Cruise Alaska with John and Donna 2013

A Great Holiday Gift Idea…
a summer  cruise to Alaska



Islanders to Cruise Alaska

Give yourself, or someone you want to impress, a cruise of a lifetime to Alaska. This will be another all-inclusive trip and will begin in August 2013. The cruise will be round trip from Seattle and will include everything in one super package. All room reservations, meals, entertainment, some parties on board and even escorted ground tours will be included in this great deal. John and Donna Mollan, experienced travels and experts on Alaska cruising, will accompany you on this cruise and be there to share with you many things about Alaska that you would not get on other Inside Passage cruises.

Donna & John Mollan, your escorts

Price for this outstanding package will be dependent on the total number of people signing up for this exclusive tour group with the Mollans and will be announced late. All that is needed now are names of those interested with no deposit needed until later. The group size will be limited to keep it more personal so let them know soon if you might be included.

The Star Princess, Our Deluxe Cruise Ship

Donna and John Mollan
donnamollan@gmail.com
253-884-1679

Click Here for More Information

Return from Paradise

Our Kauai Week in Review

by John and Donna Mollan

 

A cuppa java?

View from our condo

Beauty in the Jungle



Waiting for the Rainbow

1. favorite place – Our condo at the Lae Nani in Kapa’a had wonderful gardens, great views and wonderful apartments.  The grounds, pool and beach were also very nice.
2. favorite event – Smith’s Luau in Wialua.  The tour, meal and program gave you four hours and the program was unforgettable.
3. best service – Alaska Airlines direct service from Seattle to Lihue.  (Of course, we did travel first class!)
4. best scenery/ scenic drive – The drive from Kapa’a to Hanalei and beyond has some spectacular vistas and is only a bit over 20 miles.
5. biggest disappointment – Wialua Falls.  This is the waterfall shown in all the pictures and touted in all the tour brochures.  Those of us from the Pacific Northwest were underwhelmed.
6. best out-of-the-way place – The stream and drive to the end of the road about 8 miles past Wialua Falls brings you to a jungle-like park where you can hike or take a dip in a beautiful stream.
7. best meal – The buffet meal served at Smith’s Luau was very authentic, complete and tasty and included unlimited drinks.
8. best tourist attraction – The beaches near Hanalei, including Tunnel Beach and its tunnels, have waters with a range fit for water babies or super surfers.
9. best museum – The Kauai Coffee plantations, near Wiamea, had a tasting room with free samples of coffee and aromas to die for.  The tasting room and the adjoining groves of coffee trees would be a wonderful place to spend the rest of our lives.
10. best free show – The 5:00 pm show at the Coconut Marketplace in Kapa’a offered us live music along with the hula.  Nothing was tacky.
11. worst service – Hertz Gold Service – Much ado about nothing.  Our “reserved” car wasn’t even ready for us.
12. biggest surprises – Wildlife! We saw two large Hawaiian green sea turtles attempting to come ashore when we were swimming at Poipu Beach.  A few days later, an endangered Hawaiian monk seal came ashore at the beach in front of our condo
13. biggest overdevelopment – Princeville, on the North Shore.  The uber-golf resorts in this area could have been transported, intact from any other similar area of the world that has palm trees.
14. unexpected bonus.  Although the gas prices were about 15% higher than home, the short distances on Kauai meant that we could drive all week on only a bit more than $33 worth of gas.
15. The experience we enjoyed the most:  The climate! We spent day and night with our windows open and needed neither a blanket nor air conditioning.  The gentle breezes from our ceiling fans made for comfortable living.
16. addendum: Hawaii has hundreds of beaches, but none officially top-free or clothing optional.  Perhaps this is an area for improvement.

Stay tuned for our further adventures and Aloha!


 J & D

Paradise continues

Yesterday we  woke to a surprise on our condo beach. An endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal was sunning itself on teh  shoreline. I walked down to take a picture of this light tan huge guy.
We decided to drive to the north shore today.  We drove up the very tropical east side with goes up into the hills above the Pacific and then down to the shore continually and the views are gorgeous. We searched for a nice calm beach with gentle waves for swimming and skorkeling later in the day. We found that the Anniki Beach, about halfway up the coast seemed to fit the bill.
We drove to the resort area called Princeville and found that it is very overbuilt with hotels and condos but not the kind of area that we like to stay. We prefer the smaller,quieter and quainter areas so we continued down the road to the funky little town of Hanalei. This is much more of our style so we spent an hour or so walking through town and exploring. There was a short downpour but since the temperatures were in the 80's we didn't mind walking in the rain. Just like a shower. The only thing missing  was the soap!
We left there and decided to drive as far as the road would go. The views were gorgeous hugging  the hillside all the  way to the famous NaPali Coast and the end of the highway. We came to an area that we had read about called The Tunnels. It is an undercut area that forms huge caves in the mountainside.  We walked back  into the tunnels and took pictures which we will post when we get home.
We next drove back to Anniki Beach to swim in the calmer waters but only did so for a short time as the  current  was strong  and I am a wimp when it comes to current. Guess my balance isn't very good in the waves but John helped me to wade out and enjoy the refreshing water. He has been doing that all week and it makes it better for me in any waves.

museium in Hanalei

Monk seal on beach in front of our condo

John at Tunnel Beach, Naapali Coast

We drove back to the condo to watch the presidential debate. With the time  difference here in Hawaii, it began at 3pm so we wanted to get back on time. Our candidate did well so we were happy to see this debate.
After dinner on lanai we watched the waves and then TV. Another day in Paradise.

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Paradise continues...October 15

Mother's Day  delayed. I finally got my Mother's Day gift from my John but it was slightly delayed. This trip was originally for May after John's mom funeral in April. We had decided to spend some time together unwinding. Before we were scheduled to leave, Mother's Day arrived and John asked me what I would like and I told him that it would be nice to attend a luau while we would be vacationing on Kauai.  Unfortunately, our son-in-law, landed in the hospital on Mother's Day so we spent the next 30 days with Kari in critical care and oif course postponed our trip to October.

breadfruit tree

Lagoon at Smith's Gardens

Removing the kalua pua'a from the imu

So I got my Mother's Day gift last evening as we spent four delightful hours at the best luau ever. We had heard on a travel  show on TV that the Smith's Family Luau is the best one on Kauai so that is the one that we had Kari book for us.

Tahitian Dancer

The four hours began with a tram ride around the exquisite acres of gardens and and imu ceremony whereby the roasted pig is removed from its ground oven pit.Next were  served an  excellent buffet meal of all of the traditional Hawaiian foods and there was an open bar with no limit on drinks.  After dinner, all 800 or so of the guests walked to the outdoor theatre for an hour show including dances from numerous polynesian cultures. The whole evening was delightful.

Customs of Kauai

We have learned a few of the local customs here:

• Using the horn on your car is considered quite rude.
• It is expected that you will remove your shoes when entering someone's home.
• When approaching a one-lane bridge (There are plenty.) yield to any approaching traffic.
• Just because the sign on the shop lists its opening time as 9:00, doesn't mean it will open at 9:00, or even at 9:30.

Sunday Daytimer, Kapa'a Kauai, Hawaii

Daytimer, Sunday

1. woke up, turned coffee maker on,
2. went back to bed
3. got up, coffee on the lanai
4. light breakfast on the lanai (cereal, juice, fruit, coffee)
5. checked email
6. walked around the grounds, took some pictures to post
7. walked all the way to town along the beach, about an hour
8. took a dip in the pool
9. posted some pictures to Donna's Facebook page
10. relaxed and read on the lanai.
11. lunch on th lanai
12. did some more reading.  John finished his book and started another.
13. took our snorkels, beach mats and other stuff to the beach.
14. set up lounge chairs on the lawn next to the beach.
15. John tries a swim, decides the undertow is too strong and returns to his lounge chair
16. read our books in the shade overlooking the ocean, sipped a few beverages
17. tried snorkeling in  the protected area,  but tides are wrong and waves too big
18. went  swimming in surf
19. returned to lounges
20. tried to locate misplaced car keys.  Discovered they were turned into the office
21. texted Kari, checked email
22. light dinner on the lanai
23. Watched the CBS news
24. updated their blog

October 14 summary:

money spent $0

miles traveled by method other than walking 0

experience:  priceless

Aloha from Kauai

view from the lanai

Oct 13
We arrived in Kauai on Thursday after 6+ hours on the plane. We were delayed on take-off with a mechanical problem for about 1 1/2 hours but the flight finally took off and was very smooth. It was nice to fly first class for the first time. A good meal, unlimited drinks and two movies made the time "fly by".
We picked up our rental car and drove to our hotel/condo in Kapaa. Kari reserved this placeand it is lovely. The condo is equipped with everything and decorated so beautifully and the grounds are beautiful. Our lanai looks over the pool and gardens and the waves of the blue ocean.

at the hula show

We have spent the first two days exploring, hiking and playing in the surf. It is nice to be on the quiet garden island. Quite different from our previous trips to the other three main islands. It is very quiet on this east side of the island on the coconut coast and we are so happy that we came here for vacation.
We have explored about 1/2 of the island and have done such neat things already. Today we stopped at a number of beaches and snorkeled and saw a number of lovely tropical fish and two HUGE sea turtles that were swimming right at the shore line. They were enormous!
The weather is gorgeous with temperatures in the 80's and so far no rain. We expected rain since this is the rainiest spot in the US with upwards of 400' annually but so far none.

More later so keep checking and Aloha to all of you.

Another Adventure…Hawaii

October 10, 2012

Today we are doing another packing as we are ready to leave for another adventure. This will be a little different than most of our travels as there is no work involved until we return. We look forward to just relaxing and exploring Kauai together. This is the trip that we had planned last spring following the sadness of John’s mom’s death. We had decided that after the funeral that we needed some time away together but the trip had to be postponed when our son-in-law, Jim, landed in critical care for over a month. Then we spent 30+ days with Kari in the hospital.

Now we are excited to be able to be leaving. At least the two of us in the family are excited about the trip to Kauai but one is not. That is our cat, Ocho, doesn’t feel quite the same way about our leaving. He has been staying by our suitcases with hopes that we will take him with us. No way, Ocho! You don’t get to go this time as it would be impossible to put you in our suitcases and off our Anderson Island and then onto the Hawaiian Islands! Instead, you will just have to enjoy or tolerate the house/cat sitter again. Tough luck, kitty, “no go” to you! By the way, after eating John’s shortcake the other day, you are not on the preferred cat list right now.

We stay at the airport hotel tonight as we have a morning flight. We will be flying first class for the first time to Hawaii with a non-stop flight to Kauai so we will look forward to that luxury.

It is great to have a daughter who is a travel agent. She helped us plan our travels as always and it looks like a great week. Kari has booked us into a hotel that is beach-front in Kapa’a and we have a condo set-up so that will be nice. We have a car reserved so we plan on hiking and exploring this island all week but relaxing whenever we plan on just kicking back.

We may not have email everyday but we will try to write comments when we can. Just check our blog to read about this newest adventure   http://donnamollan.blogspot.com

Late Pix from Bermuda

St Geoirge's Bermuda
Perfect weather, perfect cruise!