Day 88 Hawaii (5)

Day 88 – Saturday 11/8/12 – Hawaii (5)

Our last day in Honolulu, and again another very full day. We were up early again, and waiting outside the hotel at 6.30am, our meeting time and pick up time for our tour today. Today we had booked onto a tour run by Polynesian Adventure Tours, which covered a visit to the World War 11 Valor in the Pacific National Monument.

There are a number of elements to this site : The USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbour Vistor Centre Audio Tour, Battleship USS Missouri Memorial, USS Bowfin, and the Pacific Aviation Museum. The advantage of going through a tour group is that they can access the early time slot tickets to the USS Arizona memorial, which works in great for time poor folk. We had a short history tour of downtown Honolulu on the way out to the Centre.

Upon arrival we strolled through the visitor centre that has an extensive display of items and memorials throughout the open air centre. Bob and Wendy took up the option of the Audio Tour headset which provides a narration of the exhibits, and points of interest around the centre. Whilst waiting for our timeslot to access the USS Arizona Memorial, we took the opportunity to have a look at the nearby submarine, USS Bowfin. Along the harbour frontage there are memorial stones for each of the ships companies that were lost in the Pacific, each stone lists the names of those lives lost – it is quite extensive, there are lots and lots of ship's memorials along here.

At our designated time we assembled at the USS Arizona Memorial entry point, and then entered into a theatre where a compelling 23 minute film on the history of the politics, the people and the attack on Oahu. After viewing the film, we boarded a Navy operated boast and experienced a memorable ride across Pearl Harbour to the USS Arizona Memorial.

The USS Arizona Memorial is built over the remaining hulk of the battleship, the final resting place for many of the 1,177 crewmen killed on 7th December 1941, when their ship was bombed by an air attack of the Japanese Naval Forces. It is a very moving monument, that it extremely well put together. The wall that lists all the names of the lives lost on the ship is enormous, and when you look at it, it really brings home the scale of lives lost, just from this ship alone. This loss of life represents over half of all the Americans killed during the worst naval disaster in American history.

After the boat ride back across the harbour, it was back to the bus for the drive over the bridge to the see 'Big Mo' the battleship USS Missouri. It was on this ship, when it was parked in Tokyo harbour, that the Japan officially surrendered. The area on the ship where this ceremony took place is well displayed. We had a guided tour for about 30 mins when we first got onto the ship, which was really informative.

This ship is one big sucker I have to say, as it took us about 90 minutes to stroll through just two decks of the ship. They have done a great job in preparing the ship for visitors, so it is easy to have a self guided tour through the decks. After looking through all the nooks and crannies of the lower deck that was open to the public, we made our way down to the 'canteen' where I had me a 'Chicago Dog' mainly because I did not know what that was and wanted to try it – pretty darn good I must say – a hot dog with lots of relish, gherkin strips and peppers – yum.

We had one last stop on the was back to town, Punchbowl Memorial , an extensive lawn cemetery. It was not actually a stop, as tour buses are not allowed to stop, just a drive through, but it was very nice.

Back to the hotel, pickup our luggage, taxi out to the ship, and dump luggage . We we thrilled to get back to our cabin and find balloons and a 'welcome home' sign to greet us, put there by a very thoughtful unknown person, I am sure we will find out who did it tomorrow, it was great to see. It may sound odd, but it felt just like home when sitting back in the cabin.

So, bags dumped and back out again. Strange that, we arrived in Honolulu on Monday with just a backpack each, and by Saturday we had two very full and heavy suitcases to lug back on board, dunno how that happened :)

After a short stroll around the Aloha Tower marketplace near the ship, we grabbed a bus back to Ala Moana Shopping Centre – yes for a third time, as Donna wanted to get a second pair of swimwear from Sears that she got the other day.

We then had another amazing dinner at a bar/restaurant next to the ship. Yet again I could not eat any more than half of my dinner, the serves here are just over the top. Wonderful food, and far too much of it.

We were pretty buggered by the time we got back on board, so we just put our feet up in the cabin and watched a movie – Pearl Harbour – of course, whilst we did 3 loads of washing. A great day, to end a wonderful stay in Hawaii.

All the superlatives that you hear about Hawaii are true, it is just a best place for a holiday...go there !!!