Olivia Hawaii Cruise, 2006

Posted under Olivia Vacation, Our Illegal Wedding by Recovering Straight Girl

The days leading up to our trip was filled with business, stress and anxiety. We were juggling the three kids and the two dogs at five different locations, times, and people. Of course we waited to pack until the night before, and then Aunt Flo came to visit the morning before our trip. Needless to say, I was a wee bit of a crazy bitch.

HG, being the perfect woman that she is, just helped me through it and after a short night sleep, we were up bright and early for our trip to Portland International Airport.

Getting on the plane was a sigh of relief and I was so excited I could have peed my pants. We watched movies and before we knew it, we were touching down in beautiful Hawaii.

We met some fellow Olivia Portland travelers on the plane and shared a cab to the ship port. They were fabulous and we knew we would be friends right away.

We were leid while embarking and were ready to start our incredible trip, and we had our first Mai Tai’s with our new friends.

After the mandatory lifeboat drill, we had fun the rest of the evening.

Let’s just say that I perhaps partied a wee bit much that first night, because I was not loving life as much the next morning when we arrived in our first port, Hilo. We had a shore excursion booked, so I needed to get up and moving. We went to breakfast where we were invited to dine with a lovely couple from Vancouver Island. I ordered a Bloody Mary with breakfast and was feeling much better as we visited. This particular couple were fascinating to me. One of the ladies was married to a man and had a child before coming out to her husband; her husband later came out to her. Not only that, but he is also the biological father to the child that her partner gave birth to, and the three of them co-parent their children, he even lives with them part time. I only wish things could be that amicable in OUR life.

After breakfast, we were ready to tour the beauty of the Big Island.

It was beautiful there and the weather was quite lovely, even though Hilo on average receives three times as much rain every year as we do here in Portland. Our tour guide was very good and told us a lot about the island, how and when it was formed and about the plants, flowers and animals that live there.

This is a lava formation that was made when lava oozed up and around a tree, killing the tree, and leaving this hollow tube as a result. This happened thousands of years ago, and the lava formation remains.

We got to talking to some of our fellow Olivia travelers on our tour. We met two lovely women from Brooklyn who endured an 11.5 hour flight to arrive in Hawaii. The one woman, begged me to sing Sound of Music songs to her on the bus, which of course I did. Her partner said that she frequently requests people to sing the Sound of Music to her.

We met two young women from Rochester who we continued to get to know during the rest of our cruise. Their flight from New York entailed them needing to flag stop in Phoenix due to a gentleman dying on the plane! They were both police officers who were lucky (or unlucky as it was) to be picked for the Newlywed/Oldywed Game at the end of the cruise.

After the tour, we embarked once again to the Norweigian Wind and set sail for the Fanning Islands.

We were at sea for two days.

I found that the secret to avoid any kind of sea sickness was to remain a bit buzzed at all times. Everytime I felt a little sea sick, I would have a drink and all would be well. Since we had no where to GO for two days at sea, I admit that we spent a fair amount of time by the pool sipping Corona, watching, meeting and having fun with the many women that we met.

We met women from all over the world. Older women, younger women, couples, singles. Women who had been in relationships for decades, some who were just friends, some who were broken up, but travelling together anyway, (ONLY lesbians do this people, it’s a strange but true fact.) It was certainly the best part of the trip; all of the many women we met.

Every afternoon, there would be concerts by the pool, and throughout the day there were many, many activities that we certainly could have partaken i; lei making, dance lessons, seminars. I did take two Hula lessons, and although I’m certainly not ready to open up my own Hula school, HG said I was the best one out there.
We would nap late in the afternoon and then dress for dinner. Sometimes we would listen to live music beforehand, or just hang out. Our only disapointment on the entire cruise would certainly be the food. It was not good. Not good at all. We had one or two good meals, but for the most part, not pretty.

The group committment ceremony was held on the first sea day, and we decided to participate. We weren’t sure if we would, or just do our own thing, we were glad that we did. Our new friends Dana and Tanya came with and it was quite nice. There were many couples there, some had been together as long as 35 years, others, like us, new to our committment to eachother. It was touching to experience that kind of energy.

That night was Formal Night and we had dinner with Dana and Tanya then sang karaoke and danced, danced, danced.

HG doesn’t usually dance, so it was FUN. We all had a great time!

The next day was another sea day. We played Bingo (and lost,) and sat in the sun, and drank more Mai Tai’s and beer. We napped, and had dinner, and a little more dancing.

The next day we arrived in Fanning Island.

Fanning Island is located 900 miles south of the Hawaiian Islands in the Republic of Kibrati. There is no running water or electricity and it is inhabited by native people who were brought there hundreds of years ago to cut down coconuts. They are self reliant, on the sea and by whatever is brought to them by passing ships once or twice a year. Norweigian Cruise lines uses it as one of their ports of call and I’m sure provides some assistance to the native people, helping out with the school and providing learning supplies. It was beautiful and lovely and HOT. The Fanning Islands are 121 miles north of the equator, and let me tell you something about the equator; it’s a little warm there.

The lovely thing about vacationing with 1800 lesbians in the middle of fucking NO WHERE, in heat hotter than HELL, with nothing else better to do than drink and sit on the beach is:

The lesbians sometimes take their tops off.

This is a MILD one. I’ve got some good ones, including one I sent Kami featuring my beautiful wife, (shhhh, don’t tell HG, I have copies available for $1,000.00 each, checks or paypal only please.)

After our day on Fanning Island, it was back to the ship for TWO MORE DAYS AT SEA, where we proceeded to drink more Mai Tai’s, take more naps (which I hope you know is code for we had a lot of sex…) and meet more interesting people.

One night we had a White Party, where everyone dressed in white. We had dinner with Kim and Debi the ladies we met from Kauai and had a grand time at the dance where we met four more girls from Portland. It was one of the most fun evenings of my life. I danced and danced until HG told me we had to leave, (I obeyed, because I’m a dutiful wife.)

We arrived in Kauai and I was exhausted from all of the partying and laying around we did. We didn’t plan a shore excursion there, which was probably a good thing since a lot of them were cancelled because of the Tsunami they had that morning. We didn’t feel a thing, but the captain said there was one and I believe him!

The first thought that I had when we entered into the little village shopping area was, “Wow, look at all of the straight people.” After spending five days with all lesbians being completely out and free, it was a strange feeling.

In Kauai we decided to take a tour of waterfalls and had the WORST tour guide in the history of tour guides. He kept telling us that he was a terrible tour guide, and he WAS. But we saw some waterfalls, saw the beach, and got a basic idea of Kauai.

The next day was Maui. We were met at the ship dock by some local lesbians who came out to greet us with waving rainbow flags. It was very hospitable of them. We were on a tour that day to do the downhill bike ride from the top of Halekala volcano.

Yes. RSG rode a bike 21 miles. It was downhill, but we don’t care about that fact.

The volcano was amazing. We were at 10K feet and I felt a little loopy up there. Loopier than usual I should say. This is the view from the top:

Those are clouds BELOW us.
This is the crater itself:

Now apparently Hawaiian volcanoes don’t blow up like Mt. St. Helens did. Hawaiian volcanoes OOZ. They ooz their molten lava all over the damn place and make islands but they don’t blow. Good to know.

After the bike ride, we returned to the ship where we changed into our Luau clothes and went to the Sheraton Kaanapalli resort for a luau. We had good food and bad Mai Tai’s, the sunset was amazing and the hula dancers were very cool.

The next day we spent in Kona, which is hot, and we mostly hung out. We shopped a little, we had lunch, we went and looked at tatoos. No we didn’t get one, but a lot of girls were.

The last night on the ship we were able to go to the ships specialty restaurant. HG wanted to go and I kept putting off making reservations. When I did, they were full. Two ladies we met who were ATF agents in S. California invited us to go with them. That afternoon while we were hot tubbing with some ladies from Virginia, the ATF girls told us that they now had other plans and for us to take their reservation. HG was happy and I was happy because we got our picture taken with Captain Lars.

I think Captain Lars like having the ladies of Olivia on board!

The next morning we docked in Honolulu, and because our flight was delayed for eight hours, we rented a car and Dana, Tanya, HG and I hung out all day. We went to Pearl Harbor, which was boring, but a good piece of American History and we went to Waikiki Beach, which was beautiful and also a good piece of American history.

While waiting for our flight, I counted 25 Portland Ladies of Olivia on our flight. I was certain that if our plane crashed, Jerry Falwell would say that it was because the plane was holding so many homo-sexual-women. But we were safe from the wrath of God, this time.
We arrived home to Portland at 5:30 in the morning to rain and 41 degrees.

But enough happy memories to last a lifetime, or at least for a year until we go here.

It was a delight to recap this amazing experience for all of you, Mahalo and Aloha.