This is a long, log-style detailed review. If you just want the summary, scroll down to the bottom. Koningsdam 1-28-25 “18-Day Circle Hawaii” Monday, January 27, 2025 – Intro & Travel to San Diego We chose this cruise a few months before sailing as there was a very short window where we caught an attractive price on a “Guarantee obstructed verandah” cabin. We had looked at these “Circle Hawaii” cruises but many of them have ten sea days and only four days in the islands. This one has six full days on four of the Hawaiian Islands. We were picked up at our home by Andy of Air & Cruise transportation at 8:45 and he dropped us at the Southwest doors at Fort Lauderdale airport at 10:15. There was no wait to check our bags (three checked bags) but quite a line at security, even the pre-check and clear lines were pretty long. We have pre-check and it took about 20 minutes to get through the scanners. My carry-on was selected for additional search and that took another 10 minutes. Our gate is B2 and we stopped for a coffee and diet coke on the way. We were able to get exit row seats on our flight to Nashville, where we have a two-hour layover (enough time for lunch at “Three Casks in the Nashville airport) before our flight to San Diego. Three Casks has the best barbeque sauce I think I’ve ever had, they call it “Apple Pie” and on top of smoked turkey it was terrific. Our next flight was to San Diego. and we were very blessed to again have exit row seats. Our window neighbor was very nice and chatted part of the flight. We arrived just a little ahead of schedule, obtained our luggage, and called for an Uber just before 8:00 Pacific time. We arrived at our hotel at about 8:40. Our hotel for the one night before the cruise is the Carte Hotel San Diego, part of the Curio Collection by Hilton. We were upgraded to a high floor “City View” room. The room is very nice. For us, it’s now “After midnight” so it was time to just call it a night. Tuesday, January 28, 2025, Embarkation in San Diego We were up a little after 6:00. Sleep wasn’t the best; likely we nodded off too much on the flight. The Carte Hotel is very comfortable so it’s not the hotels’ fault! The Carte has elevators where you press your destination from the landing, before getting into an elevator. I know the new Sun Princess has the same technology but we hadn’t experienced it before. We enjoyed breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Our $45 food & beverage credit covered most of the $50 cost. Breakfast was very nice. We took a short walk around the neighborhood but “Walking” is hard when every block you have to stop to wait for the crossing sign to turn green. We returned to the hotel to finalize packing and went to check out at 10:05. I called an Uber which arrived in one minute, the fastest ever. Despite ordering a “Comfort” level car a very nice but rather small Hyundai EV arrived. We had to put one of the suitcases in the front seat. We arrived at the pier and gave the luggage to the porter at 10:15. Crossing over we entered the open-air terminal, had our boarding passes and passports checked, went through security screening, and were given boarding card “B” due to our four-star mariner status. Concurrently, we heard “Green” boarding called (these were suites) and we saw a parade of crew members pushing guests in wheelchairs to board. As we were finding our way to sit, boarding group “B” was called so we joined the parade right behind the wheelchairs. We were onboard by 10:40, by far the earliest we’ve ever boarded a Holland America Ship. My original plan was to leave the hotel at about 10:45, so having our walk truncated wasn’t that bad a thing. Immediately after boarding there was a dining desk where we made reservations for a 6:00 Tamarind dinner on Super Bowl Sunday. By 6:00 Hawaii time the Super Bowl will be long over. They told us the main dining desk would open at noon on deck 3. We went up and sat outdoors aft lido. Lunch was available despite the early hour. DW went to look and found fish and chips made with snapper. She brought me two pieces and they were quite good. The fries, not so great so they remained uneaten. I went down to the dining desk at 11:40 and an assistant Matre’d was there. Only one person was being assisted so soon I talked to him. On this sailing, “Early” fixed dining is 5:00, which is just too early. Main dining is 7:30. We signed up for 7:30. We are at a table for six with a couple from North Carolina and two ladies who travel together despite living 1,000 miles apart. Our waiter is Yanto and the assistant is Michael. We stopped by the spa to inquire about the thermal suite package. I had it in mind that I was willing to pay up to $600 for a thermal suite pass. When the quote was $816, the “Discounted rate” we said no thanks. I’m not even sure if they add gratuity on that. That works out to be over $75/day, not including the six port days in Hawaii, and that value is not there for us. As we were on our way to our cabin to see if our keys were there the “Cabin ready” announcement was made. We are in the very forward verandah cabin next door to the chief engineer (who it looks like has a very nice suite-sized cabin). I had read on cruise critic that the two cruises before ours had rough seas. Fortunately, the captain said we should have no more than three-meter (10 foot) seas on our way to Hawaii. The cabin is very nice with a larger bathroom and glass walled shower. Regretfully, it did not pass DW’s clean test as she found several issues. We could not find our room stewards, Anom & Ahmad, so we went down to guest services. On embarkation day there is always a line but after about 20 minutes we reached Irene who spent a lot of time with us taking notes and assured us it would be taken care of. We stopped at the Royal Dutch Café for a slice of their superb Apple Pie. They make a great pie second only to DW’s made from scratch Apple Pie! We moved on to our muster station to find no one was there to scan our cards. As we waited for an elevator to go up top, a crewmember walked by and I asked if she was the muster person. Yes, she was, so back to the muster station and that was taken care of. It was a bit of a wait for an elevator as guests were still arriving and half were being used for luggage delivery. On arrival at our cabin, we found our room steward Anom and the deck housekeeping manager reworking our cabin. We talked to them and gave them time to work their magic by getting some tea in the lido. DW wanted to check out the NY deli area and enjoyed a bit of Pineapple Pizza. Back to our cabin and all was much better and it passed the DW test. Our luggage was all there so we spent 40 minutes or so unpacking. I changed my shirt for the evening. I signed up for the “Surf” internet plan, the second tier (or four) of internet options. So far, this is adequate for our needs and e-mail access is good. We attended the 6:00 World Stage performance of comedian Jeff Burghart. Jeff has been entertaining on HAL ships since 2006. He told us there are 2,523 guests on board from 19 countries. We enjoyed his comedy, especially his comedic impersonations of a number of famous celebrities. We left his performance at 6:40 to head to the pool deck for the Mariner’s Welcome, open to three-star mariners and above. The welcome event was nicer than I expected. Many of the officers were there and willing to mingle and chat. We met the executive chef, who was very pleasant to speak with. We also spoke with the assistant hotel manager, food & beverage staff, and others. The captain was not present as we were still in the San Diego channel requiring his presence on the bridge. We enjoyed a few glasses of wine, a mimosa, and a couple of diet cokes at the event. We went down to dinner and have been assigned table #36 on deck 3, a six-top at the very aft on the port side. We enjoyed dinner, certainly better than the main dining room dinners on our recent cruise on Celebrity Ascent. I had a shrimp cocktail and the grilled “Fresh” mahi dinner. HAL usually has very good fruit crisps for dessert and this evening’s selection was blueberry and mango We returned to our cabin to find I had made a huge mistake. Rather than “Service room please” the hanger said, “Privacy please.” We didn’t see our room stewards anywhere so called guest services to explain what happened. They said they would send a message to our team. We went down to Billboard for their 9:45 “All requests” set. The team at Billboard (first impressions) is willing to learn new songs and go out on a limb to play songs they haven’t performed before. It was a very nice time. At 10:30 we returned to our made-up cabin and found the requested feather pillows. We turned in for the night at about 11:00. Wednesday, January 29, 2025; At Sea, Pacific Ocean crossing the California current Around midnight there must have been strong winds as the verandah divider between our cabin and the chief engineer’s cabin was ripped out of its anchor. Then it made noise all night waking us from time to time. We got up a little after 7:00. I took a photo and went down to guest services to show them. They had a way to take the photo off my phone and print it. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” I stopped at the Royal Dutch Café and brought DW back a drip coffee. With our discount it was $2.04 including gratuity. When I returned at 7:50 our 8:00 room service delivery had arrived. We ordered bananas but were told they have no bananas on board! The tea was very good. We finally had a chance to look through the daily program and found that a Hawaiian Bruch was being offered in the dining room from 9:00 – 1:00. I worked on my log a while until leaving for the 9:00 Brunch. The maintenance folks came by and removed the damaged verandah divider door While waiting in line the Matre’d came along asking if there were any groups of 4. The folks in front of us said they could be four, so we said we could too. We were seated right away at a 4-top. A unique menu was available and this was a sit-down brunch, not a buffet. I really enjoyed the Hawaiian French toast and pulled pork sandwich with Hawaiian BBQ sauce. DW enjoyed her Mahi sandwich. Beverage service took a while. The Matre’d stopped by apologizing for the delay and said there was a large crew turnover while in San Diego. Leaving brunch we headed to the Rolling Stone venue for the cruise critic meet & greet. A large number of guests attended. We met a couple who had been on the previous cruise (also Hawaii) and shared some of their experiences. There were a couple of door prizes, one of which was awarded to the youngest participant at the meeting. That person was 62 years old! This was a very nice meet and greet and thanks go out to the organizer. We returned to our cabin to find that the verandah divider door was repaired. Found on our bed was an invitation to a mariner wine tasting at 2:00 in the afternoon. We took a little time to sit out on the verandah. Reviewing the schedule for the rest of the day, we decided to clean up and begin to get ready for dressy night as we would be moving from one event / activity to another starting at 1:00. While in our cabin, a knock on the door was a gift delivery of delightful treats from executive chef Mahendran Sethupathy, who we had met and chatted with at the Mariner’s welcome. In over 300 days of sailing on HAL ships, we don’t recall any previous cabin gifts that were not a guest services apology for something or other. I went to the guest lecturer’s talk at 1:00 on “Our Great Hawai’ian Adventure” I really enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so and learned a few things about Hawaii. Perhaps the most significant is that Hawaii has the largest “West to East” width of any state, this is due to the many small islands and atolls to the West of the well-known main island group. Hawaii state islands go all the way West to Midway Island. At 2:00 we participated in the wine tasting in the dining room. This was likely the nicest wine tasting we’ve had on a cruise ship. The wines tasted are all available by the bottle, and most seem to also be part of the Cellarmaster packages. DW really enjoyed the Chilean Carmenere and at dinner we confirmed that was available as part of Cellarmaster 1, the package we purchased. We went straight from the wine tasting to the 3:00 Royal Dutch Tea. This is one of the events discontinued four years back and recently restarted. The tea was very good and the Dutch treats much appreciated. The upper level was more than 50% full of guests enjoying this special event. Directly from tea we obtained seats in Billboard for the 4:00 Happy Hour. At 4:00 they also had a general trivia at Billboard. We enjoyed a few beverages during Happy Hour. The Billboard team played a “60’s” set beginning at 4:30. The team is Brian & Melissa, and they are very good. We left Billboard at 5:10 to head up to the Crow’s nest for the “Aloha Sunset Music Hour” with the Hawaiian Cultural Ambassador team. This was very enjoyable. We stopped back in the cabin to get our jackets before dinner. We returned to Billboard to listen to the Rolling Stone Rock Room band. They are too loud in their venue but the volume is good in the rear of Billboard. This was the “Silver Gala” dinner. Everyone seemed to enjoy their meal. My “Fresh Yellowfin Sole” was a very nice entrée. DW had a very nice Salmon entrée. The only disappointment of the day was after dinner. At about 9:15 we arrived at Billboard but not a seat was to be found. Brian & Melissa started their all-request set at 9:00. At this exact time, they were the only live music happening on the ship. Therefore, we ended up calling it a night. Turning on the TV we found that an airplane / helicopter crash occurred near Reagan National airport. We fly into Reagan when visiting family in Virginia. Very sad. Onboard, the clocks “Go back” an hour tonight so we will be on Anchorage time when we wake. I updated the phone and watches before turning in about 10:30. Thursday, January 30, 2025, at sea #2, Pacific Ocean still crossing the California current We ordered coffee & tea for 7:30 and it arrived at 7:10. Fortunately, we were up at 7:05! We are now four hours behind EST, with one more hour before reaching Honolulu. A little research turned up a fascinating fact, did you know the California current runs up to 1000 KM wide? That is why the outdoor temperature this morning is still a cool 61 degrees. The Pacific is living up to its name today, as the water is virtually flat. I forgot to include in my log for Wednesday that there was a “Dance band” available for three before dinner sets in the Ocean Bar at 4, 5, & 6. The World stage show was the Step One Dance Company and we don’t care for their performances to canned music. The other alternatives were better for us, and at least we did have alternatives! We went down to breakfast in the dining room at 8:40. There was a line of perhaps 20 in front of us. When we reached the hostess she said they were only doing shared tables. I told her we didn’t have 90 minutes for breakfast and would like a table for two. She sent us to the hostess desk, where they quickly gave us a table for two at a window. It took a while to obtain our beverages but once orders were placed the food came out quickly. As we were finishing up at 9:30 the couple we sat with the prior day finished at their table for 6. We said hello, chatted for a moment, and I asked when did they arrive? Right at 8:00. Sure enough, 90 minutes for breakfast. That is just too long. We missed the coffee chat with Gabe, but did catch Gabe in the Rolling Stone room. We gave him a hello from our friends on the Noordam, the ship he just left. Sure enough, he knew who they were. At 10:00 in the Rolling Stone there was a demonstration on flower arranging. This was very nice and DW especially enjoyed it. One sad note came out from the demonstration as the florist told us that Holland America has begun moving away from fresh flowers and has begun to replace some of the displays with plastic. UGH. That is a Holland America tradition, and why the top brass would cut something so enjoyable at a time of record profits I don’t understand. In any case, the florist offered a “Hands on” make your own flower arrangement class which will be held on Friday. DW signed up. There is a cost but you also get one of the Dutch vases to take home, as well as the arrangement you make to take to the cabin. I went to the 11:00 guest speaker on “How were the Hawaiian Islands formed?” The World stage was packed, but I did find a single seat. Within three minutes the man right behind me had three bouts of hacking, so I left. I went around to the other side of the theater but found no empty seats. The talk didn’t seem to have anything “New” to me, all about volcanoes and plate tectonics which I believe I already understand. I took care of an e-mail from one of my private guides for our April cruise back in the cabin, then we went up to the lido at noon. The indoor seating was totally packed, but there were plenty of tables out back in the sheltered area. Roast turkey was available and I thought it was quite good (with gravy) while DW thought it was a bit dry. Walking through the buffet at 1:30 it had really emptied out with lots of tables empty. At 1:00 there was a Sjoelen (Dutch shuffleboard) tournament. We participated and I ended up finishing fourth, just out of the “Medals.” We stayed at the lido poolside for the 2:00 “Koningsdam Games.” Our team came in second after participating in ship-safe versions of the discus throw, javelin throw, ‘frisbee’ throw, and a few other games. We made our own “Teatime” at the Royal Dutch Café with a shared order of poffetjes, a slice of apple pie, almond cookie with coffee & tea. We then had some time to relax on the verandah. It’s still a little cool but the bright blue sky makes the ocean glisten. We rested a while and got ready for the evening. We stopped in at Billboard for the end of Happy Hour. The crow’s nest was calling and we ended up snagging front row seats for the “Aloha Sunset Music Hour.” There was actually a sunset just after 5:30 which perfectly coincided with the sounding of the conch shell to signal the daytime had passed. With these great seats we passed on the World stage show of instrumentalist Dennis Daye. Later we found out our tablemates didn’t really care for the show. Back to Billboard we took in the “Hot R&B” set at 6:45. Brian opened the set with “She’s gone” as he was doing Billboard solo for the first time as Melissa is a bit under the weather. He also told us that they met in late 2021 on a ship and have been performing together ever since, so they are now in their fourth year, and this is the first time Melissa has missed a show. Brian did a great job and we enjoyed the set. Dinner was just four of us tonight as one couple were in the Pinnacle. With just four the pace was better and we were done at 8:45. We had time to stop back in the cabin. DW’s invitation to the flower arranging class was on our bed. Next we proceeded to Billboard to listen to the Rolling Stone groups “Classic Rock & Roll” set, which included numbers by the Monkees and Jimmy Buffet. Again, the volume in Billboard was good. Brian then came on for the “All requests” set. We left during the last song and called it a night. By the time we were ready to turn out the lights it was nearly 11:00. I did notice that the temperature outdoors was at 69 degrees, indicating that we have finally transversed the entire California Current. All in all, this was a very nice sea day on Koningsdam. Friday, January 31, 2025, At Sea #3 – The Pacific Ocean DW was up a little before 7:00. This allowed me to catch a few photos of a nice sunrise. It was 69 degrees outside and it would stay at that temperature pretty much all day. We had ordered coffee & tea for 8:00 but we were ready much earlier. I went up to deck 10 over the pool to find that all the deck loungers were available. Intending to spend the morning there, I put my stuff on one of the loungers and obtained a cup of tea at the NY Deli. I stopped back in the cabin at 8:10 and our light breakfast order was there. I made the tea but the hot water wasn’t hot enough for good tea. DW came with me back to deck 10 (which is actually quite close to our cabin) and we ordered breakfast at the NY Deli. They actually have more items available than their posted menu shows. It was nice not battling the crowd at the lido. I went back to my lounger to read my book while DW went to prepare for her hands-on flower arranging class. Just after 9:00 I went down for 20 minutes in the hot tub. The hot tubs are quite hot, so it was enter slowly. Once in, they feel really good. While in the hot tub I watched the “Golf chipping” competition. Not many golfers were able to hit one of the rings floating in the pool. A little after 10:00, folks filled in the loungers nearby but one of them started hacking away. Looking over, her nose was all red. I picked up my things and found one unoccupied lounger at the other end of the row. About 12:15 DW found me. We cleaned off the lounger and walked through the lido seeing nothing all that attractive to us for lunch. The seating looked pretty jammed. We looked at the dining room menu and returned to our cabin so I could throw on clothes acceptable to go to the dining room. On our way there, I thought “This could be a great day for a Pinnacle Grill lunch.” We stopped by the Pinnacle and they were happy to serve us. Lunch was very nice. DW had the crab cakes and I the clothesline bacon for appetizers, followed by Chilean Sea Bass for both of us. DW finished her Carmenere wine from the night before. It’s nice and quiet in the Pinnacle and we enjoyed this greatly. Afterwards I walked by the future cruise office. They are ALWAYS busy and backed up. Perhaps once we are in Hawaii they won’t be so in demand. We went back to our cabin for an hour’s nap. Then we cleaned up for the evening and I worked on my log. I read a little more of my book. We headed down to the Ocean Bar just after 5:00 to try the “Proship Dance Band.” Based on this set, they are misnamed. No one was dancing and the jazz music the quartet played was not something we could dance to. We stayed until their last number and headed to the World stage. The performance was “The Magic of Ruben Vilagrand presents Wonders.” His performance is to a custom created soundtrack but he doesn’t speak a word. Perhaps we’ve seen him before, as his “5 fishhooks in his mouth putting them onto a string” seemed familiar. We thought the best part of his performance was turning newspaper into butterflies. We then found seats in Billboard and listened to the Rolling Stone band’s “Songwriter sessions.” At the back of Billboard, the volume is okay. The two ladies from our dinner table joined us at Billboard. Dinner was better than expected based on the menu. DW’s Teriyaki Salmon bowl was excellent, as was my Apple Pork chop. One of our tablemates enjoyed the “Stroop waffle cheesecake” for dessert. After dinner DW’s foot needed some TLC and icing, so we returned to the cabin. During the day and evening we have noticed a growing swell in the ocean. Today a major “Winter storm” hit Hawaii. The highest elevations on Maui and the big island had “Winter storm warnings” with up to two feet of snow expected. The good news is that it will be long gone by our arrival on Monday, but we may have some higher seas as we approach. This could also make for some great photo opportunities, we will see! Overnight we gain another hour moving the Koningsdam onto Hawaii time, five hours behind Eastern time. Saturday, February 1, 2025, at sea #4, the Pacific Ocean DW was up at 6:40 and I was then able to catch a slight post-sunrise photo. It’s 72 degrees and looks like a pretty day. The weather didn’t hold. Around 11:00 while playing Catan it began raining and it rained for about two hours. The rest of the day had rather rough seas and very high winds. This is the southern edge of the storm system that affected Hawaii the day prior. We decided to go to the lido for breakfast. I had a freshly made omelet and the staff were very pleasant. We sat out back where I was surprised by the amount of wind. We did not linger once we finished. We took fresh cups of coffee & tea to sit up on deck 10 by the NY Deli. That is a very nice spot to sit in the morning. A quick stop back in the cabin and we went down to the main stage for “Ask the captain.” Well, that is what was billed as a chance to ask Captain Arno Jutten questions. The captain was there and gave a very nice “Virtual tour” of the behind-the-scenes area of the Koningsdam. At 9:48 he was finished with his presentation and we needed to leave to get a table up by the NY Deli to play Catan – Hawaii. We had a nice game, with each of us playing two positions. DW ended up winning with her blue pieces. It took us over two hours to play, and one time I got the positions out of sequence. I had looked at the menu for the dining room lunch and it looked good, so we cleaned up the game and arrived at the dining room at 12:45. We obtained new bottles of wine from our package and enjoyed our lunch with chicken tenders (served nice and hot) and a garden salad for DW and pulled pork for myself. The almond cake for dessert was nice and moist. Maitre’D Andri stopped by our table after most guests had left so we had a chance to chat. I mentioned to him about our upcoming cruises with friends and he said he would be happy to communicate with his counterparts to confirm dining arrangements for those sailings. He said he would stop by our table in the evening to get the booking information. DW wanted to see if the florist, Humprey, was selling vases. The vase she received with the flower class was less than perfect. He was there and she was able to exchange her vase. We also made the purchase of another unusual Delft vase. We walked around a bit checking out the shops. We will have a lot of OBC during our planned summer cruise on Nieuw Statendam so we won’t be making any ‘cash’ purchases unless something is very special & unique. We stopped by the Royal Dutch Café for a couple of almond cookies. Soon, it was time to begin getting ready for the second ‘dressy’ evening. We arrived at Billboard about 3:50 and at first couldn’t find a seat. Having trivia there, along with Happy Hour, followed by Billboard’s afternoon set at 4:30 creates a crowd. We did eventually find two seats along a side wall where we couldn’t see the pianos. We were able to move once trivia was completed. We enjoyed Melissa & Brian very much as the set was “Standards” and they were terrific. A few happy hour beverages cost us less than $10. We made a quick stop at guest services for some envelopes and I put all the information in one for Andri. We enjoyed comedian Jeff Burghart’s second performance and thought he was funnier this time around. His jokes about not dissing the home countries of the crew due to the ‘consequences’ created the longest laughs of the night. Dinner was the Silver Gala dinner. The filet brought me was well done, certainly not remotely close to the ordered medium rare. Yanto took it right back and within two minutes brought a correct one. We really enjoyed the dinner despite the difficulties. Andri stopped by and I gave him the envelope with our future sailing information. We left the dining room at 9:05. Walking past club Orange, the dining area was empty of guests. Those folks on this cruise sure eat early! The “Koningsdam Ball” was in full swing in B B King’s lounge but of course there were no seats available. Seating was jammed at Billboard as well but we noticed some folks leaving and were able to grab those. The “Request” sets seem to be when Brian & Melissa have the most fun. 10:00 found us heading back to our cabin to call it a night. DW couldn’t find her ice bag as her foot was swollen. I found it in the refrigerator filled with ice, something our room team Anom & Ahmad did for her without us asking or even suggesting. That is above and beyond service and a very pleasant way to end the day. Oh, we also found a towel elephant on our bed waiting to greet us! A note we heard about Hawaii. Hawaii is said to be the “Remotest” population center in the world. There is no other population center for thousands of miles in any direction. How the original Polynesian settlers found the islands is an incredible feat. There are a few “More remote” places, (such as South Georgia Island or Easter Island) but they are not population centers. One note is that with a completely full ship, the public areas can’t handle the number of guests that would like to participate. The B B Kings lounge is too small for the regular performances, let alone a major ‘party.’ While you can comfortably listen to the Rolling Stone band at Billboard, the reverse is not true as Billboard’s performances are not played on the speakers in Rolling Stone. Having 7:30 dinner certainly is a negative in attending the after-dinner events, as the 8:00 world stage show is let out about 8:50 and those guests fill up all the seating. At least on our summer and fall cruises we will have early dining. Sunday, February 2, 2025 – at sea day 5 – the Pacific Ocean nearing Hawaii DW woke up about 7:20. The sun was out and the TV reported the temperature as 72 degrees. It felt a little warmer than that on the verandah. We decided to head up to deck 10 to have a couple of deck loungers in the shade. We obtained breakfast from the NY deli. I finished the book I’ve been reading – it will be *interesting* to see if I can connect later to our library to return it and check out another. The pool was ‘cool,’ while the hot tub was quite warm. It was a relaxing 25 minutes. I stayed on the lounger, watching the first bird I’ve seen since San Diego, flying in and out along the wave tops. That is a good sign we are getting closer to land. The TV shows we are on a heading that will take us past the north side of the big island of Hawaii. I picked up some coffee with almond milk for DW from the lido and a hot cup of Darjeeling tea and brought those back to the cabin. After cleaning up and being ready for the rest of the day we headed down to the “Koningsdam Bazaar” We found two Hawaii t-shirts on the 2 for $30 sale. Much to our surprise we received our mariner discount and ended up paying $25.50. We walked around a little and found that future cruises weren’t backed up. We talked to the rep asking about winter ’27 Amazon River, which we and friends have an interest in. They said that it is likely to be offered but not yet scheduled or available. We also talked about the grand Australia / New Zealand we would like to do for ’28. Same answer with the addition that the ’26 sailing is selling well. We were near the Grand Dutch Café and decided to do lunch there. I enjoyed it, DW was not as big a fan. The café will likely be more of a snack or Apple Pie stop for us rather than a full meal. We returned to our cabin to drop off the T-shirts. We attended the 1:00 matinee performance of instrumentalist Dennis Daye. He is very talented but I had a hard time staying awake. At 2:00 a highlight of the day was the “Ho’ike Cultural Recital” poolside by the Hawaiian ambassadors and the guests who have been taking hula and ukulele classes every day since leaving San Diego. They did a great job and this was a lot of fun to see. We had some time to chill and then went to get seats for Happy Hour and the Billboard 4:30 set of “One Hit Wonders.” The wait staff began taking Happy Hour orders early at 3:45. We had a couple of beverages and enjoyed the Billboard set. Following we went to get seats for the 6:00 Magic of Ruben Vilagrand, his second show. I thought the second show was more entertaining than the first. I don’t think I mentioned that the prior day we ran into Ruben at the Dutch Café and had a nice chat with him. We sat in Billboard for the Rolling Stone group but left after 15 minutes. Their selections were just not at all what we enjoy. We stopped back at the cabin, talked a bit to our room stewards, and took a slow walk through the lido area to head to dinner. I ordered an 8-bottle wine package so that we won’t need to order it while in Hawaii. Purchases while in Hawaii will be subject to Hawaii tax. Dinner was quite good and my Hake was an excellent fish. DW’s lamb shank was like an “Osco Buco” on steroids. We actually found a couple of seats for Billboard’s request set at 9:00. Tiredness hit us so we left at 9:30 to return to the cabin where we began to call it an evening. Monday, February 3, 2025, Honolulu, Hawaii, day 1 Waking about 6:30 I had time to get dressed to attend the last event by the Hawaiian Cultural Ambassadors, the “Sunrise Hawaiian Blessing” held in the crow’s nest. During the event the sun shone on us coming right through two tall buildings. Koningsdam was already docked when I reached the crow’s nest. I stopped in the lido for coffee & tea to bring back to the cabin. ‘The ship is clear’ announcement was made at 8:02. At about 8:10 we went to the dining room for breakfast. Certainly not as crowded as the sea days and service was relatively fast. We left the ship around 9:00 and followed the sign to “City bus.” It was about a three block walk in total to the bus stop. We were there less than two minutes when bus 20 came to a stop. We were the first onboard and were prepared with our $1.25 exact change senior fare. About 20 folks in total boarded, about 2/3rd of them from the ship. Many didn’t have a clue and only had large bills. This held the bus up some. We rode the bus to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It was a nice walk through the resort, taking photos along the way. Things sure have changed since our last visit in 2008. Honolulu was a city then but our remembrance is that it was clean. That is not so much the case these days. Walking along Waikiki beach we passed Fort DeRussy, a recreation area for armed forces personnel. Apparently there is also a hotel just for them adjacent. Walking a route to find a CVS, we ended up passing the Embassy Suites where we stayed in 2008. We stopped at CVS to pick up a few necessary items. I called an Uber who arrived in about five minutes to take us to the Foster Botanical Garden. We enjoyed the garden (and clean restrooms!) just wishing more items were flowering. We stayed for about 75 minutes. Walking into Chinatown was a bust. The streets here were very dirty with homeless folks hanging around. With nothing of interest and DW’s foot showing some pain, an Uber arrived quickly to take us back to the cruise terminal at about 1:00. Once on board we dropped off our purchases and went to see what was for lunch. The buffet had an alleged ‘Haddock’ fish & chips. I tried one piece and it was okay. We ordered for the first time this cruise from the Dive In. DW enjoyed the chicken sandwich. Then we returned to the cabin to ice the foot. Right after we arrived we had a knock on the door and it was Anom with a laundry delivery. I don’t think I’ve mentioned the laundry; the service has been nothing short of incredible. We’ve sent out laundry every morning and it comes back the next day, all clean and pressed. They even resurrected two of my very wrinkled handkerchiefs I was ready to throw out, now they are again useful. We had a nice chat with friends from back home by phone. DW iced her foot and she felt much better. Our tablemates who have tickets for the same luau as we do texted us that their tour should be back just after 4:00. We arranged to meet at the Royal Dutch Café a little before 4:30. DW requested that we take a taxi or Uber to the luau. Even though it’s only about a 15-minute walk we found a large taxi waiting outside the terminal. For $13 (including tip) we had a quick ride over to the Aloha Tower. Despite all the messages from the Ka Moana Luau imploring folks to be there by 4:45 on arrival at 4:42 there were multiple lines of people, depending on the type of experience purchased. We all had “Celebrity Seating” which included our meal being served (rather than go to the buffet line), a fresh flower lei, and three beverages. There was a notice that registration begins at 4:55. In any case, we were in by just after 5:00 and had our photo taken. We found our assigned seating on table 9. Dinner was quickly served and we went to the bar to obtain beverages. The ‘pre-show’ was likely very good but due to the position of the sun we couldn’t see a thing. Dinner was okay, but certainly not what I expected of a ‘served dinner.’ Everyone was served the same meal, with small amounts of fish, pork, and chicken. The main show began after the sun had set behind the Coast Guard cutter docked across the channel, so we were able to enjoy it. The show was quite good with the fire performance certainly the highlight. Overall, I would give the Ka Moana Luau 3 stars out of 5. I’m very glad we bought the tickets through a discounted Groupon offer as at full price the value is certainly not there. At the conclusion, we got back together with our table mates. Everyone felt up to walking the half mile back to the ship, so we did exactly that. One big benefit of doing so was we had some terrific night-time photo opportunities along the way. Once back on board I took a few additional night photos from our verandah. DW needed to ice her foot again after a +16,000-step day. Therefore, once back in our cabin at 8:30 we didn’t go back down to Billboard. We have an early start tomorrow for our second day docked in Honolulu. Tuesday, February 4, 2025; Honolulu Hawaii day 2 We set the alarm for 6:00 as our goal is to leave Koningsdam by 8:30 on this second day in Honolulu. We ordered a full breakfast to be delivered around 7:00. Breakfast arrived at about 7:10. We were able to sit on the verandah to enjoy our coffee & tea. We were off the ship by about 8:10 and walked to the bus stop. We must have just missed the bus as we waited about 15 minutes for a #20 to arrive. We were at Enterprise to pick up our rental car for the day at 8:50. Processing went pretty quickly and soon we were following Waze to our first stop, the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. DW’s uncle’s remains are at the cemetery and since we were in town we wanted to pay our respects. We stopped in the visitor’s center and it is a good thing we did, as we would have looked in the wrong place. The most helpful individual told us exactly where to park, where to walk, etc. to find the site. They also gave us their business card in case we needed to have the placard cleaned or refreshed, but it was in good condition. We then drove a short distance to the car park for the overlook, on the highest spot of the cemetery. The uphill path to the overlook is lined with memorial placards placed by various military organizations to commemorate fallen comrades. I took a photo of the Coast Guard placard and sent it to our son. I took photos from the overlook in all directions. We also had a fairly good view of the Koningsdam at dock. Leaving the cemetery at about 10:30 we began our drive out to Kapolei for our 1:00 “Ko Olina Glass Bottom Boat” outing. Driving down the “H1” interstate I was quite surprised that much of the roadway was five lanes on each side, and a portion was seven lanes. That is almost like the Atlanta beltway! As we were early we stopped on our way at the Wal-Mart in Kapolei. The Wal-Mart had an entire section right up front with Hawaii souvenirs. The clothing sections had a good selection of tropical Hawaiian style shirts. We found two we really liked that were “Made in Hawaii, USA” so they were purchased. DW found a few light jackets she liked. We also bought some local coffee and snacks. The McDonalds inside the Wal-Mart was visited for a couple of beverages. It was now 11:30 so back in our car we drove on to the marina. Although not far, the drive goes through the Ko Olina resorts which is very slow (an uncountable number of speed bumps ensure that) so it took about 20+ minutes. We were still early so we walked around the peninsula and visited the lagoon next to the marina. Many folks from the resorts, and some that drove in, were enjoying the sandy beach and calm waters. We saw a few native animals during our walk and photos were taken. Back to the marina we waited for the mate to arrive to check us in. He gave everyone with a car a parking pass. A little before 1:00 we were onboard. Honestly, the outing wasn’t what I expected, which was basically a ‘dry way’ to see what could otherwise be seen snorkeling. Right after leaving the marina the captain spotted whales so we headed towards the whale(s). Right before we got close, the tailfins came up and we didn’t see those whales again. Just then, two sea turtles came swimming right past the boat. We headed for the shallows, and just as we arrived, and had a school of fish greet us, whales were spotted again. We did get to see a giant humpback whale with its calf, but this ate up a lot of our time and we never got back to the shallows. All too soon the outing was over and we were back at the marina. Back in the car we headed towards Honolulu. Waze directed us to a gas station where I filled up the 1.6 gallons I used. Our route to return the car took us right past the pier, so I dropped DW off with our bag filled with Wal-Mart purchases. I then returned the car and waited 15 minutes for a bus. On the return, the bus stop was less convenient and I needed to cross three busy roads, so waiting for the “Walk” signal took a lot of time. In the end, I returned to Koningsdam 65 minutes after dropping off DW. Time to get cleaned up for the evening. We made a visit to the Royal Dutch Café where a slice of their apple pie served as my ‘lunch.’ There is no show in the World stage this evening. The ‘dance band’ was playing poolside. We listened for a while and used our “Welcome aboard” mariner’s drink coupons. Billboard is off, but Rolling Stone’s 6:45 set was “Country Crossroads.” Sitting in Billboard the volume was good. We headed to dinner and enjoyed the rest of our wine bottles from Sunday. DW really enjoyed the featured seared Tuna dish. I tried the ‘Korean spareribs’ but will not order them again. Too much work and too much fat to remove. With nothing happening after dinner we called it a night as we have a very early start the next day. Editorial on Honolulu: I’m sure there is more to see on Oahu, but when the highlight of two days on the island is visiting a cemetery, that kind of says a lot. We remember Honolulu from 17 years ago as a much cleaner and sparkling place. I’m sure we will be back and will need to plan very carefully when that happens. Wednesday, February 5, 2025, Nawilwili, Kauai, Hawaii The alarm was again set for 6:00. This morning, we decided to go to the lido for breakfast, arriving there just as the sun was rising at 7:10. DW’s omelet was undercooked so she went back to the omelet station to finish it up. The advantage of the lido is of course that it is fast. By 7:30 we were done and I went out onto the aft deck to check on Koningsdam’s docking progress. It looked like we were a little ‘late’ and that was accurate. The entire aft deck 9 smelled of smoke, there was little breeze so the smoke just hangs around. With the casino closed for six days all the smokers are here. We were docking on the port side so I could watch things from the balcony. A little after 8:00 we took the elevator down to deck 1. Folks were lined up to get off. At 8:15 the ship is clear announcement was made and we were allowed to proceed down to deck A to the gangway. Once outside we noticed that several ships tours had already been disembarked and the buses began leaving. Since when do ship’s tours get off before the “Ship is cleared?” We found the “Rental car shuttle pick up here” sign and waited. No sign of a shuttle. After 10 minutes I checked my Uber Ap and it showed an Uber XL was 1 minute away. I booked that and we made our way over to Avis. Avis gave us quite an upgrade with an Infinity QX80. I would pay for that later with the 6.5 gallons of gas consumed at $5.09/gallon for the 90 miles we drove! We headed down following Waze to Waimea Canyon Road, where we climbed, and climbed (likely a good reason the Infinity used so much fuel) to the 3,500 ft. elevation lookout over the Canyon. We arrived just before three ship tour buses, so we could use the rest facilities before the crush of 120+ from the buses. A parking pass for the day was $20 for us. We tried to obtain some park information from the attendant watching over the parking passes and have rarely run into someone so rudely responding to a paying customer. Oddly enough, this was not the last time that day… We were able to get some great photos and also noted along the drive the Kauai is a very beautiful island. There was a field of sunflowers along the way, but no safe place to pull over to take a photo. We drove further up the park road to the Pu’uhinahina lookout with more spectacular views from two vantage points. One of them looked over to the island of Ni’ihau, 17 miles across the water. It was now 10:50 so we did not venture further into the park. One concern was being stuck behind the tour buses down the switchback Waimea Canyon Road. Returning to the town Waimea, I put the “Circle K” we had seen back in Lihu’e into Waze and we headed back to town. There was less traffic now in the middle of the day than we had seen in the morning. We obtained some soft drinks at Circle K but found the cups did not fit in the Infinity’s cup holders. Ugh. Looking for some fresh seafood I found a take-out spot “Konohiki Seafoods” just up the road a bit. We stopped at Konohiki and this is a very busy place. We both ordered a serving of 10 “Ginger Fried Shrimp.” With tax just under $30 and we were on our way to the Lihu’e beach park for a picnic lunch. The shrimp was excellent, and nearly as good as the shrimp we enjoyed in St. Augustine back in December, which may be the best we’ve ever had. We headed over to Smith’s Fern Grotto Tours for our 2:00 boat trip to the Fern Grotto. Arriving an hour early there wasn’t much to do. DW checked out the gift shop but we don’t need $34 t-shirts. Several tours from Koningsdam showed up and they ended up having three of their large river ships reasonably full. We felt very fortunate that our ship was the first to leave (and therefore the first to return). The river cruise was nice enough. Many well-known movies had scenes filmed along the Wailua River, including Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Blue Hawaii, and others. After about 25 minutes the boat docked and everyone walked a 200 yard paved trail to the Fern Grotto. The grotto itself is very nice with a small, spring-fed waterfall. Lots of birds have nests in the wall. The crew from our boat put on a short hula show with the Hawaiian wedding song. We returned down a different path to our boat and headed back. On the return cruise the crew entertained with Hawaiian music and hula. All in all, it was a nice outing. We were the first to leave the parking lot and headed back to Lihu’e to return our car to the airport. Stopping at a Shell station, we filled up the tank. $5.09 was the least costly fuel we found on the island, and this station was only 2 miles from the airport. We returned the car, only to be told there is no “Cruise ship shuttle” as someone didn’t show up for work. There were about a dozen folks from Koningsdam waiting for the shuttle. Then we are told that Uber won’t pick up at Avis (they had no problem dropping us off there…). All in all, another rude experience. A shuttle did take us to the airport terminal, where we had to walk to one end or the other to the approved ride-share pick up spots. I called an Uber and 7 minutes later a very nice driver originally from Ohio picked us up. We were back at the ship at about 4:20. They checked our ID at the port gate and I secured them away. Then before security they needed to check the ID again. They don’t even do two ID checks at an airport anymore. Commentary on Kauai: Likely some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve seen anywhere. We were taken aback by the attitude of most people we interacted with (the exception being the Uber drivers). While on the island we did not find a restroom that had soap for handwashing, except the ladies room at Smith’s base (but the men’s room had none). We were very blessed with the weather – it was a perfect weather day. Literally as we were getting onto Koningsdam a brief rain shower moved it, but it was soon over. Kauai is one of the wettest places on earth, so a sunny day like this was quite a treat. Back on board, we get ready for the evening. There was nothing to run off to until the 6:45 Billboard set. The World stage show was the step one dance company. The tagline said “The orchestra comes alive” so I thought perhaps a live ‘orchestra’ would provide the music… We did not attend but learned later that no, all the music was simply a canned soundtrack. We did make a stop at the Royal Dutch Café for apple pie. Billboard’s “Coming to America” set was terrific and included a lot of audience participation. Dinner this evening was an interesting mix. Service seemed to lag, while the food was truly outstanding. I did talk with Yanto about the service level and while he was certainly more attentive afterwards he had little to say about why his assistant Michael is hardly ever seen. The appetizers of fresh Hawaiian Pineapple & Shrimp were terrific. The featured dinner was “Fresh Hawaiian Striped Marlin.” This was likely the best fish dish I’ve ever enjoyed in the main dining room on a cruise. We spoke later with the assistant Matre’d who told us that the marlin was just brought on to the ship today while in port and served the same evening. Score one for the Koningsdam kitchen & chef team! With a required early start the next day, we left the dining room as the last table on the entire port side at 9:20 and called it a night. By the time we take care of everything it will be after 10:00 for bed, and another 6:00 alarm in the AM. Thursday, February 6, 2025, Kahului, Maui, Hawaii The alarm went off at 6:00. The morning was similar to the prior day, with a quick breakfast in the lido. I found out that the bread area has large “Almond croissants.” I took two of those (for myself and DW) and they are very nice. The ship was closer to schedule today for docking and again docked on the port side so we could see progress from our verandah. We went downstairs to deck A forward at 8:01. We waited perhaps five minutes and the line began to move. There were a good number of taxis lined up and we got into the third taxi in line. Many folks were hiking out of the port to call Ubers but this morning we needed to save time. A very nice driver, Chae Ko, took us across the island to the Pacific Whale Foundation in Ma’alaea. With tip, the fare was $60. We were booked on the 9:15 “Small group” whale watching tour. We checked in at the desk and looked around the area. A few minutes later our group had a safety and information briefing, and we headed out to our boat, the Ocean Explorer. There was less shade than I expected but that ended up working out okay, as I found the best spot for photos was in the rear which was shaded. This was the best whale watching we’ve ever done. We saw dozens of Humpback whales and at one time one of the full-size whales swam up and passed our ship just under the water. We could see the fins and then the whole whale in the water, just spectacular. Hundreds of photos and dozens of video clips were taken; that will be quite a job to edit into a great movie clip! We returned to port after our two-hour adventure full of wonder. We stopped back in the Pacific Whale shop and purchased two long sleeve shirts to commemorate the day. We looked at some of the restaurants in the outdoor mall thinking about lunch. We also checked out the ‘general store & café’ and seeing no prices on the menus was a huge turn off. DW said “Why don’t we just go back to Koningsdam?” I checked our Uber AP and an Uber XL was available at about $20. I called the Uber and our confirmed driver headed our way from the airport. While waiting DW obtained two soft drinks from the general store for $9. Yikes. We were back on Koningsdam at about 12:30. The morning whale watching adventure pretty much makes this entire trip worthwhile; it was that good. Lunch in the lido was decent; I would have preferred the ‘hot foods’ to at least be warm. One of the issues on a day with many guests ashore is the food may sit too long. The roast turkey tasted good but it wasn’t warm. I decided to have no dessert in favor of a Royal Dutch Café apple pie before the evening show. We sat out on our shady verandah for a while. I headed to the pool and hot tub while DW began getting ready for the evening. I had the large hot tub to myself, and it was nice and warm. We got ready for the evening and I loaded the photos taken so far on this trip onto my tablet. We took it easy for the afternoon and went down to the Royal Dutch Café for Apple Pie. We returned to our cabin to put away laundry and then went to the World Stage for Chris Bannister, the Music of John Denver. Chris’ show was excellent. We left during his last number to get seats in Billboard for their “Love Songs” set. Billboard seems to grow in attendance daily and we have to get there early to get seats. Dinner was very good again, with the featured “Seared Hawaiian Fresh Ono” very much enjoyed by both of us. I have to say that the fish dishes since arriving in Hawaii have been remarkable. After dinner we headed back to our cabin. We decided to call it a night and turned the lights out a little after 10:00. Friday, February 7, 2025; Kona, Hawaii (Tender port) DW was looking forward to not having to meet a schedule in the morning, with the result being that we slept until 7:45. We made in to the dining room for breakfast at 8:45. I was surprised how many guests were at breakfast as I know many of the ship’s tours had early departure times. The Koningsdam dining room breakfast is honestly a continuing disappointment. It was at least 15 minutes before coffee & tea arrived. 45 minutes before the main entrees, and then DW’s was wrong. The remake was overcooked with hard boiled egg when it was supposed to be poached. Matre’d Andri stopped by and offered to replace DW’s breakfast a second time. We thanked him for the offer but turned that down. Back in our cabin we got everything ready to go ashore. The plan was to walk around the town a bit, do some shopping, stop at Hulihe’e Palace, and then take a dip at the beach near the tender pier. With no real wait to begin the tender boarding process, it still took 30 minutes to get ashore. We weren’t in a hurry, but the process seemed to take a long time. Once ashore, we picked up a local map and walked down Alii Drive. At the Kona Inn shops, we stopped for a Kona coffee for DW. She said it was very good. We walked a little further to Hulihe’e Palace, built in the early 1800’s as a home for some Hawaiian Royalty. We had intended to take a tour but you had to be barefoot inside and with DW still recovering from foot surgery that option was not palatable for us. So, we were satisfied with a few photos of the outside. The waterfront behind the Kona Inn had a few additional photo opportunities. We continued on to the local farmer’s market where we found local produce and (regretfully) Chinese-made souvenirs. We made no purchases. We began walking back along the other side of Alii Drive and found the Hilo Hattie’s shop. DW found a long enough Hawaiian Dress at Hilo Hattie’s so that purchase was completed. Continuing on our walk we made it back to the port. We got ready for the beach and took a dip in the 78-degree water. The lagoon here is nice and sheltered. I was able to see fish as the water was so clear. A few ship’s tour buses arrived at the pier and suddenly there was a long line for the tender. The early tours were returning and the same buses were then taking out another group from the later tours. After our swim, we noticed the line had reduced significantly and made it to the line just before another large bus arrived. The return process took over 45 minutes. What really delayed the process was the security screening back on the ship. There are two tender platforms both unloading guests but going into one security line with only one screener and one scanner. All too many guests are unprepared and most likely the metal detector is set too sensitive. Editorial note: All in all, with the tender operation the way it was, going ashore wasn’t really worth it. DW is very happy with her dress and wore it that evening. We spoke with others who came back much later (4:30 – 5:00) and they had no delays on the return. It would have been better to go over later and return later. We were back on board a little after 1:00. We found seats up on the pool deck and obtained a burger and chicken sandwich from the Dive Inn. We then spent a pleasant 20 minutes in one of the hot tubs which we had to ourselves. At about 2:30 we went back to the cabin to clean up and begin to get ready for the evening. I updated this log and caught up on e-mails. We arrived in Billboard for Happy Hour at 4:54. One of the waiters quickly took our order and we also asked for ice water. We are still very thirsty after our time ashore and the hot tub. About 5:30 we went up to the sea view (aft) pool area as the dance band was playing there for “Dancing under the stars” While listening to the dance band (only one couple was actually dancing) just after 6:00 Koningsdam slowly began pulling away from its Kona anchorage. Ten minutes later as speed increased the wind picked up so we headed to the Royal Dutch Café for an almond cookie and more water. We moved over to Billboard at 6:35 to obtain seats for the 6:45 “Top 100” set. Brian thanked everyone for being there and said it’s heartwarming to come to play with the room already filled. We left during the last number and arrived at dinner at exactly 7:30. After 15 minutes we were not acknowledged by Yanto or Michael. No one asked what we would like to drink, nothing. Assistant Matre’d was making the rounds, and I waved her over. She went to get our wine glasses and made sure the bottles arrived quickly. From then on service improved, yet we were still the very last table in the entire area when we left the dining room at 9:15. No complaints at all on the food. The featured “Hawaiian Macadamia Crusted Blue Marlin” was enjoyed by 5 of the 6 at our table, and it was excellent. The “Hawaiian tropical fruit” appetizer was also very good and a nice way to begin the meal. Editorial note: 5:00 dining is ‘just too early’ but 7:30 is also ‘just too late,’ as 7:30 doesn’t mean you get your meal at 7:30. Entrees rarely arrive before 8:30. With the early port stops, that means we end up calling it a night after dinner, even though I would love to go to Billboard’s request set at 9:45. On the European cruises dinner times are adjusted a bit later so ‘early’ should be okay, and we now have early confirmed on our summer and fall European sailings. Sure enough, we stopped in the cabin and decided to call it a night. We need to leave the ship at 8:30 the next day for our prebooked tour. Saturday, February 8, 2025; Hilo, Hawaii We set the alarm for 6:30 and ordered coffee & tea for 7:00. It was actually delivered at 6:44 so it was good that we were awake! Koningsdam docked early and as the sun rose over the port we were already tied securely. We visited the lido for breakfast a little after 7:30 and I was surprised at how comparatively uncrowded it was. I ordered my omelet with no wait and obtained two almond croissants. We were finished with breakfast before 8:00. DW returned to the cabin to finish preparing for our tour and I walked around taking photos. One striking thing is that the morning was crystal clear and the snow covered peak at 13,000+ ft. of Mauna Loa was on full display. With my zoom I could even make out the observatories on the peak. We left the ship at 8:30 and found the representative for the “Hoppa On Hoppa Off” tour in the cruise terminal. He said the shuttle to their office for check in would be by shortly. About three minutes later the shuttle arrived. While waiting, I received a call from friends in Florida who had received a text I sent with a phone photo of Mauna Loa. The tour was supposed to have four stops but our guide added a fifth, and that was our first stop. Reeds Bay Beach Park has a collection of Banyan Trees each planted by a celebrity of some type. These now create a canopy over the road through the park. Some of the trees pointed out were planted by Teddy Roosevelt, Babe Ruth, and Amelia Earhart (just a month before her disappearance). From the beach park we had a terrific view of Koningsdam. Our second stop (the first planned stop) was the Queen Liliuokalani Gardens, a public park with a Japanese style garden with various ponds throughout. This was very picturesque and also provided unobstructed views of Mauna Loa. A local church group was holding a community service day, trimming trees, bushes, and cleaning the ponds. We had just enough time to walk through the entire garden area. We made a quick photo stop at the King Kamehameha Statue. This is a replica of the statue across from the Iolani Palace in Honolulu (as shown in the opening sequence of Hawaii-Five-O). We then visited Big Island Candies. That is a misnomer as they sell more coffee, nuts, and baked goods than candy. DW enjoyed a sample of 100% Kona coffee. We did not make any purchases. Even at Hawaii prices, this was no bargain for sure! Our final planned stop was Rainbow Falls. Despite the sun shining we failed to find the rainbow, but we did enjoy the visit. I also climbed the path to the top of the falls and the giant Banyan Tree just off the river there. Our driver told us that we had the choice to return to the ship or be dropped off at the main bus station in downtown Hilo. Directly across the street from the bus station is the Hilo Farmer’s Market. Being a Saturday, the market was fully open. About half the passengers, including us, got off Downtown. Shuttles run about every 20 minutes back to the ship. We walked through the entire farmer’s market. The first part was fresh produce and locally grown products. The second part was a mix of arts & crafts vendors along with many “Made in China” souvenirs and cheap T-shirts. Among the mix we found one unique vendor selling “Floral jewelry.” We talked to the proprietor, who made the jewelry himself, and told him we needed to pass right by going back to the bus stop and we would consider it. DW and I talked it over and after a stop at the local supermarket for a few bottled beverages, we returned and made a purchase. Returning to the bus stop we found that the gazebo adjacent was filled with spectators enjoying a community band concert. We were able to watch & listen while keeping an eye out for the Hoppa On shuttle. In less than ten minutes the shuttle arrived and we were taken back to their office, just outside the cruise port. We transferred to the beach shuttle, passing by Richardson’s Black Sand Beach and getting off at Carl Smith Beach Park. Being a beautiful Saturday the Beach Park was very busy. Yet even with many folks enjoying the water, we found several Honu, the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles. I was able to adjust my polarizer filter to minimize reflection and snagged some really nice photos and videos of the turtles. DW enjoyed talking with one of the lifeguards about the turtles. The turtles seem to not mind the people at all and while folks are supposed to keep their distance if the turtles come to you that is their decision. We went back to the pickup spot and perhaps twelve minutes later the Hoppa On shuttle arrived. We returned to the Koningsdam at 1:50 after enjoying a very fine last day ashore in Hilo. After six port days in a row, we are ready for some sea time. Back on board, we stopped in the lido and I found they had grilled Corvina fish and thin Hawaiian Pork Chop. I had a little of each. DW opted for a personal pizza from the NY Deli, and we sat on the side near the door open to deck 10 bringing a very nice breeze. We then went down to the Royal Dutch Café for a slice of Apple Pie. DW had a cup of drip coffee. She said the Dutch Café drip coffee was at least as good as the Kona coffee at the candy place. We returned to our cabin at about 3:00 and sat out on our shady verandah. I ended up falling asleep on the verandah while DW was getting cleaned up for the evening. She got me up and I followed suit. I watched the preparations for sail away and stayed on the verandah as we departed. I was able to see the town of Hilo from the water as we began our 5 ½ day trip to Ensenada, Mexico. We went to get seats in the World stage for instrumentalist Annie Gong. Annie has an electronic accordion which she has programmed to be able to sound like a full orchestra. What she has accomplished is quite amazing. We left during her last number to get seats at Billboard. That is becoming harder each day, and we may need to leave the show earlier in the future. We did get seats with a partly blocked view. We enjoyed the set of 60’s hits. Dinner was nice tonight with more attentive service. Assistant Matre’d Diana stopped by several times. The local Hawaiian fish was tuna, but it was prepared in a ratatouille with eggplant which DW can’t eat. However, roast turkey was on the menu and that was excellent. I asked for seconds of just the turkey. We were finished with dinner at 9:00. We were quite tired and decided to call it a night. I worked on my log until 10:15. Summary thoughts on our Hawaiian ports: Honolulu is much more enjoyable getting away from the city. If stopping here as an early stop on a longer cruise, this would be a good place to stock up on essentials at Wal-Mart. On any return trip I will try to find a rental car closer to the port and get out of town for the day. Kauai is terrific. I likely put too much into the day by doing both Waimea Canyon and the Fern Grotto River trip the same day. That put pressure on us to return too early from Waimea Canyon and we didn’t get to see the whole thing. Car rentals being only at the airport adds to time requirements. Maui was the best morning of the cruise with the small boat whale watching. There are more options on Maui and it would certainly be worth going back. The big island of Hawaii has many attractions and we spent a week there in 2008. We didn’t do much in Kona but we just needed a break after all the consecutive port days. Hilo was a highlight and while not perfect we would recommend the “Hoppa On, Hoppa Off” tour. It is very cost effective and the drivers are all very helpful. Overall we truly enjoyed our second Hawaii visit. We are very glad we booked this itinerary with 6 full days on the islands. Many cruises have less days, some as few as four. We had ideal weather the entire visit, with mid to upper 70’s and low humidity. Weather doesn’t get any better. We sure got our walking in during the six Hawaiian days My daily walking came out to 16,057, 11,175, 10,250, 9,183, 10,555 & 10,992 steps. Sunday, February 9, 2025, Sea day #6, Super Bowl Sunday We slept in until after 8:00 after our six port days in a row. We made it to the non-denominational church service just after it began. The person leading did a nice job, but one person (on the other side of the room) hacking away kept interrupting my concentration. We headed up to the lido for a late breakfast. The almond croissants were all gone. I enjoyed an omelet. While eating the port side of the service was being shut down at 10:00 (Starboard remains open until 11:00). We stopped at guest services to ask about an invitation received for a Mariner’s lunch on Monday. The wording indicated that we would be ‘hosting’ a table. Translation problem – we will be seated at a table ‘hosted’ by an officer. We stopped at future cruises to ask a few questions. Walking through the lido pool deck, nearly every chair and lounger was already occupied for the Super Bowl which begins at 1:30, and it is still not even noon. Back in our cabin, we enjoyed just relaxing on the verandah. After 45 minutes or so the wind picked up and we moved inside. I e-mailed one of our traveling friends about a potential 2027 trip. At about 12:45 we walked through the lido to see if there was tailgate food available. We saw chicken fingers and beef tortillas being served on the pool deck by wait staff. Heading to the World Stage, they were doing the same thing. The World Stage looked packed at 1:00, but we spied three vacant chairs in the second-row center. These seats may not be quite as plush (as they are movable for certain shows) but we thought they were fine. We enjoyed the game (Go Eagles!) on the huge screen. We stopped back in the cabin to get changed for our 6:00 dinner reservation at Tamarind. We had never eaten at Tamarind before. We were very pleased with Tamarind. Nearly every table was occupied and we watched tables turn over very quickly. After dinner we returned to our cabin. It was going to be awhile before the next Billboard show. We ended up getting involved with e-mails and some financial things and never made it back out. By a little after 9:00 we called it a night. We also reset our watches as we go back to Anchorage time overnight. Monday, February 10, 2025, At Sea #7, the Pacific Ocean We slept well and it was 8:00 before we were up. The TV reports it is 72 degrees outdoors and it stayed the same all day. DW wanted a very relaxing morning so I went up to the lido and brought her back two cups of coffee and an almond croissant. We sent out a very full bag of laundry this morning. I went up to the lido for an omelet and then went to the Seaview pool and hot tubs. I had both the pool (it’s warmer than the lido pool) and hot tub to myself. I stayed in the hot tub for about 30 minutes. I enjoyed a few chapters of reading my kindle book before heading to the cabin to clean up for the day. DW discovered that she had left her key card in the pants that had been sent for laundering. Our first stop became guest services where they quickly replaced her card. Then we visited future cruises and booked a spring 2027 31 day “Collectors Voyage” adventure for friends and ourselves. We went to the mariner’s lunch. While this was a nice affair we did not have an officer at our table, although beverages (champagne, wine, soft drinks) were provided. The appetizer with lobster chunks was very nice. The “Sea bass” ended up being Barramundi. While a good fish, the Barramundi does not compare to some of the fresh Hawaiian fish we have enjoyed at dinner. If I had known it was Barramundi I would have ordered the filet instead. The chocolate trio dessert was very good, so long as one likes chocolate (which we do). We went up to the sea view pool as the solo guitarist was playing a set. We had not heard him before. We found one unoccupied table but after 10 minutes left as it just wasn’t really what we enjoyed. We stopped back in the cabin to send an e-mail with details on the cruise booking to our friends. Then at 2:00 the ship building competition was being held at the lido pool. We found a couple willing to share their deck 10 sofa lounge with us so we could watch. This was fun and the creativity shown by some of the boat designs was quite impressive. There was an “Indonesian tea” at 3:00. This was one of our favorite old activities which had been discontinued for many years. To show our support we went. While I’m glad they brought back the concept there was no Indonesian decoration or crew in traditional garb, and the tea itself was nothing unusual. Years ago, this tea is where I first enjoyed Darjeeling tea, which has become my favorite. Now that was not offered as an option. At 4:00 was a “Meet the artists of Billboard.” We very much enjoyed Gabe interviewing Brian & Melissa and they took questions afterwards. This lasted 50 minutes and was nicely done. We returned to our cabin to take care of a few matters and get ready for the evening. Despite the perfect temperature outdoors it is too windy to enjoy our verandah. We attended the World stage show of “The comedy of Mike Robinson.” We were not impressed. Mike is a comedian with a bit of a magician and also a ventriloquist. The best laugh we got was at the expense of one of his audience “Volunteers.” We left after 30 minutes to get seats for Billboard’s set of music from the 80’s. Billboard was terrific as usual although we are not big fans of 80’s pop music. Dinner was very good tonight. Two of our tablemates are in Tamarind so there are just four of us at the table. Service was much improved and the sweet and sour shrimp entrée was very good. After dinner DW needed to ice her foot so we returned to the cabin and I updated my log. Soon enough it was past 10:00 and we called it a night. Tuesday, February 11, 2025 – At sea #8, halfway across the Pacific still heading towards Ensenada. We were up about 7:00 and the outdoor temperature has dropped to 68 degrees. It is a bit overcast and will remain that way most of the day. At 7:10 a medical announcement came through to all cabins directing the medical team to a cabin on the port side of our deck. We ventured off to the lido for breakfast at about 8:10. We wanted to attend the “Coffee with Gabe session today as he was to interview the medical staff. Due to the earlier emergency, only the head doctor was able to attend. We went to get our Catan – Hawaii game but couldn’t find a table up on deck 10, so went to one of the large lido tables on the ‘closed’ side of the lido. We played a four-person game and DW’s Blue team ended up with the 13-point victory. My green team has 12 points so this was not a ‘blow out’ like the Super Bowl! I found that the dining room was closed for lunch, so most likely another Mariner lunch event was taking place. We decided to go to the Pinnacle for our second Pinnacle lunch of the cruise. This time I ordered the filet, which is terrific, but not as good as the Chilean Sea Bass DW enjoyed. That sea bass would be a $45 dish at Bonefish these days, so the Pinnacle lunch with our mariner’s discount is quite a good value. We returned to the cabin to rest and take care of a bunch of e-mails, including transferring our new cruise booking over to our travel agent. I fell asleep for a short nap and while getting ready for the evening we had the TV on for a bit. Honestly, this is the first sea day that we feel a little ‘bored’ with little on offer to interest us. On the way TO Hawaii, the various activities with the Hawaiian Ambassadors helped fill up the schedule. On the way back, that is missing. Add to that Billboard is off today so that is another item missing. Cruise director Gabe made a late afternoon announcement that the World stage show was being changed to Annie Gong’s second show. We attended and we found this performance to be better and more engaging than her first show. The theme was “Movie themes” and her opening number based on “2001 – A Space Odessey” was terrific. She also featured the Godfather, The Last Mohican, and a few others. We arranged with one of the other couples at our table to go a bit ‘early’ for our dinner so we would attempt to secure seats for the Orange Party later in the evening. Dinner was a “Dutch dinner” and the Dover Sole was excellent. I also enjoyed the bay shrimp cocktail with hard boiled egg. I didn’t know that was a “Dutch” dish. Dessert included warm Apple Pie and a “Chocolate tulip.” We left dinner at 8:10 to predictably find B B Kings with every seat filled and many folks already standing around as an “Officers vs. Guests” music trivia was in progress. We stood near the entrance to the floor area and participated in the sing along as the ‘answers’ were given. Once trivia was done, DW spied a few folks in the front row leaving and she made a beeline and sat in one, trying to secure the next one for me. I got blocked in getting there and it became an issue with another party who believed she had claimed the seat. Wanting to avoid a scene I just said if you want it that badly it’s yours and I walked out. I found out our dining friends had found two seats further back. When I looked back at DW she waved me back over as the other party relented that chair. Note: I had seen on cruise critic that the preceding cruise had an orange party on the pool deck, which can certainly handle many more guests than B B Kings. I don’t understand why Koningsdam would have the “Event of the cruise” in such a small venue. Celebrity always has their big party event on the pool deck where there is so much more room. I’m sure it takes a little more effort to set the pool deck up, but they did it for the Super Bowl so they certainly could have done something similar for the orange party. Back to the party itself, once the seating situation was resolved the party was loud but fun just to people watch. Part of the party is a ‘best dressed dancers’ contest and two ladies with canes ended up winning. They were a lot of fun to watch. The B B Kings band is very good although not the music we typically enjoy. At 10:05 we headed back to the cabin to begin to call it a night. We lose another hour overnight putting us back on Pacific time. Oh, and the temperature continued to drop outside and the ship is feeling colder as well, so it will be long pants and long sleeves the rest of the cruise. Wednesday, February 12, 2025, At Sea #9, the Pacific Ocean and the California current I ordered breakfast for 7:45. It arrived very close to that time. It’s only 61 degrees this morning and the ocean has a slow rolling swell but no whitecaps at all. It stayed that way all day. I went up to the lido pool at about 8:30 and read my Kindle until 9:00 when the hot tubs were open. I enjoyed 25 minutes by myself in the hot tub. Read some more while I dried off and brought tea and coffee back to the cabin. The last laundry went out this morning; it has always come back the following day. After getting ready for the day, we took our Splendor game up to the aft section of the lido and played three rounds. Lunch was now being served and I had one slice of roast beef, perfectly cooked the way I like it (medium rare). We went up to the NY deli as DW wanted Pizza. Being peak lunch time the wait was about 30 minutes but we found vacant shady loungers and enjoyed watching the calm sea. Pizza was ready and it was good. We then went to the Dutch Café for the apple pie and drip coffee. We enjoyed again watching the sea while enjoying the pie. At 2:00 there was a game show “Simon says.” Yes, it was literally “Simon says.” We sat and watched the first round. The second round was announced to be played for “Tulips” so DW participated but alas, no tulips. The two finalists received a small wooden tulip. I stopped back in the cabin to check out e-mails as I knew my T/A had been working on transferring the new booking. Back in the cabin we found two Holland America ship tiles / coasters. We have quite a collection of these at home and always like seeing the new version. We went down 30 minutes before happy hour / trivia to get seats as at 4:30 Billboard is playing a set. We did get the best seats of the cruise and the bar staff began serving ‘Happy Hour’ 20 minutes early. Today we took full advantage by ordering four glasses of wine & three diet cokes with the total cost being about $26. Brian & Melissa did a great set of “One hit wonders” and had the entire room singing along. We couldn’t hear Gabe’s afternoon announcement and were surprised that the show was the comedian ‘Azeem.’ We missed his first performance. He was okay and we had a few laughs. At 7:00 there was a “Lido Fun Fair.” We went up and played a bunch of games. The officers were hosting the various games, such as a water pong, cornhole throw, tic-tac-toe throw, knock over mounted puppets, etc. We could only stay 20 minutes due to our 7:30 dinner time. We went down to dinner. While the menu didn’t look very inspiring I managed quite well but DW was disappointed as her chicken parmesan was dry and they needed to remake the spaghetti without zucchini (which she ordered with no zucchini). This was certainly the least satisfying dinner of the cruise. We did stay and chat with our tablemates until we were the last on our entire side of the dining room. We headed back to our cabin as the short night the prior night calls for a longer rest. The next day is the final full sea day and we will need to be out early. Thursday, February 13, 2025, Sea Day #10, the Pacific Ocean and California Current We ordered coffee & tea for 7:15 and it arrived right on time. DW was up about 6:45 to start the day. To our surprise, the outdoor temperature had increased to 63 degrees and with a following breeze there was little wind outdoors. We went up to the lido pool at 8:00 for the Koningsdam Towel Animal Zoo. The staff does an incredible job and we went around taking photos of all the animals. Several we had never before seen created. After all the photos we went in to the lido to get breakfast. No breakfast in the dining room was offered today as they are having a “Mexican brunch” later in the day. We brought breakfast out onto the pool deck to eat among the wild animals! We went down and walked around the outdoor promenade deck for a bit. Then we went inside to listen to Gabe’s interview of the Assistant Hotel General Manager. This was pretty interesting as his background was varied and until he began working with Holland America in 2019 he worked in other industries. We perused the “Koningsdam Bazaar” by the shops. There are a few things we might acquire in the summer when we have lots of OBC to spend. A quick stop in our cabin and we grabbed our Catan – Hawaii game and set it up on one of the deck 10 starboard side round tables. It was 10:00 and we had no idea then that we would be there until 3:30! We played three rounds of Catan Hawaii. DW won the first and third, and I won the second. This makes the total cruise four victories for DW and just one for me. I did take a break at 11:30 to go down to the lido to take photos of “Cake Me Away!” in the buffet. At 1:00 the culinary team paraded around the pool deck and that was also nice to see and photograph. DW obtained some pizza from the NY Deli while I ordered a burger and hot dog from the Dive Inn. We stopped down at Billboard for Happy Hour and had a few beverages. The ship is running row on Diet Coke but there remains lots of Coke Zero. We then went back to our cabin to get ready for the third and final dressy night. We skipped the World Stage show of the Step One Dance Company but instead went early to get seats for the 6:45 Billboard set. Dinner was the “Gold Gala” dinner with a very nice shrimp cocktail and the Beef Tenderloin Oscar by far the most popular entrée. DW ordered the Duck and she said that was also excellent. Our desserts were a very nice individually cooked Chocolate Volcano cake. We left dinner around 9:05 and headed to Billboard. We found seats near the entrance across from Rolling Stone. The couple from our dinner table joined us. At 9:30 was the “Chocolate Surprise” and the selection was pretty different from past years. Both Chocolate and Yogurt covered raisins were served, along with various other chocolate and yogurt based items. Brian & Melissa have a really fun time with the “All request” shows. We sure enjoyed all the audience participating. I took a photo of DW with Matre’d Andri while he was supervising the “Surprise.” At 10:30 when their set was complete we headed up to our cabin and called it a night. Friday, February 14, 2025, Valentine’s Day in Ensenada, Mexico We slept soundly until after 8:00! Wanting a dining room breakfast, we made our way to the dining room at about 8:45. We asked for a table with Yanto but his section was filled, so they put us right next to his area. He stopped in to say hello and brought us coffee & tea. Our dinner mates came in and asked if they could sit with us. Certainly, that was nice of them. I will give them our contact info this evening. Back to the cabin we needed to pack as we have a later “Wine tour” to two vineyards. We shouldn’t need both of our big suitcases again until we are home. The two roller bags will carry our weekend clothes and electronics. Koningsdam docked an hour early in Ensenada and Gabe made the “Ship is clear” announcement at 11:20. I am writing this sitting on our verandah at 11:45. It is about 60 degrees with calm winds at the moment. We visited the lido after finishing packing the two checked suitcases. To our surprise, we found Roast Turkey today. I was actually surprised at how many folks were there at 12:30, an hour+ after the ship was cleared. I suppose many folks never ventured out. We had 90 minutes before our wine tour meeting time so we did venture out to the market within the port area. I had thought I might find a Mexican wide brimmed hat. Sure enough I did, and with a little bargaining acquired one for $25. I know similar hats are available at the flea market back in Florida for $35. And yes, it says “Hencho in Mexico” on the hat, so hopefully that is true. We returned to Koningsdam to drop off the hat in our cabin. The wind picked up while we were out and I had a hard time keeping my hat on my head, so we did not take the hat on our excursion. There were two buses going on the wine tour. We were in the second one. On the way out of town our guide, Irma, told us a little of the history of Baja California and Ensenada. Ensenada has the highest percentage of “Scientists” of any city in Mexico, with a claimed 30% of the adult population being involved with some type of scientific work. This is due to the university that draws students from all over the world. The first winery we stopped at is said to be the largest winery in Mexico. L. A. Cetto winery began in the 1910’s as an immigrant from Italy brought vines from Italy, Spain, France, and ??? and began growing them. The same family still owns the winery today. We had a very nice 30-minute tour followed by a tasting of four wines, two white and two red using a real wine glass. While none of the ones we tasted had terrific appeal, we did end up buying four bottles. Two bottles of a sweet red “Bocco,” one bottle of Petite Syrah, and one bottle of Tempranillo. As we boarded the bus everyone was gifted a 375 ML bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon. Those should be more easily packed to take home. The Petite Syrah was consumed at dinner as was part of a Bocco bottle. The Bocco is a screw cap so I will take the balance to enjoy tomorrow at our hotel. The second winery visited was the Casa Dona Lupe Winery. This was a mid-sized winery with a very nice visitor area. We were all given four samples in plastic cups. I took a photo of the bottles so we knew which was what. These were all ‘sweet,’ with some of them too sweet even for me. We were also given cheese, crackers, pizza, and bread and it was all very nice. No purchases were made as we really didn’t care for the wine and can’t carry much home on an airplane anyway. We left the winery at 5:30 and arrived back at the port at about 6:20. Back in the cabin just after 6:30 and we arrived at Billboard just at 6:45 when the “Love songs” set was starting. I suppose because it is the last night and people are packing we were able to get seats. We left Billboard a little early for the dining room so we could give our thanks to Yanto, assistant Matre’d Diana, and Matre’d Andri before dinner. The last dinner was excellent although DW’s lamb chops were a bit more cooked than the ordered medium rare. I think we need to order lamb as rare to have a chance at medium rare! Prime Rib was also on the menu and it was excellent. There was a special Valentine’s Day dessert available which DW ordered and she enjoyed it. We lingered talking with our tablemates until about 9:15 and then headed up to our cabin. We saw Anom in the hallway and gave him our thanks. He in turn thanked us for keeping our cabin so neat. We are sure glad he thought so! We will have to try to catch Ahmad in the morning. By about 10:30 we called it a night after packing away a few more things in our roller bags. Saturday, February 15, 2025, Disembarkation and San Diego I will start by saying right up front that this was the EASIST disembarkation EVER, and a pleasant morning on top of that! Our day in Ensenada with that late tour made us skip cleaning up properly, so we set the alarm for 6:00 AM to take showers and be ready for our day in San Diego. About 7:30 I went out to find Ahmad and give him our thanks. He was so surprised that I would look around for him and his gratefulness was heartwarming. The room stewards really do work so hard and they went “Over and above” for us after that rocky start on embarkation day. At 7:45 we headed to the dining room for breakfast. We asked for a table with Yanto but again his section was filled. The host did tell Yanto we asked for him and he stopped by our table several times to check in and wish us a safe trip home. He is on board until August. Breakfast was very nice and without asking I was brought a second tea serving. Disembarkation announcements began before 8:00. With our “Pink” luggage tags we could have disembarked right away, but we are in no hurry. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and went back to the cabin at 8:45. We saw Anom & Ahmad again (turnover day is crazy for those guys!) and this time they thanked us for always talking to them. Well, of course! They said some of their guests don’t talk with them at all and very much appreciate that we did. We were out of our cabin just before 9:00 and took the forward elevator down to “A deck” and walked right off the ship. Having three open gangways certainly eliminated any lines! I have read horror stories on cruise critic of disembarkation nightmares in San Diego. Our experience couldn’t have been better. Facial recognition for customs & immigration with no wait. Our bags were together in the corner of the pink group so very easy to grab and we walked out the door, maybe 150 steps to a waiting taxi, and $20 and ten minutes later we were at the Carte Hotel for the second time. I went up to the front desk and told them we were checking in but didn’t expect our room to be ready, could they store the luggage? The very helpful representative took our information and after a few moments working the computer told us they had a room ready for us. That was certainly above and beyond expectations! We brought our luggage up to the 10th floor and settled into our room. I hadn’t really planned out the day Taking a look at TripAdvisor, I found that there is a farmer’s market in Little Italy every Saturday. The hotel is on the edge of Little Italy, so we ventured out and walked the five blocks or so to the farmer’s market. This seemed like a nice market however the crowd was crushing so we didn’t see the entire market. We walked a few blocks further and found a coffee shop “Influx” that had available seating and only a few folks in the ordering line. We enjoyed a coffee and tea and lingered about 45 minutes. After the crowd at the farmer’s market it was good to just sit and enjoy the drinks. From there we walked down to the waterfront and walked back past the Koningsdam. It was now 11:00 and we could see two guests up on deck 11 looking out over the waterfront views. On the way, we also took note of several embarking guests wheeling their luggage from the Hilton Garden Inn (or further). Sure, we could walk that distance but we would not want to wheel heavy luggage that distance. After passing the pier we found a Saturday food fair in front of the Intercontinental Hotel. We walked around and one of the vendors was offering chicken samples. It was actually quite good, but we are certainly not ready for a meal! We had hoped to use restrooms in Santa Fe Station (a working train station) but signs on the door “No public restrooms.” Therefore we high-tailed it back to the Carte Hotel making only a brief stop at a 7-11 for Big Gulps. At the Carte Hotel the internet is very good so I was able to download the professional photos taken on our Maui Whale Watching trip. I will have to compare the photographer’s photos to mine once we are back home. We walked down the street to another 7-11 I found on the maps (just one block away) and they had just brought a pizza out of the oven. So two slices of pizza and a diet coke bottle for $5 was a good deal. Back at the Carte we found the original “Captain America” movie on the TV and watched that until it was over at 4:00. We went up to the rooftop bar/restaurant for an early dinner. I had a steak sandwich and DW had a beet & walnut salad with shrimp. Everything was good but at San Diego prices. We returned to our room and just took it easy. By 7:00 we were ready to turn in as I prearranged a Lyft pickup at 5:30 on Sunday morning to go to the airport for our 7:45 Southwest flight. Cruise Summary & Conclusion The cruise on Koningsdam was largely a pleasant surprise. On the way to Hawaii, the Hawaiian Ambassador program additions were terrific, even if we did not fully participate. The food was overall very good – excellent and we have no complaints. After the embarkation day challenges, our room steward team was terrific. Entertainment will never be HAL’s strong point. We never did get a second show by Chris Bannister, who we thought was the best guest entertainer of the cruise. He apparently became ill and then needed to leave the ship before he could perform again. Billboard is the highlight for us of entertainment. B B Kings is just too loud, as is the Rolling Stone Rock Band, but their volume is good if one sits in Billboard. We really enjoyed visiting Hawaii again after 17 years. The Hawaii ports, with the possible exception of Honolulu, appear to be able to dock only one ship at a time. That is quite refreshing after the Caribbean where one often had 5 or more ships in port. Hopefully the Grand Australia / New Zealand will take place in 2028 and if so, we will see at least a couple of the Hawaiian Islands again. Overall, my rating of our cruise on the good ship Koningsdam is a solid 4 stars out of 5, the highest rating a HAL ship has achieved since the “Restart.” Hopefully this bodes well as we have four extended cruises (8 cruise segments) booked on HAL over the next 25 months. To answer the question in my title, YES, I would say the cruise was fit for a King!

Nice winter break. The passengers were somewhat older (We're in mid-seventies) with lots of people with mobility challenges. Pickleball tournaments and instruction every sea day; the wind made for some excitement. The guest lecturer had good credentials, but was not very interesting. Gym well maintained. Great service; except that we were usually almost finished with breakfast in the Lido each morning before someone approached with coffee. We got into the habit of getting premium coffee on Deck 12 before coming to breakfast. Specialty restaurants very nice. We took only one ship's tour - the Gardens and Waterfalls of Hilo and it wasn't great. We rented cars in each of the other Hawaii ports to tour on our own. I was concerned about taking cabs to the local car rental sites and waiting in line. Here's my advice at the ports we visited: At Honolulu, we found someone on TURO, a self-rental App, who had a car within one mile of the port. We walked there, picked the car up, toured Oahu, and, since we had two days there, we parked it overnight in the Harbor Court parking. Our ship was moored at Pier 2 instead of Pier 11, so this made for a longer hike, but still doable. This saved us a lot of time. At Kauai, we found another TURO rental just a quarter mile from the pier, then drove to Waimea Canyon and to Poipu Beach. At Maui, it was a short walk to the Enterprise rental. (make sure you have a reservation). the Jeep Wranglers they rented were great for exploration. We drove up Haleakala and part of the road to Hana. At Kona, the very nice Enterprise people picked us up at the Tender Port and took us to the agency. We drove to Punaluu Black Sand Beach and saw the Sea Turtles basking. (This is a two-hour drive one-way) We've been to the Islands many times so we know what we are looking for. All in all, a good trip.

Beautiful ship, great itinerary. Friendly and attentive staff and crew . The pinnacle class ships are well laid out, not too big and. not too small. Easy to get around. Lido buffet was great with good variety and good personal service. The main dining meals were decent, (not to the pre-covid level of food quality, but that's seems to be common among all cruise lines now). The meals were always prompt, served at the right temperature by friendly wait staff. The 270 degree LED screens in the main stage (pinnacle ships only) are visually stunning and HAL has done a great job integrating the screen's capability in the entertainment and enrichment talks. No singers, 6 very talented dancers who provided 4 different high energy shows. If you cruise regularly with HAL you have already seen these shows. One great feature on this cruise was the Hawaiian cultural enrichment team. During the 5 days at sea prior to arrival, three native Hawaiians conducted multiple presentations and activities. Hands on sessions included lei making, and ukulele lessons. ,presentations were given on Hawaiian language ,.culture and , history . And every evening in the crows nest there was a 45 minute small group musical entertainment with singing , guitars and ukulele. And at sunrise on the day of arrival at the first island, a traditional sunrise daybreak ceremony with conch shell trumpeting and singing. If HAL continues to have this group on board to Hawaii, you are in for a treat.