Our first week after Merchant Marine training was spent rehearsing for our show. We said good-bye to the first cast and hello to our director Matt and our producer Nate. They were on for the whole first week.
We had a lot of fun rehearsing. Our show opened on Wednesday night (aka Kona Night) and it was very well received.
We did other stuff besides rehearsal although that did take up most of our time. We went to Paia (on Maui) to have dinner at Flatbreads. We went to Ken’s Pancakes on Hilo - famous for their Pancakes - and I had a Moco which is a local dish. Moco is a bowl filled with rice, some kind of meat (I had portuguese sausage), eggs and gravy. It was delicious. We went walking on the boardwalk in Kona.
We were on the island of Kauai on Thanksgiving. We weren’t sure what we were going to do for Thanksgiving dinner but we knew we didn’t want to stay on the ship. In one of our travel books we found a great listing for a place called Gaylord’s. They just happened to be serving a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It was fabulous and it even included Pumpkin Pie. We did our first improv show that night and it was great. I thank the Pumpkin Pie.
Then we went to the beach (a 10 minute walk from the ship) and it was a perfect day. We did a little swimming and then off to the ship to teach a workshop and view the Napali Coast. The Napali Coast is the North side of Kauai and it is gorgeous. It’s very dramatic and on that particular day the light had this beautiful apricot/gold/pink glow which was a wonderful contrast to the greenness of the coast.
After we said a fond Aloha Oy to Nate and Matt, we started the business of settling in to our new ship lives. We decided to explore Honolulu and do a little Christmas shopping. We headed away from our ship and walked down Ala Moana blvd. It’s a busy street that has a lovely beach on one side and shops on the other. We went to the Ala Moana mall which is unbelievable...it’s huge and it’s all out doors. I got a haircut and Larrance got an iPhone.
We spent that first week just exploring the ports. On Maui, we took a bus from Kauhalui to Lahaina. In Lahaina, we saw a huge Banyan tree and a rainbow. We wanted to go swimming but it was raining.
On Hilo, Larrance and I walked to downtown Hilo which took us on Banyan Tree drive and Queen Lill’aukalani Park. The Banyan Tree Dr. is lined on both sides with huge Banyan Trees. The name of the person who planted them is on a plaque in front of the tree. It was a hot and muggy day and the shade and coolness of the Banyan was very welcome. The Queen Lilliaukalani Park is on the ocean and it’s a Japanese inspired garden park. It was very peaceful and beautiful. Then we had some amazing Mexican food at Reuben’s. I’m going to say this about Reuben’s - we ordered the chips and salsa to start and the salsa was so hot that it was spicy even for us. We LOVED it. The food was great and downtown Hilo was adorable.
On Kona, we went to the Kona Brewery. We tried several sample sizes of their delicious beers. It’s a very nice brewery with a great restaurant attached. We discovered a snorkel spot just off the tender that day - it had an amazing amount of fish considering that it’s right next to the tender boat spot.
Basically we started exploring the various ports and getting a handle on all the things we want to try and do.
Since then we’ve been on the ship for about a month, and we’ve done our shows which have been well received. Just this week we did a show for the Crew on Tuesday night which went great. We celebrated The Second City’s 50th Anniversary with cake and champagne (courtesy of our great Cruise Director, Silas) and we went on a crew excursion to the Makapu’u Lighthouse.
We also had an adventure in Maui but I’ll tell you about that in my next post.
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