My cousin is a travel agent and she gave me lots of good advice about going on the Close to my Heart Hawaiian cruise that I earned. One thing she told me was to hold off on boarding for a couple of hours after the initial boarding call. So, we showed up on the ship about 2:00 instead of noon and only waited for a 1/2 hour. One thing I can definitely say about the Pride of America, the crew is extremely friendly. It started with a lei (a real flower one) being given to us when we arrived. I had hoped to get one at some point because I knew they didn't give them when you get off the plane anymore. I actually ended up with 4 leis by the end of the trip, two with real flowers, one made with some kind of nut and one made with beads.
When we got to our cabin we were super pleased! The room was much bigger than I expected and I loved our balcony. There was also this wonderful plate of snacks too!
Mark set out to enjoy the balcony right away!
I was worried about storage but found plenty of room for all of my clothes and belongings.
We had a couch and a desk and room service was part of the cost of the trip so you could actually have breakfast delivered in the morning or order anything brought to the room at any point. We didn't do it but I wish we had.
The pool came with waiters so you didn't even have to go up to the bar to get a beverage, they would bring it to you. All tips were paid before you even got on the ship which was handy! (photo by Chris Hill)
This was the Cadillac Diner, it was open 24 hours a day and served hamburgers and such. Everytime I was in there I thought about how much my kids would have loved it! (photo by Chris Hill)
The ship was huge and I am still not sure how I found myself around! (photo by Chris Hill)
That evening Close to my Heart had a welcome reception. We were given a flower lei and the cutest little "wallet on a string" as my friend, Rhonda says. It was a tiny over the sholder "purse" that fit my money, room key, sunglasses, phone, credit cards and i.d. I used it every day and still use it all the time now that I'm home. During this party my uplines, Michelle, Diana and Sheri all gave me gifts for earning my first cruise. (photo by Rachel Ventura)
They had official pictures taken at the party with our cruise logo and sent them to us just the other day, thanks Close to my Heart!
This was the scene from our balcony as we came into Maui. This was definitely an island for which you needed to rent a car.
We bought a snorkeling excursion since we enjoyed snorkeling in the Galapagos Islands last year. This one was much different in so many ways. First of all, we got to go out to Molokini on this awesome boat (boy, was I glad I'd been taking seasick medication for a week). The guys who ran the excursion were fantastic, funny and tried to remember all of our names. We were served breakfast including homemade cinnamon rolls. They helped fit us for our gear and really went above and beyond on customer service. 
I was determined to not leave Hawaii unless I saw a whale and this was the day when it happened. There were whales everywhere. Unfortunately you never know when they'll pop up so my photos don't catch how close some of them were to the boat and how we saw them breaching. They were traveling in groups of three for the most part, a mother and baby and their "escort" who was not normally the father but a whale hoping to mate with the mother the next season. Strange, huh? 
Michelle Nist, my longtime friend and upline, her mom, Lil, and sister, Jennifer, joined us on teh excursion. Don't we look cute in our wetsuits? Once we got to Molokini it was time to go snorkeling. The boat actually opened up on the side so we could slide right into the water and climb back up when we were done. I can't say the fish were as amazing as they were in the Galapagos but they were very pretty and I followed a sea turtle for about 15 minutes, wonderful!
After our snorkeling was over we went to see a Banyan Tree, this is a tree that takes up an entire city block. It's my understanding that the tree will wrap itself around other trees and when they die, drop it's roots right down. It looks like an entire large group of trees because there are tree trunks and roots everywhere but it's all one tree.
I was told by my friends, Judy and Sue, that I have to have shave ice while in Hawaii. Well, they were right, it's sooooo good and not like a snowcone at all. We had it twice but we could have truly had it every day!
Yes, there are scrapbookers in Hawaii and they have scrapbook stores too! This one was very oriented to tourists, almost everything in there was about Hawaii so you could buy to make an album of your trip. 
When we returned to the ship this little elephant was waiting on our bed, each day our cabin steward would leave us towels in the shape of an animal
That wasn't the only gift either. Close to my Heart gives us a present every single day. This was the purse from the first day! Each gift come with a poem too!
Also in our cabin that day was this plate of chocolate covered cherries, we were so pampered!
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