HAWAII...The great people on our cruise

Our group consisted of five missionary couples from Heber Valley Camp:

Elder and Sister Johnson - Darrell and Ethel

Elder and Sister Davis - Clair and Linda

Elder and Sister Cole - Roger and Deon

Elder and Sister Felter - Gary and Suzanne

Elder and Sister Conlin - Reed and Kathy

Plus: two friends of Ethel Johnson and

Friends of the Coles: Skip and Judy

We were just 14 of the 1408 guests on the ship. We had a great time!

Ethel, Linda and Clair on the Lido Deck purchasing soft drink cards shortly after we arrived.

Gary and Suzanne enjoying a laugh while waiting for our rooms to be ready.

Darrell, Ethel, Linda, Clair, Gary, Suzanne and me staking out the best seats in the Mondriaan Lounge for the first night's performance.

Every night right after dinner we went directly to the Mondriaan Lounge for the night's entertainment. We saw some great shows. One of Ethel's friends is in front of her.

Suzanne and Judy




Looking good in the chef's hats. Each night we had two tables side by side reserved for us. Our waiter's name was Mac. We especially enjoyed the Dining Room Manager, William. He brought us extra appetizers each night...large cocktail shrimp on a bed of lettuce.

The Trivia Team
We took turns sitting out of the game as six teammembers was the maximum allowed. We never won but we learned alot. Many of the activities (bingo, trivia, all the performances etc.) were held in this same place.

That is Maui in the background. We had to take tenders to go ashore. Maui is the only Hawaiian island I had visited before. Reed had also been to Oahu.

Roger and Deon celebrated their 50th anniversary on the cruise!

One of the van drivers/tour guides took a group photo of us.

Looking somber at Pearl Harbor

Sometimes we went places as a group and other times we split up. The 'other half' of our group purchased on shore excursions from the cruise line for each stop we made. We found things much cheaper when we made arrangements on our own. Besides that, many of the 'fun' activities were things we had previously done and didn't feel the need to do them again. The main idea was to get out of the cold winter weather for as long as we could with great company, great food and great entertainment.

While at Heber Valley Camp, each of the young women groups had a theme for their camp. FBI was printed on some of the girls' hoodies. It stood for "Forever Be Immovable." In January we were in Mexico and there were lots of T-shirts with FBI emblazoned on them. Upon closer inspection we found it was for "Female Body Inspector." In Hawaii, FBI meant "From Big Island."

HAWAII...Cruise Log

Thursday, February 5th

Rode to Salt Lake Airport via Airport Shuttle

Flew to San Diego

Boarded Zaandam, one of the dam ships of Holland America

Set sail for Hilo, Hawaii at 6:49 p.m. (delayed departure)

Friday, February 6th - at sea

traveled 312 nautical miles

Saturday, February 7th - at sea

traveled 465 nautical miles

Sunday, February 8th - at sea

traveled 511 nautical miles

Monday, February 9th - at sea

traveled 488 nautical miles

Tuesday, February 10th

docked in Hilo, Hawaii just before 8 a.m.

set sail for Honolulu, Oahu at 4:45 p.m.

Wednesday, February 11th

Docked in Honolulu, Oahu at 7:07 a.m.

Zaandam sails for Nawiliwili, Kauai at 11:43 p.m.

Thursday, February 12th

8:00 a.m. - Docks in Nawiliwili

Sails for Lahaina, Maui at 4:36 p.m.

Friday, February 13th

7:08 a.m. - Anchors off Lahaina, Maui

5:26 p.m. - Zaandam sails for Kona, Hawaii

Saturday, February 14th

Anchors off Kona, Hawaii at 7 :01 a.m.

Sails for Ensenada, Mexico at 5:08 p.m.

Sunday, February 15th - at sea

traveled 302 nautical miles

Monday, February 16th - at sea

traveled 434 nautical miles

Tuesday, February 17th - at sea

traveled 454 nautical miles

Wednesday, February 18th - at sea

traveled 451 nautical miles

Thursday, February 19th - at sea

docked in Ensenada for one hour (was supposed to be 4 hours)

traveled 453 nautical miles

Zaandam sails for San Diego at midnight

Friday, February 20th

docked in San Diego at 6 a.m.

disembarked by 9 a.m.

flight from San Diego to SLC

shuttle from airport to home

arrived home about 4:15 p.m.

Traveled a total of 5105 nautical miles from San Diego to Hawaii and back.

HAWAII...Flowers, trees and plants

This is such a nice diversion from the snow, cold temperatures and inversions of Cache Valley.

HAWAII...Temples and Animals

I always have a hard time believing that this is the 'lone and dreary' world because 'there is beauty all around.'

When we arrived at the temple grounds in Laie, Hawaii, the sky was pretty and blue in one direction and gray and foreboding in another. This is a picture of the sky as the sun was trying to come out from behind the clouds. The temple grounds were beautiful. The temple was closed for an 18 month re-construction. It looked like a gutted or bombed out structure with no windows. It was down to the gray concrete walls.

Deon in front of the Visitor's Center

I think this is Abraham blessing Isaac

The temple at Kona

When the ship dropped anchor in the harbor off of Kona, Reed was on deck watching the shoreline. He saw Angel Moroni peeking out through the trees. He had to put the magnification up to about 48x, but this is the shot he was able to capture.



We took a taxi and thought we would be able to see this side of the island and learn about the history. The driver didn't speak much English. He took us to a coffee plantation and other places which were not of interest to us. We finally told him to take us back toward the pier. We asked to him to stop at the 'Mormon Temple.' Luckily he understood. He told us it was a very expensive building...marble.

Animal Life

Nice spider!

I thought these colorful birds were awesome!

Good camouflage job of this crab




We saw lots of dolphins and whales. Getting a picture was rather hard. By the time we would press the shutter and the camera focused or paused, the whale was back in the water. This picture was of a whale who kept 'waving' at us. We never did get a good action shot.

I know Valentine's Day is over

I am unable to get this Valentine's Day print off of my blog. Jill also tried and was unsuccessful. I haven't blogged for a little while because I went on a 16 day Hawaiian cruise. I arrived home Friday to the news that my mother was not doing well. She passed away Sunday morning and I have been busy with funeral arrangements. When life settles back down I will catch up on my posting.