Day 7 on the cruise - 2nd day in Kauai (Part 2)

We decided to switch gears and attend the Magic 101 with Charles Bach presentation. Unfortunately, Charles had lost his voice between his last magic show and today but he made the best of it for this small class on how to do sleight of hand tricks. We each were given a kit of props containing a cloth napkin, two toothpicks, two rubber bands, a handful of playing cards, and a large fake coin. 

Charles talked us through the same toothpick in the napkin trick he performed during his show. We also learned how to use the coin in the napkin to make it look like we'd made it push through the napkin. The playing cards were for a trick that you altered how you picked up the other rows of cards so that the card the person chose always came up in the same spot even though the only thing you'd been told was what row their chosen card was in. The rubber bands were for a trick where you laced them over your fingers and then after a hidden to the audience way of bending your fingers, the rubber band jumps to the other fingers when you open your hand back up. Charles was very patient redoing some of the tricks a couple times and walking around helping the group when people had trouble.

When it was time to meet back up with Adam and Amy for dinner, it took us a long time to find La Cucina. Turns out we walked right past the small turn we needed to make after getting directions from the Brazilian steakhouse across the deck. When we checked in at the podium, we learned that Adam and Amy had already arrived and were seated waiting for us. They had been seated at one of the raised booths and my first thought was how fun that would be to try and shimmy into. Dad offered to try and pull out the table but I opted for the slide approach. Amy and I ended up next to each other along the back and the guys faced each other on the ends. Immediately we noticed an uptick in service level from tonight's waiter to the point that he actually seemed fearful that I wasn't satisfied after not finishing all of my appetizer. It took a lot of convincing to have him believe I simply wanted to save room for my entrée. Adam and Amy both ordered sodas and they had new ones brought to them before they could even finish the current glass. The waiter kept encouraging us to try more dishes and order more things. Amy and I went with the calamari to start and I've never been a fan of when they include the pieces that look like the squid swam up and jumped into the oil on his own.

When Amy and I also both mentioned we wanted to order the carbonara pasta (this time it was a pleasant surprise when the menu differed from the TV version), our waiter offered to bring that and the shrimp diablo pasta dish. I thought that meant we'd each get two entrée size plates but instead he brought one entrée sized plate of each and two small plates for us to dish out a sample for the other person.

The shrimp diablo pasta was surprisingly not very spicy with more of a cheesy creamy taste. Adam ended up ordering a pepperoni pizza and the waiter wrapped the rest up for him to have back in the cabin. I did notice another table get their pizza wrapped up to go as well after they'd ordered it not realizing how full they'd get on the other food. Not loving anything on the dessert menu, I asked about having some vanilla ice cream and the waiter probably would have churned it himself for me if he could. When Dad offered his card to be scanned for the extra charge sodas Adam and Amy had, our waiter refused to take it insisting that the meal was complimentary. Mr. McLurkin appears to make sure we were well taken care of tonight as he had made sure the staff treated us well. He also confirmed that he'd comped our meal and apologized again for the lunchtime issues. He shared his appreciation about us reporting our experience and the inconsistencies with the TV menus, commenting that he didn't have time to watch TV and never would have known. The gesture of comping our meal was very thoughtful. Just wish it would have been for a meal we didn't already have included in the dining package! Hope those 5 soda glasses didn't set you back too far sir! 

If we'd have time to do that differently, I would have much rather been comped a meal at East Meets West so I could try a bunch of different sushi rolls that are extra cost. 

After dinner we caught the end of the Majority Rules game show in Mardi Gras so we could have seats for the Adult Comedy show with Tony Daro.

When we returned to the cabin for the night, we discovered a new delivery of chocolate dipped pineapple slices from Mr. McLurkin and a note asking to speak further about the experience which we'd already done at dinner. Interesting though how it showed up after we left our cabin to go to dinner. The gesture was nice but this tray too was frozen. 

Shortly after we'd returned to the cabin, Spencer stopped by to bring us a tray of chocolate dipped pineapple slices and he seemed harried and out of breath. We confirmed that we had no need for the escorted debarkation in the morning since we booked the tour and he couldn't leave fast enough after we'd handed him an envelope full of his tip. We'd left envelopes with a tip for our steward Boni before leaving the room this morning. I couldn't help noticing how the pineapple tray from Mr. McLurkin had cute decorative flourishes with drizzled chocolate sauce yet Spencer's tray looked like someone threw the pieces straight onto a plate and shoved the plate at him. These slices too were frozen so much so that they could stand upright on their own:

Day 7 of the cruise - 2nd day in Kauai

Today we decided to make our own sea day while Adam and Amy spent the bulk of the day on the NCL excursion, Heaven & Earth Quest. They loved it!

Our last breakfast at Cagney's and I toyed with the idea of getting both the waffles and the eggs benedict because I hadn't had the chance to try either yet. Visions of how I couldn't even finish the pancakes yesterday popped into my head and the eggs benedict won out. I don't get eggs benedict anytime except on cruises so it's become a thing now to try it on each sailing and especially each cruise line.

Baby jam jars - I wonder what they do with the rest of the contents since we always had sealed jars at the table.

I'm not usually a fan of super crunchy toasted bread but this was pretty tasty.

Checking in on Facebook this morning revealed lots of posts from friends back home talking about whether they'd get schools closed for a rare early snowfall. Part of me was thinking "Oh I hope it doesn't impact our flights home tomorrow." And the other part of me was thinking "Haha suckers I'm in shorts in Hawaii!"

I wanted to make sure we took advantage of the daytime trivia sessions and headed down to the "Are You Awake? Morning Trivia" session at 9AM. It figures though that while we now had the whole day free, this was the only trivia session held today. There was a handful of groups playing and I was surprised that we didn't score better. Ahh well all in good fun. I wonder if they don't get a lot of people playing trivia because once again the winners got a whole pile worth of NCL loot. One cruise we could have supplied the entire room of trivia players with pens because that's all they'd give out. I must give kudos to NCL on one aspect - they handed out pens for us to use during trivia (and then collected them). No having to use barely sharpened golf pencils! Regular trivia players get so tired of those little pencils that we probably could have paid for another cruise selling our winning pen prizes.

With time to kill we wandered the ship grabbing pictures of the more unique spots. I've started a new tradition of getting a picture of the life preserver on the railing showing the name of the ship. 

I loved how the wording around the seal featured the states and their dates of statehood. It was fun watching other cruisers seek out their home state. That patriotic reflection is an added bonus that you never notice unless you are looking at it from above.

After an earlier discussion with Amy about trying to find mozzarella sticks on board, I was excited to find them listed on the cabin TV menus for the Cadillac Diner.

Off Dad and I went to enjoy some with our lunch at the diner. When we arrived the place was more packed than I'd ever seen! Dad questioned whether we should go somewhere else but I wanted to at least inquire as to whether they had an available seat. When they did, we decided to stay. One look at the menu, I realize that it does not show a couple things the TV menu did, most notably, no Fried Mozzarella Sticks. When our waiter came over, I asked about the missing mozzarella sticks and he told me that they had no such thing and I'd have to go to the Skyline restaurant for that. Instead I opted for choosing something else on the menu and ordered the Southern Fried Chicken Tenders (laughed at how the only difference between this and the chicken strips on the children's mini menu was that the adult order got a biscuit) and the Chicago Style Hot Dog. Having had plenty of fries this week, I asked about getting potato chips instead since the menu in front of me had a variety of options for sides like chips, fries, or mashed potatoes. Our waiter told us that the dishes I chose "come with fries" and refused to even bring me a side of potato chips after I pointed out the options on the menu. 

This is a picture of the menu itself that they had on the tables. The guitar is even pointing to the written proof!

The waiter still refused so I gave in to the idea of more fries and off he went. The place continued to be busy and we sat there watching while tables got seated, brought food, and left all while we didn't have any food or water glasses refilled. I kept watching to be able to call over our waiter and inquire as to the status of our order and never saw him return to the floor. After sitting for nearly an hour, Dad went over to the podium to talk to the white uniformed manager. She rushed into the back to check on our order and had someone else come refill our water glasses in the meantime. Then she didn't come out from the back for another 20-30 minutes. Once she finally came over with our food, you could tell it had been sitting there since right after we ordered it. Dad's grilled cheese sandwich was now soggy and my chicken tenders was cold and nearly all breading. That extra addition of a biscuit was rock hard. 

We called back over the manager and the best she could think to do was to offer us to order something else. I suppose there wasn't much else she could do since the venue was free unlike the other specialty restaurants. We've been on enough cruises now that we've seen them pull wait staff from other venues when a place gets busy. We deduced that we had the unfortunate luck of our waiter being one of those extra staff who put in the order and then left without letting anyone know to cover our table. By now it was just too many things on top of each other going wrong that neither of us wanted to wait another hour for them to bring us something else. We've also learned over time to use the crew hierarchy that is in place and to "work our way up the chain" when things aren't satisfactory at the first level. We asked the manager to call down the Food and Beverage Manager and to their credit, a Mr. Gregory McLurkin (his card refers to his title as the Director of Outlets?) showed up within minutes. We explained the situation from the start and Mr. McLurkin agreed about the potato chips, explained about the menu changes that the TV wasn't updated yet, and offered to have someone grab me some of the mozzarella sticks from the Skyline restaurant or at least some chips. The trouble with having to deal with bad food service is that I lose my appetite so I turned down his offer. He still wanted to make it up to us and tried to offer comping dinner in a specialty restaurant for tonight but we had already planned to use our last dining package dinner in La Cucina. He next offered to gift us a bottle of wine but we don't drink wine. He did seem genuinely bothered by our report and wanted to fix it. We decided to leave without eating anything more here and as we did, I noticed he pulled aside the manager for a talk. 

To check, we headed over to the Skyline restaurant and viewed their menu to see if the waiter was right. And of course he wasn't. The poor host at the podium had no idea what we were talking about when we mentioned the mozzarella sticks. I've never cared this much about mozzarella sticks but once you get this much grief over it, it becomes almost a passion. Our next stop was the buffet where my appetite started to come back at the sight of carbonara pizza. Spaghetti carbonara is one of my favorite dishes to order and I've tried it on essentially every cruise line but never seen it as pizza! 

For a taste change, I wanted to try the gelato since I hadn't gotten to try it yet. The young man working the counter today was treating the gelato like he was spreading peanut butter on a sandwich. He used the scooping tool to scrape the tiniest amount out of the canister and then tried scraped the tool along the inside edge of the cup before handing it to Dad as if he was trying to do a paint job instead of food service. Umm, we're paying for a scoop, not a spoonful. Dad asked him to put more in the cup since the first time he got gelato, the woman working the counter filled the cup. This young man agreed to add more to the cup all the while complaining that he can't help it because the gelato is melting. The gelato was in the containers it's always in when the counter is open. The only reason it would be melting was because the refrigeration mechanics weren't working. When he finally got around to adding Dad's second ice cream flavor (Dad had initially ordered two scoops), he added it falling over the side rather than trying to balance on top. As he rang us up, he remarked "If it falls off it's not my fault!" The pool deck was packed so by the time we found a place to sit down and eat, we had gelato soup and Dad's hands were covered in the dripping ice cream.

I guess the afternoon was just not our day for trying to eat on board. 

Day 6 of the cruise - 1st day in Kauai (Part 2)

The same rep was waiting for us once we came back inside and she took us back the long way so we could get a private drive through of the Marriot hotel in the area that's known for its gardens and the large sized koi pond. Once back at the ABC store, the shuttle hadn't arrived yet so we browsed the shops. By the time we'd picked up our two water bottles ($2/2 or $1.59/1) and peeked over at the beach, the shuttle had returned and off we went back to the ship.

Side note: NCL is known for not letting you bring on drinks at all whether it's at embarkation or in ports whereas most other lines will only care if it is liquor. And then it's taken from you, logged, and you get it back on the last day to take home. On other lines you can bring a certain amount of wine bottles per person on embarkation day and everyone (except for POA) offers the chance to pre-order the hard liquor bottles to be delivered to your stateroom. I've seen and read in other people's reports for NCL that even a soda you still had left from your time in port would get confiscated. When I still had that root beer bottle left over from our tour the previous day, I wanted to test whether it was an issue and held it tucked in my arm completely visible as we returned to the ship. Neither the cruise staff member who stood by the gangway welcoming people nor the security staff checking my bag cared about the bottle. Now whether it wasn't an issue because it was non alcoholic or because it was a single already opened bottle versus a case or 6 pack, I can't say.

Look who was hanging around our cabin while we were away!

A quick visit to the buffet for lunch - their attempt at a BLT club sandwich and my desperate attempt to find a pretzel roll that was hot! At least the curly fries were good and the pizza saved the day again.

After relaxing in our cabin for a little while, Dad opted to stay in and read while I headed down to Disney trivia. I love attending the trivia games on cruises so it was a little sad that this was the first one I had time to attend. A handful of people were playing including a family that had 8-10 people so I guess there was no team size criteria like other lines. A couple times the teens/young adults in the group would act like they weren't playing and cared more about their phones only to speak up when they knew an answer. I know some hard core trivia players that would have shared their opinions about someone being on their phones while playing. Their team ended up winning and got a whole pile of NCL branded items. The questions were also super esoteric ranging from simple things like what did Aladdin feed the villagers (remembering having watched the movie would give you that answer) to questions like which four Disney princesses are teenagers or what are the names of Walt Disney's kids or so and so characters address in the movie. Would you even remember whether it was Cinderella's right or left foot that lost the glass slipper?

About halfway through the trivia, one of the bartenders started coming in and out to get the nearby bar ready for the evening. He went from shouting out answers to the questions to cracking jokes like the answer to a villain's name must be Katie because that's the name of his ex-wife.

I returned back to the cabin having picked up some popcorn from the machine at the Gold Rush Saloon (free and portioned out in little bags so you can take as many as you want) and tried to relax on our balcony. Unfortunately, the scheduled "maintenance" that was causing us to stay in port later tomorrow was already in progress on the side of the ship right under us causing a lot of noise and vibration. I used my phone to play my music and it still didn't drown it out.

Our sweet treat for the cabin had shown up - I'm pretty sure it was either cashew butter or macadamia nut butter inside.

We had texted Adam and Amy initially because we considered going out into the port to eat dinner. We'd even checked in with Spencer about places he recommends. However by the late afternoon, the overcast skies became full downpours and we gave them the option of changing plans since their tour got back so much later than ours. They wrote back to say that they "were fine doing their own thing for dinner." Hmm, well we were asking about still going out versus making a reservation for four on the ship but alrighty then. Found out later that they'd gone back off the ship to have dinner at the Marriot hotel.

Off they go to the ship's luau excursion

We ended up being so stir crazy bored in the cabin that we headed to the buffet for dinner right as it was opening. We each wandered around trying to find something enticing until I stumbled upon the counter for getting your pasta combinations made to order. I ordered a simple spaghetti with marinara sauce and Dad went with Bolognese because all his mind saw was "meat sauce."

We'd each already picked up a mix of flavored chicken, pork, pizza, sandwiches, and rolls. It was relatively easy to find a table and after fetching drinks we dug in. While I could have sworn that the meat dishes I'd pulled from were hot, by the time we sat down to eat, the only thing still warm on my plate was the made to order spaghetti. Dad tried everything on his plate and hated it all. I ate a good portion of my pasta and ended up going back for pizza.

As we ate, a guy kept wandering back and forth past our table and taking a real vested interest in my plate each pass by. Each time he'd pass our table, he'd seem more and more interested to the point that at his second to last pass, he stood there for at least 20 seconds staring at my plate which I'd now pushed to the side. Just as I'm about to ask if he needs medical attention or a keeper, he wanders off. Before I could take my next pizza bite, he returns and finally explains that he's been coming by because he noticed my spaghetti and wanted to know where I'd found it. Just ask on the first pass next time dude instead of acting like a buffet peeping tom! We told him where to find it but Dad was so annoyed at the food that he gave a whole speech to the guy about how horrible the food is. The guy wanders off in search of the pasta. A guy from a nearby table walks over and tells Dad that he agrees with everything Dad said about the food on this ship.

Tonight they had the Creperie open and it was a popular spot:

On our way out of the buffet, we thought to get some more bananas for the room and thought it would be easy to grab some here rather than have to ask Spencer. While the buffet always has a fruit section that is honestly more than I'd seen on other lines, there was no bananas out. We asked the crew member who was manning the fruit section about the bananas and he said that while he can't leave, he'd ask someone to go grab us some. One of the young ladies bussing tables wandered by a moment later and he asked her to grab some bananas from the back. We've done that on occasion for both bananas and milk cartons when it isn't breakfast time and someone has always been willing to grab some from the back for us. What we didn't realize is how much of a contraband bananas were. As soon as we turned to walk out with our bananas, it triggered a bunch of people to rush over to the fruit stand and ask for their own bananas. The same guy who'd happily offered to help us immediately told everyone else no. Not "please wait until I can get someone to get them" or "here's where else you can find some", just an outright refusal to give them any. We scurried away like we had shoplifted precious cargo.

I really liked the display screens used in the ship elevators - they had large print, were bright, and displayed what was on the deck you were stopping on:

We rounded out the night with a visit to the Hollywood Theater to hear the comedy of Tony Daro. Dad found him very funny but what I noticed more was the large groups of people who got up to leave each time he made a joke about some country's people or a specific ethnic group. He could have lasted another hour if he was the kind of comedian who picked on the people that got up and left during his show.

Day 6 of the cruise - 1st day in Nawiliwili, Kaua'i (Part 1)

One note I neglected to add to the report for Day 5 - When we got the next day's edition of the Freestyle Daily in our cabin during turndown on Day 4, it included an insert offering a ship laundry sale for one bag and one day only. While we considered doing this as most other cruise lines include ship laundry as a suite perk, we were turned off by the fact that you had to wait until the last night of the cruise to get your laundry back. Normally the turn around is by the end of the next day enabling us to pack little and do laundry routinely. Not worth it for us to get our clothes back just in time to pack them again. I know some people like the idea of going home with a suitcase full of clean clothes but I always launder everything when we get home anyway since it's been in drawers used by thousands of people and then tossed around in a suitcase. In case you are interested, the laundry deal is one full bag of laundry for $19.95. The instructions say to place the full bag on your bed by noon Wednesday prior to leaving your stateroom to be picked up by your steward and the items will be returned the evening of Friday.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming! Today was our first day in our last port of the trip. This is also another of our overnight ports. Initially Adam and Amy had chosen to do the NCL excursion called Discover Kauai and Luau but when we reminded them that we'd be seeing a luau at the Polynesian Cultural Center, they reconsidered. Tonight was also the night that the ship offered excursions to the Luau Kalamaku which is usually largely attended. Some cruisers will encourage others to spend the evening instead enjoying an empty ship. We had originally decided to join them on their 2nd day pick of the Wailua River & Fern Grotto ship excursion but when they changed the first day choice to one that included the river and grotto, they changed their second day's choice to the Heaven and Earth Quest ship excursion.

Prior to the cruise, Dad had been looking into going on a flight tour while in Hawaii. Originally he found a company that takes two people and a pilot in a Red Baron style plane where the two people share the front cockpit (the pilot sits in the 2nd cockpit behind them) and contribute to operating the controls. Each cockpit is open to the elements. He was really lobbying for me to do this with him but let's just say I wasn't too disappointed when he realized the two of us together was over the weight limit for the front cockpit space. He next looked into an all day combo tour from the Air Ventures Hawaii company called the Best of Kauai Tour. To start the tour, you go on a 60 minute tour called the Northshore Limousine & Tours Kauai Sightseeing tour. The description refers to it as a photo friendly van tour so I'm guessing it's like the van we used in Maui. Then you got to take a 1 hour and 20 minute river boat ride through the Fern Grotto. The last item in the combo tour is a small plane flight that lasts 60 minutes and flies over the whole island. It's a great offering for including just about everything you'd get from the various NCL choices at $289 per person. They are also one of the few flight operators who had a higher than 250 lb. weight limit. 

However, after booking it, the Air Ventures company called us a couple weeks before we left on the trip and revealed that because our then time in this port was a full day Thursday and leaving at 2PM on Friday, we couldn't do the full day tour since it wasn't offered on Thursdays. We were disappointed but agreed to switch to doing just the flight portion. It was only after this did we learn through a Pride of America Facebook group that NCL was changing the next several weeks worth of itineraries to have us stay in Kauai until 5PM for "maintenance" and we would be missing the last night sailing past the Napali coast. To make up for it, NCL gave everyone booked a $100 on board credit (OBC). In the end we decided to stick with just the flight on Thursday anyway. 

Dad did briefly seek out a new tour to do on the second day but neither of us could find something that really stuck out. We decided that it was better to schedule the flight on Thursday and then we had Friday as a backup if the weather was bad. And if it worked out, we'd have Friday to enjoy being on the ship while most were off on their last tours.

When we woke up this morning, the sky was a little overcast but Air Ventures had sent an email confirming that things were still on for our flight. Since we had selected the 11AM flight, we had plenty of time in the morning to visit Cagneys for breakfast. Next to us was a large group that took up a lot of attention from the wait staff ordering and re-ordering several things so service was a bit slow today. In my effort to try everything on the menu, I asked our waiter Sid if I could get the pancakes without the Buttered Walnuts and Caramelized Bananas listed in the description. I learned my lesson from the Celebrity cruise when I asked for the extra stuff like the fruit compote to be left off and he also left off the syrup. So this time I asked for just pancakes and syrup and that was perfectly okay. After waiting a long while for our order to arrive, I noticed that one of the extra waiters trying to help this large group brought them a plate of plain pancakes. They looked at him completely clueless as to why they were brought plain pancakes and turned it down so off he went back into the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, Sid came back out and handed me my plate of plain pancakes and a small cup of syrup on the side. Don't be afraid to ask for modifications if you have dietary restrictions! Worst they can say is no or encourage you to choose something else that fits your needs better. I didn't realize though until receiving them that the pancakes were three pancakes each almost the size of the plate! Could have used 3 cups of syrup to cover it all! I made it through 1 1/2 pancakes before I had to throw in the napkin and give in to my full stomach.

One of the nice things about Kauai and some of the other ports is that they included shuttles from the port to shopping centers. These are a free service (though most everyone tips the driver) and run routinely back and forth so you can leave when you're ready and come back when you please. Since we booked privately, we had to make our own way to the ABC store where their rep would pick us up. About an hour before we were scheduled to meet the rep, we boarded the next shuttle at the port only to arrive at the ABC store within 10 minutes. To kill time, we wandered through the shops in this strip mall style section. There is also a beach and recreation area around the corner from the shops.

We amused ourselves by checking out all the T-shirts with funny sayings in the shops:

Pretty good looking beach if you don't feel like traveling far from the ship:

The rep was running a little bit behind prompting us to call the company to check on her. She arrived within minutes of us calling. Slight downside here in that she brought a van with no way to step up before having to step inside. In and out was not the most graceful image as we had to get a knee up and crawl inside essentially. Once at the airport, we were offered the chance to use the restrooms before being made to step on a scale to confirm our weights. They do make you also hold or wear anything you plan to bring with you when you get weighed in so that the weight balance for the flight is correct. First time I've ever had to prove my reported weight with a weigh in for the company. They did also weigh the skinny people too and they handled the number discreetly by writing it down and passing it to the pilot so no worries about having half the building hear how much you've eaten on this cruise. We were the only people here that had cruised in, the other two couples making up our party of 6 were vacationing solely on land. The Air Ventures employees had us all line up in front of the plane for a group picture to be emailed to us later.

Our pilot came over and introduced himself to everyone and kept the weight list to himself as he thought about how to arrange us in seats. One of the guys was close to 7 feet tall and one of the other ladies reported sometimes getting motion sick so he took all that into account when arranging us. The young guy dating the motion sick girl reported flying experience so he got to enjoy the front passenger seat and got a quick lesson on aiding in the controls. His girlfriend sat behind the pilot and Dad sat across from her. I sat behind Dad and the girlfriend of the 7 foot tall guy sat behind me. There was no seat next to me so it was the perfect spot for the tall guy to sit next to his girlfriend and stretch his legs out. Wish we'd all had that option because both Dad and I were squished as far as leg room. At one point I was concerned that my hurt knee would open up again from being squished against the back of Dad's seat. I shifted a little to keep the side of my knee against the seat instead and by the time I could pivot to get out at the end of the ride, I added a big rugburn across my knee when it pulled away from the vinyl seat. The pilot (who admitted during the ride that his other part time job was at Costco), had thought to provide a cooler in the plane that held water bottles and cold wet washcloths in individual baggies to help those who might feel sick. He joked that because of my position, I got to play "stewardess" if anyone needed something. He kept checking on the motion sick girl during the flight and finally near the end she asked for a cold washcloth which helped keep her from having to use those provided barf bags.

The views you can enjoy from the air are comparable to nothing else and I highly recommend everyone try at least one flight tour of some kind. From a photography standpoint, take my advice and only bring your regular lens, not the telephoto or zoom lens. I went with the wrong advice and brought only the zoom lens. It hindered my ability to take pictures since I was already pinned up against the window and any picture I tried to take straight out ended up getting whatever was above it. After a while I figured out to aim low on the window to compensate and started snapping a bunch of pictures every so often in hopes of getting some good shots.

The flight overall went well with only minor turbulence. Our pilot kept sharing his amazement at how clear the skies were that we were able to get such a nice view. It was great to be able to see the Napali Coast this way since we'd be missing it on the ship. Once back on solid ground, we had the chance to grab some other pictures before being escorted back into the building. They were strict about leaving anyone unattended on the airstrip and to get in and out our pilot had to put in his code to unlock the door. It was a nice touch as we walked in that they offered everyone a mint. I'm hoping it was to help facilitate ear popping and not because they thought we'd had hot spicy peppers for breakfast.