It was a sad morning waking up the last morning on the cruise ship. I think that at least 2 of my kids have decided that they want to work on a cruise ship and maybe Robby and I have discussed just living on one as well.
By 7:20, the kids were delivering pajamas, dirty clothes, hairbrushes, carry-ons and toothbrushes to our room. Robby loaded all of their carry-ons with the ipads, and then we were all heading to the buffet. I had assumed that most folks had already gotten off of the boat because there were few people in the hallway and they all seemed to be leaving.
I was completely wrong because the buffet was crazy. I guess everyone wanted one last free meal before having to get off of the boat. I had my usual-eggs benedict, a baked tomato and a muffin (today was an apple bran muffin which was delicious.)
We ate and ate until it was finally time to leave our rooms. Since our stuff was in our rooms, we headed down to grab our backpacks and disembark for one last time. The line to get off of the boat was long but soon we were in the terminal looking for our luggage.
Last night, we set all but one bag out in the hallway for them to bring to the ship terminal. I had said that I didn’t want to do this but changed my mind since I had filled them up as I was packing and knew that I wouldn’t need in any of them. It just seemed so simple as we entered the terminal and the kids started grabbing their bags saving us lots of steps with all of our stuff.
It seemed simple until Anderson said that he couldn’t find his bag. We all started looking for it and of course the bag that we couldn’t find would be the one that was solid black! We looked in our section (there were different colored tags divided into different sections.) We looked in other sections. We finally had started asking workers to help us and after a good 20 minutes, Robby went to file a lost luggage claim.
We figured that all hope was lost for finding his bag today so Robby headed on to pick up the rental car. He had to uber to the airport and then come back to get us so we knew that we had a bit of extra time. We stayed in the terminal looking-Pops and I looked at every suitcase from all 2000 guests this morning and still couldn’t find that bag. I was about to lead the troops out to the street to start waiting for Robby when I saw an elderly couple from another country getting off the boat (it seemed) and leaving a suitcase in our section.
It looked like Anderson’s so I beelined over to it to check and sure enough it was. I worker man who had been helping us was nearby and I told him that we had it and then gave him our lost luggage paper. He spoke to the couple and found out that they had already been to the airport and opened the bag to discover that it wasn’t theirs. They returned to pick up their bag and thankfully we were there to see them leave it back in the spot!
We all breathed a big sigh of relief and since everyone had asked what was in that bag and I had no idea, we unzipped it. The luggage lost would mostly have been Robby’s dress clothes and shoes along with some of the kids clean clothes. We then headed out to wait on Robby-it took him a bit but eventually he arrived with a 15 passenger van and we even had room for our luggage.
We really had covered Oahu very well but since our flight didn’t leave until 8:38, we still needed a car so we didn’t have to waste away at the airport all day long. Our first stop this morning was at the flea market around the Aloha Staduim. If you can imagine every single toursity gift shop that we have seen this entire trip encircling the stadium then you will know what this flea market looked like. It was pretty overwhelming. We did find Reagan a red dirt shirt from Kauai and everyone also bought a shirt at another stand (how could we pass up 7 shirts for 20 bucks.)
By the time we made it back in the car, we were hot, hot, hot! Robby was quick to find us a 7-11 for a few slushies. Everyone was much happier when they had their slushies in their hands. Then we headed back towards the North Shore.
On the way there, we found Tropical Farms Outlet. They had macadamia nuts, coffee and other Hawaiian wares there. But what caught our eye were the coconuts. We had not had any coconut juice this entire time and since we were about to leave, we sure couldn’t pass up that experience.
The man was great and talked to the kids explaining everything to them. We watched him chop the top off of the coconut. Everyone tried the water and then the man chopped up pieces of coconut for us to try. I have never tried real coconut but now that I have, I just don’t need to again. It doesn’t taste like much at all!
Even though we had already been this way, it was still a beautiful drive. We jumped out of the car to take a few pictures at Chinaman’s Hat. We had seen it last trip around the island but didn’t stop for pictures. Next stop was the Sea Arch at Lahie. It was another picture stop where we just jumped out of the car and then back in.
By this time, it was well passed lunch and we are still used to eating and eating well. Robby had spotted North Shore Tacos and we stopped there. It was a Hawaiian flared Tacos for Life which was delicious. The kids said that they liked it better than Tacos for Life and they must have because we cleaned our plates!
We had to make one last run by Mike’s Huli Huli chicken before we drove on to one last beach stop. Unfortunately, we couldn’t swim since the time was ticking down on our vacation. We did let the kids walk to the beach (Sandy Beach) and watch the crazy big waves. I have never seen waves like that and was surprised at all of the people swimming despite the “no swimming” signs. Anderson grabbed some sand from the beach and we all pottied one last time before the airport.
We did make one final stop before the airport-Leonard’s Bakery. We enjoyed the masaladas (fried ball of cinnamon dough) and thought that we needed one last treat before the long haul red eye flight home. We made it to the airport, and Robby dropped us off to go and take back the car.
He tried to give me a scare saying that he couldn’t find my driver’s license. I was pretty sure that I didn’t have it but did look anyway. I didn’t have it-the kids were starting to panic but I told them that I would be happy to be a Hawaiian resident. Eventually, Robby did write saying that he found my license. If you haven’t notice, poor thing loses stuff daily. He even laid his wallet down once today and had to have someone hand it back to him. Even lost his phone at the airport-couldn’t find it in his backpack.
Soon Robby arrived and we all were able to check our bags and go through security. Nonna was wearing a shirt with a bit of bling on it which caused her to have (these are her own words) her first breast exam in an airport. We had finished going through the line, reloading our ipads and putting on shoes when Nonna and Pops finished.
Then it was a bit of waiting in the airport until our flight tonight. I am going to go ahead and post the blog now since we will call this the end of Saturday.
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