October 11 - Maui

Maui is the second largest island in the Hawaiian Island chain and has a population of 160,000.  The average winter temperature is 20 to 25 degrees.  Maui has been voted as the best Hawaiian island for more than 20 years in a row.

When we arrived in the port of Lahaina, where we were immediately impressed with the lush green landscapes and the jagged mountains. More than 75 percent of the island is inaccessible due to the dense rainforest and extreme terrain of these mountains

Surfing is a big recreational sport on the island.  The beaches we saw had moderate waves with plenty of surfers riding these waves.  This is area to be if you want to watch the humpback whales as this becomes their breeding ground in the winter.  Unfortunately we arrived too early.

Whaling was the primary industry in the 19^th century in Lahaina.  Of course with this many sailors working in the area, it developed a reputation for a rather lively lifestyle.

We booked a tour that took us to the Maui Tropical Plantation and the Maui Ocean Center. Our tour bus driver had an Interesting commentary, which was informative and sometimes funny.  He even sang to us on our return trip to boat. He did have an annoying habit of saying yes after ever sentence

The Maui Tropical Plantation is a 60-acre working plantation featuring 14 of Hawaii's most important fruit and flower crops.  There were pineapples, bananas, coconuts, papaya, macadamia nuts, coffee, mango and guava and jackfruits.

The Maui Ocean Center is considered one of the top ten aquariums in the world.  It is relatively small in comparison to Vancouver’s Aquarium but it was very informative.  They are exhibits of coral reefs and the fish that inhabit these reefs. There is a glass enclosed walkway, where you can see sting rays and sharks swimming above, below and beside you.

When we got back to Lahaina we went shopping in old downtown.  There were many souvenir shops, restaurants and tour operators. It was crowed as you would expect with the cruise ship unloading most of its passengers.

During the evening we went to an ABBA trivia contest.  We could only identify six songs correctly out of twenty questions. I feel ashamed to admit that we actually know six Abba songs

In Lahaina we had to board a tender boat to get from the boat to the shore.  Princess tendering process was terrible.  They did not have enough boats to transport the number of people who wanted to go ashore. On our return we had to wait an hour wait in hot sun to board one of the tenders.  There was no water offered to us during this wait, towels that we were given at the end of queue were only damp and not cold.  On Celebrity you were greeted with an ice cold wet cloth to cool you down when you entered the ship from an excursion.

The tenders had trouble docking because Emerald Princess was not in the proper position to receive the boats. I’m surprised no one got hurt trying to get onboard the ship from the tender.  Score another point for Celebrity for better tendering experience.