Steve and Cathy's Blog

We have several activities to occupy our time today.  Oceania does a great job on these Sea Days planning extra events and activities. The first one we attend is only for those of us who are on the Around the World Cruise.  These are not to be missed, because the cruise line really does treat us special with these events. It begins at 11:30am, and we attend with the O’Dells.  There are many scrumptious goodies, especially

We begin our 2,324-nautical mile journey yesterday at 4:00pm.  The next morning we are greeted with moderate seas with enough wave motion to be very noticeable.  Not enough to make us ill, mind you, because we sort of have our sea legs by now, but Cathy especially is feeling a bit dizzy all the time.  Given the great weather we have had for most of the 160 days we have been aboard, we can’t really complain

Today is an early start for our excursion Heaven and Earth – Helicopter & North Shore: 7:45 in Insignia Lounge.  We’re as excited as schoolchildren on their first day as we have been looking forward to this tour ever since Cathy’s brother John suggested we do this. And adding to the anticipation is the first paragraph of today’s Oceania Cruises Currentsdescribes Kauai: “The Isle of Kauai (Pronounced Ka-wa-ee in Hawaiian or Kah-why in English), is the

Before we discuss the wonderful day we have in this beautiful island, let us start this post with a picture of one of our favorite people on this cruise.  Her name is Anastasia (she taught us how to pronounce her name in Russian: it is Ah nah stah see’ a) and she is a sommelier for Oceania Cruises.  She was on the ship when we boarded in Miami, and was on the ship until Honolulu.  She

Our excursion today is Famous North Shore, a 7-hour trip around the island of Oahu, especially along the shore area with the beaches that have the huge waves that draw surfers from around the world.  We will cover many miles, so it is fortunate that there is a tourist board person on board the ship.  We stop by his desk on our way out and pick up a map, an indispensable part of enjoying the trip.  

We have arrived back in the U S of A after 155 days away.  Truth be told, it feels good to be back in familiar surroundings, even if those familiar surroundings are the exotic and unique State of Hawaii located 2,045 miles from the continental United States. Our original itinerary called for our first port in Hawaii to be Hilo on the “Big Island,” Hawaii, but the Kilauea volcano had other ideas and has been erupting

The seas continue to churn.  10-foot waves out of the northeast as we are headed northwest.  Means the ship pitches and rolls.  Now granted this is not exactly the Perfect Storm, but it is enough to make things unpleasant.  It puts Horizons on Deck 10 and Insignia Lounge on Deck 5 off limits for both of us as they are in the bow of Insignia.  Cathy starts taking seasick meds, Steve thinks he has his sea

Today the Pacific Ocean is not our best friend.  Explorer Ferdinand Magellan was the one who named this ocean Pacificabecause he was becalmed here, but this biggest of all of Earth’s oceans can prove that Magellan was mistaken any time it wants. Today is one of those days.  We are experiencing 10-foot waves and sheets of rain.  Later in the day the captain announces that this will keep up for another 24 hours and therefore we

During the night, between 2:00 and 3:00am, Insignia crosses the Equator.  This is the sixth time we have crossed the Equator since we began the trip: enroute to Fortaleza, Brazil, enroute to Togo in Africa, back down the west coast to Africa toward Namibia, between the Seychelles and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, enroute to Bali, and today enroute to Hawaii.  Each time we have done so, we have received a certificate from Oceania Cruises

This is the first of four straight Sea Days.  Time to catch up again, or at least try.  We did not do much, but we did listen to a lecture by Phil Smart about “Tsunamis in the Pacific” which was very interesting. One of the takeaways on this voyage is certainly how much geology we have learned.  Peter Croyle has spent a good deal of time on it as part of his lectures on human migrations