At last, land. Beautiful land! We had been here before and focused on Pearl Harbor. We booked a half day tour through the ship before leaving home, but that tour was canceled on arrival onboard. It included a tour of Iolani Palace and they told us that it is closed on Sunday now. We booked a substitute tour onboard which was closer to a full day. We paid $159 per person. We left at 8:45am and were back onboard by 3:15pm. Pasted below is the tour description. The hot links I added.
EXCURSION: THE TASTES & VIEWS OF OAHU
Hawaii is bursting with an intoxicating assortment of sights, flavors and textures, a bounty of which you will experience during today’s excursion. Visit a sugar mill for a private coffee tasting, enjoy a walk and lunch at a family-owned farm, and tour a chocolate factory for insights into the making of rich chocolate. Stops at Shark’s Cove and Kahana Bay offer treats for the eye, with sweeping views of Oahu’s dramatic landscape.
APPROXIMATELY 7 HOURS
Aboard your minivan, depart for the Waialua Sugar Mill. Arriving after a scenic journey of about one hour, enjoy a private tasting of Hawaii’s aromatic coffee and see cocoa bean plants. You will also observe production of Hawaii’s celebrated cacao, key ingredient for delicious dark and milk chocolate.
Next, venture along the beautiful North Shore coast to Shark’s Cove, where you will pause to admire the views.
From here, a quick transfer brings you to Kahuku Farms, a farm owned by two families going back three generations in Hawaii. During a guided walk, learn about the people, culture and crops of Hawaii and encounter the colorful fruits and vegetables grown in Oahu’s rich soil. The farm hosts a café, where you will enjoy lunch and a non-dairy smoothie, a Kahuku Farms specialty.
Refreshed, head for Kahana Bay to gaze at the vistas before continuing to Manoa Chocolate Factory. Any connoisseur of chocolate, which surely almost everyone is, will relish a tour conducted by the resident “Chocolate Flavormeister.” Discover how chocolate is made, from selecting and crushing the beans to winnowing and conching the cacao, all to craft the rich chocolate unique to the South Pacific—just one more delight of life here in Hawaii.
After your chocolate factory visit, return to the pier with a transfer of about 30 minutes.
Important Notes:
Guests must be a minimum of 3 years of age in order to participate. As this excursion involves walking over sandy, grassy and gravel surfaces, it is not recommended for guests with walking difficulties. It is recommended that guests dress in casual clothing and wear flat, comfortable shoes. This excursion will operate in all weather conditions. The order of sights visited may vary.
I have tried to mark a map to show our route. It was almost a counterclockwise circle island drive! Clay says he will photograph and post the map picture with his other photos. You can look for it. We did not have any view stops nor did we have a guided walk at the Farm Cafe. After we crossed the Pali Highway back to Honolulu we had a 5 minute photo stops in front of Iolani Palace. It was a good tour. I like coffee and chocolate. I believe I understood from today's tour that Hawaii is the only state in the USA which commercially grows coffee and cacao. Our guide Mark told us they no longer grow sugar in Hawaii. He said the last sugar mill on Maui closed 3 years ago. We toured it when we were on Maui before! Marc also told us that the Dole Pineapple Plantation no longer exports pineapple from here. With the exception of pineapples packaged and sold at the airport past security, all the pineapple grown here are consumed here. For lunch we both had the pizza & salad with a banana bang smoothie. The smoothie was inexplicably dark green!
So, it was sunny and warm here today. Perfect weather. It is partly to mostly cloudy as I type this around 4:30pm. I have my fingers crossed that the skies will clear some before moon rise and the total lunar eclipse. We have dinner reservations onboard at Umi Uma tonight, the Japanese specialty restaurant. Our reservation is at 6pm so we should be out of dinner in time to view the eclipse from the top deck. We sail away at 12:59pm. Tomorrow is Maui. We have another day long tour tomorrow. This will be our 2nd time on Maui and we did not drive all the way to Hana the 1st time. Tomorrow we should.
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