My cruise posts thus far have centered around our exciting excursions. In reality, they took up only a portion of our days. We typically had entire afternoons, and evenings, to fill as well. Luckily, on a cruise ship, that is never an issue.
Because this was a Hawaiian cruise, there was a real effort to provide Hawaiian-themed activities. I appreciated this, as I was very interested in learning about the Hawaiian culture while we were here. The ship's Hawaiian Ambassadors were Malu and Kaleo, and they kept us busy.
Every afternoon at 3:00, I took hula lessons. Not only did we have a lot of fun, it was good exercise, as well. Between our active excursions and daily hula lessons, I was able to avoid the typical 10 pound weight gain many cruisers experience. My daughters wouldn't hula with me, but there was no reason to consider it uncool. There were participants ranging in age from 3 to 83. And we had fun! We learned three songs: "That's How You do the Hula", "Little Grass Shack", and the old classic "The Hukilau". We also learned a few Hawaiian phrases along the way. At every class, our instructors would start out saying, "Ho'omaukaukau?" ("Are you ready?") And we would respond, "Ae!" (Yes!). After that we worked. They even included a bit of Tahitian in our instruction - you know, the real shake-your-hips-till-they-fall-off type of hula. Too much for me!
At the end of the week, we had a Hula Graduation, performing our newly-learned hula dances for our friends and family members. We even received Hula Graduation certificates! Pretty funny!
The other cool class provided for us typically followed our hula class, and involved the art of lei making. Every new day brought a new lei to learn to make. All the materials were provided and our instructors were there with plenty of assistants to give hands-on help, as needed.
Our first class taught us to make kukui nut leis. These were considered the leis of royalty because the process of preparing the nuts was so time-consuming. Apparently, they used to bury the nuts underground, allowing insects to eat the inside nutmeat away over a year's time. Then, they'd dig them up and use the empty shells for the leis. Modern technology has changed this methodology today, and the nut meat is now used as a food and a source of the islands' much-prized kukui nut oil, purported to have healing medicinal uses.
The process of making this lei was pretty simple: String a nut onto a ribbon, tie a knot, string the next nut, and repeat. Tie a bow or square knot at the back to finish it off. We were told that one traditionally gives away a lei one makes, so I gave this rather masculine-looking black lei to Larry. He wore it for our anniversary dinner that evening! Aww!
After class, there were kukui nut lei-making kits for sale, with the promise of creating more elaborate looks than the simple style we learned in class. Kakui nuts were available in brown, black, variegated brown and black, and painted nuts. There were also seashells to place in between that gave an infinite variety of possible designs. I bought a kit and took it back to our stateroom. Sarah and Emily, who wouldn't deign the idea earlier of going to the class with me, were now intrigued. Back up to the classroom we went, and bought two more kits. We took our kits and sat on deck poolside while fashioning our leis. People saw us working, and stopped to watch and admire as our leis took shape. Inevitably, they wanted to buy a kit and make their own! I swear, I should have insisted on a commission for each lei kit we were responsible for selling. We sent them a lot of business! I must say, our finished leis looked pretty darn good! Sarah even made a matched bracelet/anklet.
The girls were now sold, and accompanied me to lei making class for the rest of the week. We subsequently learned to make flower leis with fresh orchids flown in specifically for this purpose - we learned both single and double flower methods...
... and braided ribbon leis. Sarah and Emily were whizzes at this style, and likened it to doing gimp at Girl Scout Day Camp.
Malu followed this class with a sarong-tying demo; Sarah has since become quite adept at find new ways to tie her newly-purchased sarong.
There were plenty of other things happening onboard the ship throughout the week that were not Hawaiian-themed. It seems that every night there was a musical tribute to someone: The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Jimmy Buffet, Elton John, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons... Larry and I thoroughly enjoyed the tribute to The Eagles. The band reviewed the history of the group's popular years, performing a song from each album along the way, and ending with "Hotel California". What a walk down Memory Lane!
The Second City Comedy Troupe was onboard all week, too, and their comedy show - a "Whose Line is it Anyway" sort of improv show - was a blast. They used my suggestions twice! (Guess that's what comes from having a voice that projects...) Second City also performed a Murder Mystery event that Emily and I attended at lunch one day. Again, they asked for ideas from the audience to include in their performance, and it was pretty clever. A bit predictable, though; our table had the murderer pegged. Stand-up comedian Tim Kaminski entertained us another night, and kept us laughing, as well.
Having kayaked with the ship's hypnotist, I had to check out her events, and ended up quite impressed. Sarah and I went to her seminar on stress reduction, something both of us can certainly use. Later, I attended her session on using hypnosis for weight reduction, something I've been considering for some time now. I was impressed enough with both sessions to buy her CD's on the subjects. Let's see if we can use them at home to improve our lives!
We also attended her hypnosis shows that are all about entertainment. Now, she put the roomful of seminar attendees under when we learned about using hypnosis to change things in our lives for the better, but that was nothing compared to what she did at her shows. Wow! She's not called The Mesmerizing Brenda Kaye for nothing!
She had volunteers from the audience doing all kinds of crazy things on stage. It was pretty amazing - and hilarious!
So, entertained we were, and never at loose ends for something to do. Remember, there was always food, and the restaurants were many and varied. Although we ate mostly from the ship's extensive buffet, we especially enjoyed our anniversary dinner, and the Sushi Bar. Drinks flowed freely, too. Although we didn't participate, the Pub Crawlers seemed to have a lot of fun! It was gonna be hard to leave this self-contained entertainment center!
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