Carnival Miracle: October 24, 2013, Maui

The Captain announced Wednesday that we’d be arriving in Maui an hour earlier than the current schedule which was back to the original schedule before the last itinerary change (we had a couple of itinerary changes swapping days and changing port times in the months leading up to the cruise).

It’s unusual for us to book shore excursions from the cruise line but my husband didn’t want the stress of dealing with rental cars and Hawaii traffic. Maui was one of the three ports we booked excursions through Carnival.

Our shore excursion, Kaanapali Beach Break, had been moved to an hour later leaving us with over 2 hours onboard before it was time to depart. We had breakfast in the dining room and the ship docked as we ate.

We packed our backpack for the beach and since we were back in the states caught up on emails on my phone.

At the appropriate time we boarded the bus for the Ka’anapali Beach break and once everybody was there it was a 45 minute ride. The tour guide offered commentary so I learned those smoke stacks were the last functioning sugar mill in Hawaii.

When we arrived at the Sheraton resort, we were given two beach chairs (what I call sand chairs) and coupons for one free drink each (a punch with or without alcohol) and 50% off a second entrée with purchase of the first. We rented a beach umbrella for $19.50 and settled in.

The water was gorgeous and we swam a few times in between rest and relaxing in our chairs.

We went to one of the beachside open air restaurants to enjoy our beverage and get lunch.

I had a grilled mahi-mahi sandwich and Steve had pulled pork sandwich. They both came with house-made potato chips. The food was excellent.

The bus was leaving at 4:45 (over 4 ½ hours at the beach) and the driver had advised us to be ready to board at 4:30. We were there at that time and surprised to see most of the people already onboard. We waited for the four missing people and one couple did show up by the departure time but the other didn’t. There was hardly anyone at the beach so they probably went to town or something.

Since it was “rush hour” it took about 15 minutes longer to return than it did on the outbound trip. We rushed onboard so we could get to our dinner seating. Although we were 30 minutes late, there were other late attendees after us and our waiters seemed happy to see someone as the dining room was less than half filled.

I had the cream of mushroom soup, field green salad and lasagna Bolognese. Steve had the starter lasagna, chicken noodle soup and shrimp and fries (comfort menu). We both ordered the diet pumpkin pie for dessert and Steve also ordered apple pie. Neither one of us liked the pumpkin pie so I also ordered chocolate ice cream.

There was a Polynesian show at 9:15 that I would have liked to attend but was just too tired from the day so it was lights out around 8 pm.
Neither one of us woke up when the ship left Maui.