Aloha-----Welcome
Visiting the Hawaiian Islands was loads of fun that I did not want to end. A vacation was way to short to see everything. However, going from island to island on the cruise one cannot see every thing that the Hawaiian Islands have to offer. The recreations and the sites and beauty are all around you when you land. The Hawaiian Islands are a place that I definitely want to visit again.

We took off from Detroit and landed in Honolulu, Oahu. Once we were settled into out motel, we went out for our first adventure. On the island of Oahu, we went out exploring our motel and the surrounding area. I was not used to the sites that I saw that night, (I never saw things like this in Michigan). People were going by on bicycles with a surfboard tied to their bikes or people walking by carrying their surfboards.  We went out, played in Waikiki Beach, and had a ball. After that we saw something gorgeous, our first Hawaiian sunset. WOW!  I left my camera at the motel so that sunset is only in my memory.
Our next day, we went to the Arizona Memorial. With the video before and the boat ride to the memorial and coming back to our starting point took about 75 minutes. When I was standing on the memorial, I was thinking of the terror that the men felt on that ship on that fateful day. That day changed the live of so many people and our history. No one had a chance to live when the ship sank in only nine minutes. There was oil still seeping out of and was visible on the water above the ship (as seen in my pictures). It was a feeling I cannot explain standing there knowing all those lives were lost there under me.
On the battleship Missouri, nicknamed "The Mighty Mo" was where the paper was signed that ended the war. The ship was retired until the Gulf War started. The Mighty Mo was taken out of retirement and put back into active duty to fight in that war. After the Gulf War was over the Mighty Mo was again placed into retirement and towed to Battleship Row where she sits today. There tours now, we took the tour on the ship. I was amazed at how huge the ship is and how many men lived on her. We were able to eat lunch in the same place where the crew ate their lunches so many years ago. The guns on the ship were huge and the sleeping quarters were small. To me it was an honor to stand where so many men stood so many years ago, on both the Mighty Mo and above the Arizona. The USS Missouri is 20 stories tall and the length of 3 football fields.
We sailed out on Monday to our next destination of Maui.