I cannot believe that our Hawaiian cruise is now behind us…<sigh>.  We plan for months and months for our cruises, and then *poof* they’re over with way too soon.  OH well, there is always the next one in the queue huh?  I always like to have the next one to look forward to and to plan for.  Those of us in the cruising world keep a close eye on our “Countdown”…And I do have one of those sweet “Countdown’s'” clicking away at the moment…YaY!   We will once again be cruising with Princess Cruises; we are loyal to them and are now considered “Platinum” members of the “Captain’s Circle”…Woohoo, go us! 😉

Just as I mentioned in my Alaska Cruise Wardrobe Choices blog post, I am no fashionista, but, this plus sized girl does like to try her best to look put together and most importantly to *feel* pretty.  My wardrobe for Hawaii ended up to be quite varied as we began and ended the cruise in Vancouver, B.C which at that time of the year (April 5-19) temperatures were on the chilly side. We cruised for 5 days at sea on our way to Hawaii, then we were in the Islands for 4 days, and then we cruised back to Vancouver for 5 days.  So that said, I knew I needed some clothes to keep me warm and some clothes that were more suited for the tropics.  OH goodness, way to confuse a girlie girl! 😉  All that said, the little voice in my head was whispering “Don’t overpack, don’t overpack, don’t O-V-E-R-P-A-C-K!!!”. 🙂

Okay, enough of my ramblings…Let’s get started…

Here are the suitcases that I took…Yes, yes, I took two <~~~Don’t judge! 😉  One was for my clothes (purple, 29″ spinner–checked compliant), and the other one was for cosmetics (27″ spinner–checked compliant), my “must haves”, and an extra Vera Bradley “Weekender” bag so that I could use it for a carry-on bag on the plane on the way home; it held the clothes that we wore on our last day of the cruise, our last morning toiletries, etc…We also had to put our suitcases out in the hallway on our last night of the cruise so that they could be taken and readied for our trip to the airport the next morning.  Here is a link if you’d like to take a look at my blog covering What’s In My Carry-On, My Must Haves, and Packing Tips & Tricks.

The first outfit I picked out was my traveling outfit…It also served as an out to dinner outfit as we were meeting our dear friends Liz and Mike who traveled to Vancouver from Victoria on the day that we arrived.  We went out to dinner and had a nice long visit that evening…I was SO looking forward to that meet-up.  This is the outfit I chose, comfy, but still a bit dressy (and it didn’t wrinkle…an important little detail considering we were going to be traveling and sitting in a jet for the better part of that day).  It is a navy blue maxi skirt, pretty paisley blouse, and a knit navy blue jacket; it traveled beautifully.

Of course we left our house at around 3am and I forgot to take a selfie of my outfit before we left…SO, I improvised and took one of myself in the airport bathroom—OH Lawdy, the things that I do for my Blog…hahaha. 😉

Next, when packing I picked out the outfits that I’d wear on our way to and from (not in) Hawaii…I knew that it would probably be pretty cool (and it was) for the first few (at least) days that we’d be at sea–10 sea days in all 5 going and 5 coming back home.

First, I chose this pretty coral jacket:

And here I am on Embarkation day in that jacket, I was standing on the balcony of our MiniSuite D620  <link to a descriptive Stateroom video of our Mini that I have on my YouTube channel>. 🙂

Next, I knew that I had to take some of the most comfortable black stretchy slacks ever, I took 3 pairs of those as they fold up nice and small for packing and do not wrinkle. I was so sad last year when I couldn’t find these pants any longer–admittedly, mine are getting a wee bit worn, not horrible, but, enough where I’d like to have some back-up pairs.  I do believe I’ve found them again though, at Dressbarn.com, and I’ve ordered a pair up for myself.  I will let y’all know if they are these exact pants–Dress Barn had done away with them for a while.  I’m hoping that these are indeed my very favorite, here are a couple of links… Roz & Ali Plus Slim Leg Pants & Roz & Ali Slim Leg Pants  . Anyway, I paired those pants with different colored 3/4 length sleeved shirts.

I threw in a few light-weight scarves too, they didn’t take up any space and didn’t add hardly any weight, but, they added a little interest and cuteness to those plain shirts…

I just love scarves btw…Here I am in that coral top with a different scarf–I am with our pups–Gracie the Golden, Sophie the Black Newfoundland, and Samson the Brown Newfoundland:

Here I am on board the Star in two out of the three shirts w/scarves pictured above (you already saw me in the corall’y’ one paired with that sweet little coral jacket):

I had figured as we got closer to Hawaii, I would be able to switch over to some warmer clothing options. 😉  Here are a couple of the outfits that I wore…

I did take one comfy lounge around outfit–leggins with a over-sized crocheted top…I did not wear that crocheted top–Ummm, yeah, I put it on, and yeah, I took it right back off again…Definitely NOT as attractive as I thought it was in the dressing room in the store…UGH, I hate it when that happens.  So yes, I did carry that top up there along with the tank top that I was going to wear underneath of it and I never wore it. I did wear the leggins one day when I was doing laundry–paired them with a short sleeved top–nope, no pic of that loveliness. 😉 lol

We did go to the Crown Grill one evening, I changed into this outfit:

Okay, so those outfits got me to and from (sea days) Hawaii.  I did wash clothes on this trip as I needed those black pants for our return trip.

Now for the outfits that I’d chosen for while we were in Hawaii…

Hilo:

Honolulu

Kauai:  Here are those ‘lovely’ orange capris — Ummmm, NOT so much…See my Kauai Blog post to read about how lovely they were NOT after I’d had them on for like an hour…lol. 😉

I changed out of those orange ‘beauties’ and put this dress on for dinner that evening:

And for the last Island that we visited, Maui:

And here are the outfits that I chose and what I wore for trip back to Vancouver—

I was feeling quite tropical on this our 1st sea day:

And the 2nd sea day heading back to Vancouver, it was still lovely and warm outside:

 

3rd & 4th returning sea days…back to those spiffy black pants, solid colored tops, and scarves–I did wear my coral shirt on the 5th and last sea day:

And the outfit I wore home:

I did bring these two tops along to pair with my handy dandy black pants just in case we decided to go to a formal night (we really never do…and didn’t this time either)—My goodness though, those black pants are the best, so versatile!

Of course I took a bathing suit and instead of a “cover-up”, I threw in an old  black maxi-skirt to cover my not so lovely bottom…And no, there were no pictures taken…nope. 😉

I took some P.J.’s and slippers…

And that did it for the clothes…With my new packing cubes and sleeve, I really was able to easily fit all of that in my one large suitcase.  Just to say once more, our daughter Christin got me these two new packing helpmates for Christmas–She knows I am a notorious over-packer so these really came in handy! (I’ve written an entire blog post describing: “What is in my Carry-on, My Must-Haves, and Packing Tips & Tricks” I have links to YouTube videos in that post showing how these two packing tools work.

Now, let’s talk jewelry…Christin also got me a pretty Thirty-One bag for Christmas, it is specifically made for carrying jewelry.

Here is the jewelry that I took and I wore most of it:

And now for the shoes—Always such hard choices for me!

I found these cuties at Target:

Okay, I took WAY too many shoes..WAY too many.  Of the shoes pictured above, I wore, the black and blue slip-ons, one pair of the flip-flops, and the pair that I got from Target.  For those of you who have read my Hawaii Cruise Series blog posts, you know that my feet swelled very badly while on board.  That never happens in my every-day life, but, man oh man, I had a time of it on the ship (it had to be the food and all of the traveling)…the swelling finally went down when I drank a copious amount of water and sat with my feet elevated above my heart for pretty much one entire sea day.  ANYway, before we went off ship on one Excursion, my hubby encouraged me (made me…lol) purchase these, what I now tout as ***the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever had on my feet***!! I purchased them in one of the shops on the Star (paid too much for them), but, I was desperate.  Here is a link for Skechers Performance Go Walk 3 in black (as I’ve ordered myself a 2nd pair for our next cruise…and for every-day use as well). Here is a picture of the pretty pink version that I bought on board:

Admittedly, I am a bit of a clothes horse, BUT, believe it or not, this is WAY paired down for me…honestly, when we cruised in Alaska last summer, I literally took two outfits for each day of the cruise…I did NOT need that many clothes.  For once in my life, I did not overpack!! (I did take a few short-sleeved shirts that I didn’t take pictures of btw…) I found that my clothes were dressy enough to go from day to evening except for the couple of nights that I wore the maxi skirt/polka-dot shirt and then the maxi dress to go to the specialty restaurant–my choice to dress up a bit, not mandatory for those restaurants (we didn’t do formal night as I mentioned above).

I guess now my next cruise post will be when I start preparing for our Canada and New England cruise—Hmmm, I’m thinking those black pants are going to come in handy once again! 😉

Until next time, y’all take good care! ❤

~Arlynn ❤

***IF you are interested…I have written an entire Series of Blog posts describing our trip.  In said posts, I’ve included tons of pictures along with my commentary about the ship and the ports.***

Here is the first link in the series–There is a link at the end of each post that will take you to the next link in succession. 🙂

Hawaii: Packing, Traveling, Dinner With Dear Friends, & Embarkation

***By the way,  we arrived at our almost Platinum status (before this cruise) with Princess Cruises by cruising 4 times in Alaska.  If y’all are at all interested in seeing what our Alaskan cruises were like, I’ve written an entire Alaska: Voyage of the Glaciers cruising series.  Here is a link that will take you to the first entry in the series; there is a link at the end of each entry that will take you to the next entry in the series (pretty much a entry per day of the cruise).   I’ve also written a blog entry describing my Alaska Cruise Wardrobe Choices . :)***

One more picture of me and my pups…I just love them!! ❤