Our 3rd port of call was Kauai, I was really looking forward to this day as I had the 2 previous days because each day of this cruise had been an adventure and I was looking forward to whatever might come our way on this day.  The hubby was out doing his morning walk and taking pictures of the sunrise while I pulled myself together for the day’s activities (“pulling myself together” takes a little longer these days, so the hubby busied himself each morning as I primped…haha…;) ).  Anyway, this is what I saw when I opened the drapes of our mini-suite that morning:

And here is the outfit that I chose to wear on this day.  Now, remember, I had purchased those fancy pink shoes…

And I wanted to wear them on this day because I knew that we had a good bit of walking ahead of us, so this is the outfit I chose.  I’ll lament further on those orange pants a little later. :

The very first thing that I noticed about Kauai was that it was windy as all get out when I went out on the balcony to try to take a selfie…Note those orange pants don’t look too bad…Y-E-T…;)  The hubby ended up taking this picture…or tried to take this picture…I gave up after a while…lol…

ANYways, enough about those silly pants for the moment…

Little did I know that while I was pulling myself together, my hubby had caught some gorgeous pictures of us coming into port and of a lovely rainbow!

There’s the rainbow!! 🙂

And check out this gorgeous sunrise, the prettiest one we’d seen up to this point:

Here is the Princess Patter for that day (Nawiliwili is the name of the Port *in* Kauai*…

Here is a description of the excursion that we had planned:

We disembarked the Star Princess and met our mode of transportation for the day, this motor coach:

Our bus driver was the nicest fella, quite full of information (and of himself…he was a hoot).  We started our 2 hour drive to Waimea Canyon with him narrating the entire way–He was full of stories and jokes.  Kauai was a gorgeous island and I was thrilled to be hearing about all of the old stories about its beginnings and its people as we meandered around and through lovely little towns.  Again, Princess does a phenomenal job when choosing these excursion guides/bus drivers/narrators…They are all excellent.  I know some people feel that they can save a plethora of money by NOT using Princess to book their excursions, but, honestly, it is worth it to us to go ahead and use them, especially on this trip, this was our first time doing this particular cruise and we truly would have had no earthly idea of where to begin to choose off the ship excursions if it weren’t for Princess’ guidance.  Shoot, even when we’re in Alaska (we’ve cruised there 4 times) we still use Princess…most of the time.

So, our first stop on the way to Waimea Canyon was here at Spouting Horn (and for a potty break if needed).  What was the first sign I saw when I got off of the bus?  This…LOL:

Really? Feral cats and chickens?  Well I didn’t see any cats, but there were a couple of roosters strutting around…haha.

This was a lovely little lookout type place, the water was so blue and just gorgeous, the grass was green and lush, we definitely felt like we were in the tropics:

And here is Spouting Horn:

Wow, that was pretty neat, I really enjoyed our little stop there.  It was time to climb back on the bus and head on up (literally…WAY up) to Waimea Canyon…

There were two ways that could be utilized to get up the the Canyon’s lookout, one was a set of stairs that yes, I traversed, and also there was a large winding pathway/ramp type thing that those with physical problems could use…Here is a picture of that pathway, as you can kind of see, it winds its way back and forth so as to reduce the pitch of the climb.

As you probably read in the description of this excursion ^^^up there^^^, we were getting ready to gaze upon what Mark Twain had dubbed “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”.  It was an amazingly gorgeously, ridiculously stupendous place.  I think the pictures will speak for themselves, so I’ll hush now and just show you the beauty that *is* Waimea Canyon:

To give you a sense of the sheer size of this canyon, the white blip in the picture below is a helicopter! 🙂  Goodness gracious!

Another couple was nice enough to take this picture of the hubby and I:

YES, it was e-x-t-r-e-m-i-l-y windy! lol

AND those stupid orange pants that I had on had now expanded to a VERY large size…What in the world?!  They stretched out SO much…I needed SUSPENDERS…NO kidding, I really needed suspenders!!! Sheesh…I was a mess for myself!  I know I’m a big girl, but, I do NOT fill up those pants in this picture!! I’m lucky I didn’t get picked up by that wind and whisked away down into that canyon…Well, if that had happened, those pants would have served as a parachute and I would have landed safe and sound on the bottom. 😉  (A girl has to laugh at herself once in a while…lol):

Okay, enough of my ranting and raving about those stupid pants…LOL…We headed back down to our motor coach.  They had a fruit stand set up beside the parking lot with fresh pineapple and candies and all sorts of yummy snacks and more of that fruity canned juice that we had had in Hilo:

And there was another rooster here and he was strutting himself around all over the place…;)

Here is our motor coach driver blowing into his conch shell giving us our 5 minute warning–it was time to get ourselves back to the bus…I’ll tell you, he really was a funny fellow.

And back to the ship we traveled being entertained the entire way (2 hours).

Check out what was waiting for us right before we climbed back onto the ship–The Princess folks did this every single day…Those cloths were damp and scented…ahhhhh, did they ever feel good!!

The hubby and I were very hungry and we headed to the Buffet for something to eat…I changed my outfit though, I’d had enough of those stupid parachute pants!! Here was my outfit for the evening hours…Notice my feet were getting better though because I’d worn those spiffy pink shoes. 🙂

After we got back to our room, we kind of hung out in there for the rest of the evening…Well, we really hung out out on our balcony because sail-away was kinda fun to watch.  The dock workers unhitched us…And the side thrusters started to do their job…

As I’ve mentioned ohhhh once or twice in this entry, it was really windy on this day and I guess it was so windy that we needed a little assistance from a tug boat to get us out of the harbor.  I had such a good time watching this little (relatively speaking) tug boat protect us from hitting the dock–as far as I know though, it never had to touch us, it was just there as a back-up if needed.

Our room must have been right at the pivot point because the tug boat stayed right below our room for quite some time as we made our way out of the harbor…

Once we got out far enough, the tug boat left us and we fended for ourselves to maneuver around and through those buoys…

We skirted the shoreline for a while on our way out of this cove and we came to this point.  I saw this golf green right on the edge of a cliff…Haha…My 80 year old Dad is an avid golfer and has had 8 holes in one in his lifetime–he is a “scratch” golfer (doesn’t carry a handicap for you non-golfers out there).  I know he would have loved to play *this* golf course…and particularly this hole…he loves a challenge. 🙂

Check out where the Pin is…Goodness!

Our day in Kauai had come to an end and as the hubby and I sat out on our balcony and enjoyed the warm tropical breezes while watching the sun set, we lamented once again at how lucky and blessed we felt to be able to do this awesomely beautiful cruise.  We felt so relaxed and were just loving being right there at that moment in time….Memories were being made that we’d hold in our minds and hearts forever. ❤

We were steaming toward Maui, and of course, that is what I’ll be writing about next.  Here is a sneak peek and link:

Hawaiian Cruise: Maui – Tendering & A Bit of Shopping

OH one more thing…I am going to insert some links in here just in case anyone might want to look back on my earlier posts that I’ve written about this cruise.  I’ll also include a link to my video (very detailed) that I took and narrated of our Mini-Suite (D620 on the Star Princess).

Here goes:

Hawaii Cruise Wardrobe Choices

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

Hawaiian Cruise: First Day On Board & 10 Sea Days

Hawaiian Cruise: Hilo – Waterfalls & More

Hawaiian Cruise – Honolulu: Arizona Memorial & Mighty Mo

And here is a link to that Stateroom Tour of Mini-Suite D620 on the Star Princess

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

~Arlynn ❤

***One more thing.   Here is a video that I created of our day in Kauai after I had finished writing my Hawaii Blog—I also have a YouTube Travel Channel (Arlynn’s Travels):