We woke early on our last morning aboard. Having put our bags out in the hallway the night before, we showered and dressed in the clothes we had kept out the night before.
We ate our last breakfast at the Aloha Buffet then headed back to our room gathered our carry on bags and headed to the ships theater. We had early bird tickets for the Arizona/Pearl harbor. After arriving we met our group and were exited off the ship and down to our waiting bags, then onto a waiting coach.
The driver/tour guide had pre purchased tickets for the Arizona so all we had to do was kill sometime. So the driver took us on a short Honolulu tour. We visited the Iolani Palace, Aliʻiolani Hale and the King Kamehameha Statue. We had a chance to jump out of the coach and get up close and take some photos, but didn’t get to go into any of the venues.
Next we drove around the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. Then our coach headed to battleship row/Pearl harbor. We didn’t know how Jayme would handle visiting the USS Arizona memorial. We knew that years from now when he is studying WWII we would be able to draw from his visit. We did a little prep with him, told him were we where going was like a church and we had to be quiet and respectful.
Once we arrived we had about 20 mins before our tour time started. We walked slowly over to theater and did a stop at the restroom and gift shop. At 9:45am we walked into the theater and watched a 20 min movie about the Pearl Harbor attack. Jayme was pretty quiet for most of the movie. He had a few questions about why things were happening and if this movie was real. Because he is 6 he really liked the explosions…
Once the movie was over we exited the theater and boarded the navy boat which took us out to the memorial. Jayme liked the boat ride and had lots of questions about how the boat worked. It took only a few minutes to reach the memorial. Once we docked we had 15 mins to view the site. Jayme did really good and was very respectful and quiet. We both were very proud of him.
When our 15 mins were up we re-boarded our boat back to the shore. We had a lot of time before our coach took us to the airport so we had time to explore the museums a bit. This proved to be a bit too much for Jayme as there was lots of buttons to push. He must push all buttons at all times or somehow the world will come to an end. So we had to have a little time out to calm our little body.
Back on the bus and right to the airport. Once at the airport, check in was fairly easy. While Anthony checked in Jayme, Joshua rebalanced the weights on our bags, getting us both at 49.99 pounds each (meaning no extra fee). The biggest surprise of the trip happened as we headed into the security check point, Jayme announced in a slightly panicked tone that one of his teeth is falling out.
We had a 2 hour wait for our plane, but that gave us time to buy some food for the long flight home and to pick up some lunch at Burger King. A favorite item was the bottle of Hawaiian water ( Yes folks, for $5 measly dollars you too can have a bottle of Hawaiian Water), which is still in our fridge.The flight home was very easy. Jayme even slept for a bit. We landed on time and Sam met us at the baggage carousel at 11:30 PST.
This was an amazing trip for our new family. The trip was to be all about Joshua and his birthday, but it really turned into an amazing bonding trip for our new family.
If you would like to see some of the 4000 photos from our trip, shoot us an email and will add you to our new family shutterfly account.