Hawaiian Cruise: Maui and Two Days on the Big Island (Day 6-Day 8)
WARNING: the theme of the first three paragraphs of this post is “a little–well, a lot–of disappointment goes a long way.” Bypass them as you wish. My travel agent had strongly encouraged me to select off-ship excursions through the cruise line because the line would then be responsible for any incidents related to those excursions. I followed her advice except for two activities. The one that applied here I scheduled through an outside vendor because they advertised that they could accommodate those with accessibility needs for a sunrise visit to Haleakalā National Park. The cruise line specifically indicated that they could not provide accommodations, so that choice was my only option. I will not use space here to describe what happened, but the result was that I was unable to make the trip and, thus, missed the national park. The only positive from the situation was that I got a…
Hawaiian Cruise: More Oahu, Launch and Maui (Day 4-Day 5)
On Saturday morning and our last day touring Oahu, we went south and east to East Honolulu and our quickie, first stop, The Koko Crater Lookout and its popular hiking trail. Like so much of Oahu, the view was spectacular, and even though the day started out cloudy, it was still warm enough to get away with a light jacket–the heaviest clothing I would wear the entire trip. (Note here: my Facebook buds back in the DMV posted that the weather there had turned decidedly wintry.) We next arrived at the Byodo-In Temple, located at the foot of the Ko’olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. Its website describes the temple as “a smaller-scale replica of the almost 1,000-year-old Byodo-In Temple, a United Nations World Heritage site in Uji, Japan.” The temple and grounds were incredibly beautiful. I did my best to capture its beauty in a number…