Sunday 4/5/09 11:30pm (2 hours earlier than PDT)

Speed: 19.6 kts, Temp: 70.2 degrees, Humidity 74.3%

20 degrees 36’ N 153 degrees 1’ W

Sailed 2016.4 nautical miles from LA

125.2.0 nautical miles to Hilo

Seas: 4.0 – 7.5ft moderate

Sea temp 64.4 degrees

We all managed to shower, get ready for the day, (which isn’t as easy as it sounds when you have four women who are either doing hair, putting on makeup, showering, dressing, or picking up the room prior to heading out for the day), and had a relaxing breakfast by the pool around 10:00am. We were treated to a waffle table complete with all the fixings, and since we didn’t have to make them ourselves and they were hot off the griddle, they were exceptionally good. A quick note regarding last nights laundry adventure (bet you didn’t think doing laundry could be called an adventure, but it was). Kim and Bonnie had started two loads of laundry and figured the wash would take about 30minutes. When we went back to load the dryers, one washer was filling, figured it was for the rinse cycle. After about 15 minutes it was still filling, so we checked into it. We figured out that the washer was filling but at the same time emptying the water, a never ending battle. It would never fill, and to top it off, it had not even filled for the wash cycle. We transferred to a working washer. Bottom line was that a task that should have taken about 1.5 hours actually took us over 2.5 hours. We got things taken care of and finally got to bed after midnight.

Today brought us more sunshine and warmer weather. There were plenty of sun worshippers out on the loungers and some were slathered in suntan lotions, while others looked to be about medium rare already. We wandered to one of the dinning rooms for their “SALE”. Did a bit of looking and Kathy found a nice shawl for a decent price, but things had been pretty much picked over. After a “walk-a-bout” through the ship, we headed back to our room for some sun worshipping ourselves in the privacy of our balcony, and a time to chat about our trip so far and what we wanted to do at our first stop, Hilo. The skies were blue and the water even bluer with few whitecaps. The ship is making good time but it’s not rocking like it was on our first couple of days. We got our lazy buns up and headed for a quick lunch on deck. There were many folks participating in the various activities such as Survivor done Princess’ way. There were more people walking around with bright red backs and faces. Marlene headed to the salon for a haircut while the rest of us headed to loungers of our own to relax in the sun and wait for her return. She didn’t take long and the cut looked great. We gathered up our group and headed to lecture on the Hawaiian culture. We were glad we had made a point of going a few minutes early, because it became a standing room only situation. The couple who spoke were informative and gave us keypoints regarding some of the best places that the locals enjoy as well as a lesson in the Hawaiian language. We found out how to properly say some of the islands’ names and a host of other interesting and useful items. We finished up and made a beeline for our own loungers and cocktail hour prior to dinner. We enjoyed the day as it faded away into evening, watching the sky change from blue skies to a glorious sunset of bright pinks and orange. The weather was a bit balmy and finally feels tropical (Kathy still isn’t warm, but we’ll work on that). We had a late dinner” at our now favorite table and spent the time laughing and telling stories of our various memories of our childhood days. Laughter definitely was our “main course” and the evening was, as our travel companion from the transatlantic would say “delightful”. After dinner Kim headed to the Princess Theater to listen to a singer, must have been a fun time, because when Kim came back to the cabin to report she said everyone ended up on the stage singing. We have turned down the lights and are ready to call it a day. Tomorrow is Hilo and we have no official plans, other than to jump in a rental car and explore the area. It’s times like this you need a project manager extraordinaire like ET (sorry, for those of you not familiar with ET = evil task master, who actually is a wonderful woman that Kim and Bonnie are fortunate to know from work). We send our love and hugs to all of you and hope you are enjoying the trip along with us, you are thought of often as we toast each and every one of you with our glasses during cocktail hour!  Aloha!!