on chocolate chip brownies (they come as an individually wrapped 8 pack), mint dark chocolate brownies (another combination that I enjoy and is frequently the only way I get to have anything of my own), chocolate dipped shortbread cookies (yay finally no shortbread plus macadamia nut!), a box of milk chocolate and dark chocolate whole chocolates, and a single Macadamia Nut Caramel Cluster with Milk Chocolate that Dad threw in at the last minute.

Dad ate the cluster as soon as we got back to the cabin but the rest of it we never got around to trying until we got home. The original agreement was that the whole chocolates and the mint brownies were mine while we'd share the cookies and chocolate chip brownies. After trying the chocolate chip brownies and finding that the chips were tiny chips in a layer on top rather than baked in, I let Dad have the rest of them. The cookies were okay and fresher than I expected but I let Dad have most of them too. The mint in the brownies was very strong so even I could only stand 1 or 2 every so often. The longest lasting item in the group was the solid chocolates. I'd brought them over to my desk here at home and each day I'd enjoy one milk chocolate and one dark chocolate as you could just pop them in and let them melt in your mouth.

Back in the cabin we found our latest towel animal and a return to the sweet treats. This time was a platter of mini tarts filled with chocolate, topped with cream, and a couple slices of fruit.

Day 4 of the cruise - Hilo (Part 1)

Today brings us to the island affectionately known as "The Big Island" or the one that is the namesake of the state called Hawaii. Today we visited one side of the island in a port called Hilo. We learned from our tour guide today that apparently a lot of people mistakenly pronounce it as High-Low when it's supposed to be pronounced as He-Low. Somehow it never occurred to me to call it High-Low.

Today Adam and Amy spent the day on their latest NCL only excursion of Ultimate Helicopter and Volcano Adventure. On our account, it lists the excursion as Ultimate Helicopter and Waterfall Adventure so there might have been some tweaks to the itinerary leftover from the volcano eruption. Anyone else get the sense that there should be some action movie music playing in the background every time I mention what grand adventure tour they've chosen? Adam did have to pay the extra surcharge for being over 250 lbs. While we mostly concentrated on low key activities for ourselves, we also crossed off any consideration to excursions with weight limits as it never seemed an option to us personally to bother paying extra. Now if this wasn't a destination we'd already visited and there was something we desperately wanted to experience, the thought of paying extra might have held more weight (pun intended) on our choices. On our account, the extra charge is billed as "Ultimate Helicopter (Comfort Seat)" of $280. That's almost half the cost of the excursion for one person in the first place! Ahh well, at least they enjoyed the experience.

For our tour today, we had originally considered the Akaka Falls, Macadamia Nut Farm, & Tropical Gardens tour from Roberts Hawaii but I convinced Dad to go ahead and book the Hawaii Volcanoes Tour from Roberts Hawaii instead. When we booked it months in advance, they were still having to severely modify the itinerary of this tour due to the eruption but assured us that either way by the time we visited, it would be a fulfilling and complete tour. I loved visiting Volcanoes National Park as a child so I was much more interested in going back to that instead of another visit to look at flowers.

We got up early enough to visit Cagney's for breakfast this morning. I was pleased to see what was labeled as chocolate chip muffins on the self service buffet table. Pulled it apart to start eating it and discovered that buried in the middle of the muffin was some sort of cherry or cherry juice since the dough was all red. Why NCL? Why Cagney's? Why must you mess with my chocolate chip muffin and stick fruit in there too?

For my main dish I ordered scrambled eggs and sausage. I guess the chef decided my plate looked too empty so he/she threw some "house potatoes" on there with it.

One of the things that always makes me laugh is how cruise ship restaurants answer your request for ketchup. I've had everything from a little cup, to a small dish, to a waiter bringing over ketchup in a gravy boat and spooning it onto my plate for me. Today, it was a small metallic cup set on a saucer.

Personally, I like to put a bit of grated pepper on my eggs in addition to the ketchup but at first glance, the wooden salt and pepper shakers placed on the table look exactly the same! Usually you can tell when one has holes to be shaken out and one has the grinder to turn but they both have grinders. After guessing wrong the first time, I realized that on the bottom of the shakers, the pepper one looks like a doorknob/lock on the bottom whereas the salt shaker is straight across underneath. It was hilarious at dinner later watching Adam go to use the salt and stare at them both so confused.

Pepper is the shaker on the right in this picture

After grabbing our stuff at the cabin, we headed off the ship to meet up with our tour on the pier. In comparison, NCL's tour offering that is similar is called Volcanoes National Park, is 4 1/2 hours long, and costs $109 per person. NCL only lists visiting Volcanoes National Park and the Akatsuka Orchid Garden. Our tour from Roberts Hawaii ran 4.25 hours long, visited those two places plus others, and cost $89 per person.

This time we were once again welcomed into Ohana (family) and encouraged to refer to our driver as Cousin Harry. Both our guides were very personable and funny which added to the tour experience. I've had tour guides tell us to go off and explore a site and then yell at us for not following them. One even repeatedly scolded several tour members for talking to each other while she was giving her lecture.

Our first stop today was at the Kilauea Visitor Center in Volcanoes National Park.

After some free time to explore the small center inside and use the restroom, a crowd of both our tour members and random visitors gathered as Cousin Harry used the 3D model outside to give a brief history of the discovery and location of the volcanoes. He happily answered anyone's questions. Pretty much every center employee we encountered would recite "There is currently no active lava flow" as part of their greeting. They even had signs all over the area repeating it.

As our group worked their way back to the mini bus, Cousin Harry broke out his guitar and would serenade those of us who'd arrived first.

At one point he joked that the last person back on the bus would have to do the hula in front of everyone. One of the husbands taking the tour with his wife ran past her to get back onto the bus first so he wouldn't be last. She did a makeshift hula dance as she rushed to their seats to call him out. The two also spent part of the ride pulling out cloth napkins taken from the ship to spread over their laps while they proceeded to eat half the buffet's inventory of sliced fruit they'd brought on the tour in little baggies. Who needs little boxes of cereal when you can have a picnic in your laps?

Our next stop was to visit the steam vents where you could walk by and peer in as well as feel the hot air. There were chest high railings around the vent so it was safe to walk right up and look in. It was interesting to see how many times people had dumped coins and a couple high value pieces of paper money into the vent like it was a wishing well.

Also at this stop Cousin Harry led us on a straight walk along a paved path about 100-200 yards to get a close up view of a crater. He left us with time to take pictures and walk around.

That tall bush in the distance in this photo is where you walked to in order to view the crater. This picture was taken at the parking lot.

After getting pictures at the crater, Dad and I walked back past the steam vent that was right next to the parking lot and enjoyed a longer look while most of the group had moved on. It was an interesting feeling when I stuck my hand out next to the steam vent and while you could feel something was there, it wasn't hot. Just as you're standing there thinking, "Hmm, why is this not as hot as I expected?" you start feeling as if your hand was shoved under hot water and you instinctively yank your hand back.

Next we drove up to Volcano House where VIP guests including past presidents would come to stay when in town. Otherwise, it's a business establishment with a bar/restaurant and gift shops. And oh yeah, a crater in the backyard. Cousin Harry encouraged everyone to check out the nice view of the crater from the back porch but avoid getting stuck at the bar. We had some latecomers this time back at the bus and he ribbed them about being at the bar.

We next stopped alongside an area of road that had to be dug out from the most recent lava flow and repaved. There was another crater called Lua Mamu to view on the side where the bus pulled over (and a couple other cars and buses soon joined us) and the other side of the street was cooled lava that we could walk and climb over. Some of the piles were so tall you couldn't see our bus behind them. It was like walking on tons of crunchy loose gravel so while you had the stability of it being a packed down surface, it could still be slippery under your feet. The most unique thing I found was that while walking over the mounds, it sounded like you were crunching on broken glass. It was a little disappointing as we drove out of the park grounds to learn that we would not be visiting the famous Thurston Lava Tube because it had been deemed too unstable for anyone to go inside.

I'm taking this picture from the road. Note the person standing on top of the mound in front of me.

Here is the same mound taken from the other side of the road

I wonder if the person in the black shorts got a great pic that looks like he's walking on top of the bus

Lava for miles - as far as the eye can see.

The Lua Mamu crater