I woke up this morning thinking about beaches. Some of my favorite memories from our cruises are the relaxing days we’ve spent together on fabulous Caribbean beaches. Roger is a sun lover, but I’m not, so he gets us two beach chairs and an umbrella at the beach, then he settles my chair in the shade of the umbrella, while he stretches out on his chair in the full sun. We each take a few dips in the water, just to cool off, but other than that, we don’t spend any time in the water unless we’ve also booked some snorkeling, jet skis, or parasailing. I love digging my toes into the cool wet sand. I love hearing the waves lapping against the shore, the birds calling as they fly overhead, and the laughter of people nearby enjoying their vacations. I’m happy with a lovely fruity beverage and a good book, relaxing in the shade, near my fabulous husband. more…
Please welcome my guest blogger, Robin Johnson, who reviews her recent cruise experience aboard the Carnival Conquest in true Arkansas style! Here’s Robin …
The Carnival Conquest was the second cruise for my husband, CJ, and I, but it was our first 7-night cruise. Our first cruise was just 4 nights, which wasn’t enough time to do everything that we wanted to do. We decided to sail from Galveston, because it would be an easy drive from Arkansas, saving us the cost of flights. With a group of 13 friends and family, we drove in four cars, sharing the cost of fuel to make it affordable for everyone. more…
Our Marine son suggested we spend one of our days on Oahu over the holidays visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center. We purchased tickets for the day with his military discount, which included a luau in the evening, and a live presentation, “Ha Breath of Life”, plus the opportunity to return for another day’s visit at no additional charge within three days of our original visit. What an amazing place! We didn’t realize that the Polynesian Cultural Center was created to provide work study opportunities for the students of the nearby Brigham Young University Hawaii, while allowing them to share their island heritage with the visitors.
Great demonstrations, dances, songs and more for each different island group, including Fiji, Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, and Aotearoa (New Zealand). Each of these have a separate island village inside the Polynesian Cultural Center. As we watched, listened, and participated, we got a taste of the differences between each cultural. One of the things we learned was the Hawaiian hula is a slow smooth beautiful dance that tells a story, but American movies combined that with the fast hip-shaking dance from Tahiti, because that made the dances fit the rock ‘n roll movies better.
Our kids, Rachel, 17 and Eric, 28
We soon realized that a short day beginning at 3 in the afternoon wasn’t going to satisfy us, so we wrapped up our day to head to our luau already planning to return the next day. So, here’s our tips to make the most of your day at the Polynesian Cultural Center:
Arrive a little before Noon. The villages begin their shows and demonstrations at Noon, so the early you arrive, the more you can get done.
Pick up your guide at the Information desk just beyond the Ticket booth. That guide will give you times for each activity, so you can kind of plan your day.
Don’t miss the “Rainbows of Paradise” Canoe Pageant. Each island group performs from a canoe that passes by you in the lagoon. Arrive about 15 minutes or so before the scheduled time to get the best seated view. This was fun! (One of the young men guiding a canoe was on his first day at work, and the exuberant island dancers intentionally rocked the canoe so hard with their dance, that he ended up soaking wet in the lagoon. Apparently first day of work initiation.)
Figure out where your luau is before it’s time to go to your luau. We had tickets for a luau, and we’d passed a sign for a luau, so that’s where we headed, waited in line, just to be told at the door that there are six different luaus in the center and ours was at a different location. And, consider upgrading to Ambassador ticket for a little more luxury all day, but especially for your dinner luau.
Our entire family enjoyed the Polynesian Cultural Center, and we recommend that you and your family visit there as well! Here’s some of our favorite photos from the day:
We were butchering Hawaiian street and highway names, until the Marine Gunny Seargeant over our son’s company gave us a quick lesson in saying Hawaiian words. When her family was transferred to the Marine Corp Base at Kaneohe Bay, they had taken a tour of the island, where the Hawaiian tour guide gave them a quick lesson that they now passed on to us.
First, most Hawaiian words are best pronounced by breaking the words down to pronounce every two letters together. Second, some Hawaiian words have only vowels or at least many vowels. In most of those words, all the vowel sounds are pronounced.
Let’s start with some highway names that we were pronouncing so incorrectly, that the Gunny Seargeant gave us this lesson. Doesn’t this highway name beg to be pronounced, Like Like? Using rule number one, pronounce every two letters together, this highway name actually sounds like, Licky Licky. Easy enough, right? So, let’s try another one.
Another highway we saw a lot of was named after a former king in Hawaii, Kamehameha. I personally tried pronouncing this highway so many different ways prior to our Hawaiian speaking lesson, that I’d finally started just calling this the “Ha Ha” highway. It wasn’t so hard to pronounce after our lesson, and it sounds like “Ka – may – ah – may – ah”.
Aiea, one of the few city names in the world written only with vowels, is pronounced by locals as “eye – eh- ah”, but that doesn’t exactly follow rule number two. But, these lessons helped us learn how to speak Hawaiian names much better than following the English language rules we’re taught in American public schools. Anyone else have suggestions for pronouncing Hawaiian names?
So many who had traveled to Hawaiii before us offered one common piece of advice – rent a car. We rented a car, and some days it felt like we spent more time in the car than on land during our Hawaii visit. Oahu is such an easy island to travel around though, because all we had to do was connect to one of the three interstates, H1, H2 or H3, to get almost anywhere we wanted to go.
Waikiki, Aloha Bowl, Pearl Harbor, North Shore, Polynesian Cultural Center, Diamond Head, the Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and more, took us from one of the end of the island to the next to the next. Interestingly enough, everywhere we went, a Roberts Tour bus seemed to be parked right next to us. And, it was a long drive from one place to the next. I wish we’d spent more time on the beach!
So, if you’re headed to Oahu, plan your days carefully to avoid lots of windshield time. And, you might want to consider a tour bus instead of a car rental. Just a thought!
Hawaiian Word Pronunciation