January 15th – The Big Island’s Big Gardens

It's normally pretty hard to get me enthusing about a visit to a botanical garden, but today on the Big Island I had my most enjoyable horticultural experience in 12 years of cruising.

From Hilo, we drove about 20 minutes to the excellent Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden – a lush Garden of Eden wedged into a valley jam-packed with all kinds of exotic flora that plunges down into the ocean. The great thing about these botanic gardens is that they were obviously extremely well-planned and cared for, yet they still managed to feel like they were as nature intended.

This side of the island receives prodigious amounts of rain (although we were lucky enough not to get rained on during our visit), plus the volcanic soil is extremely fertile, which means that the foliage was dense with tropical plants from all around the globe. From prehistoric-looking ferns the size of a small house, to delicate orchids sprouting off trees; from super-size plants with leaves the size of a refrigerator, to colourful heliconia, the sheer variety on offer here was almost overwhelming.

If our time in the resorts of Oahu and Maui were proof that man can occasionally take Mother Nature for granted, then the Big Island is a perfect antidote to that. Here, it's the natural side of things that takes over – whether it's gardens or volcanoes – Mother Nature is the biggest force on the Big Island.

PS. Tracy did a hike around the awesome crater of the Kilauea Volcano, so we've included a couple of pictures of that too.

January 14th – A Whale of a Time in Lahaina

From start to finish this was a whale themed day. Just looking out of our window as the ship dropped anchor in the morning, we must have seen at least 4 groups of whales spouting, flapping, and on one occasion breaching, all around the ship. It was quite some welcome to Maui.

If this wasn't enough close encounters of a whale kind, we went on a whale watching boat trip, where we got some amazing glimpses of these awesome creatures, often as little as 50 metres away. Seeing them gracefully flip their tale in the air as they dived down constantly brought a yelp of joy from our boat-load of whale-watchers. Like us, these whales are willing to travel 1,000s of miles to frolic in the warm Hawaiian waters – although unlike us, they hardly eat at all on their Hawaiian holiday, and come here just to mate and give birth.

After this, we caught a bus to Ka'anapali – Maui's major resort – getting off at the "Whaler's Village Shopping Center" in the middle of the resort. To be honest, this rather soulless mall couldn't have felt less like a whaler's village if it had tried, and even if the modern resorts all around it didn't have much more character either, the gorgeous beaches, the blue seas and the foaming waves were the obvious stars of the show here. We had a great time watching the local lads boogie boarding recklessly, getting tossed about in crashing surf.

Actually, coming to Ka'anapali gave me a greater appreciation of the attraction of Lahaina. Our port of call is a genuine "Whaler's Village", dating from a 19^th century boom when it was the whaling capital of the world. Lahaina may have become a little over-modernised, with all the T-shirt shops and row of mainstream restaurants; but it still retains lots of its historic character that gives it a fun-loving atmosphere that hasn't quite teetered over into tackiness.

We went for our traditional sundowner at Kimo's Bar on the waterfront – a bank of clouds above the island of Lanai dulled the colours a little, but the music was good, the breezes were warm, and the beer was cold. What more can you ask for?

January 12th & 13th – A Ballistic Welcome to Honolulu!

There's nothing like arriving in our Hawaiian paradise and waking up to a message on your phone from the Government that a ballistic missile is heading straight towards you – "THIS IS NOT A DRILL", it reminded us.

My reaction to this frightening news of our impending doom was one of mild concern but fairly convinced that it was a hoax, while Tracy (rather sensibly) took it more seriously and was trying to find out how we could protect ourselves from Armageddon. The fact that we were docked just 5 miles from the huge military naval base at Pearl Harbor made it quite likely we would be in the blast zone, so I didn't feel the need to do much – other than remind myself of the fact that no-one took the warnings of an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 very seriously, and we know how that one turned out.

Fortunately, 38 (very long) minutes later, the government finally very kindly told us that we weren't going to die after all (with no apology).

Anyway, that left us grateful to be able to enjoy the rest of our time on the beautiful island of Oahu. On our first day, we did a long walk along the entire length of Waikiki Beach, in the shadow of the impressive Diamond Head crater, and in the shadow of a long line of high-rise hotels. The beaches were beautiful but packed, and I found that I was subconsciously singing to myself the lyrics of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi" – "They paved paradise…..".

It was undoubtedly over-developed, but the people watching was great and the natural setting gorgeous - if only I'd come here 50 years ago, before mass-market tourism changed the face of Waikiki from the exotic to the mainstream.

That evening, we went out for dinner in Chinatown – for a Lebanese meal, of course – to a low-key but good quality BYO restaurant called Kan Zaman. Sitting outside in the warm air, we had a great time, although the walk back to the ship past so many homeless people sleeping in doorways had a bit of an end-of-days feel (did they know something that we didn't?).

On our second day, having avoided apocalypse, we went to the amazing Doris Duke house at Shangri-La. Doris was a fabulously wealthy heiress who began building this ideal home in the 1930s, and indulged her every artistic and architectural whim on this superb piece of Arab-inspired architecture by the sea. Normally, you'd expect this "money's no object" attitude to result in something of dubious taste – instead, we were greeted by a superbly cool, fairly understated, and incredibly tasteful collection of Islamic art and architectural styles. It was like a combination of a Newport mansion, meets a tasteful Hearst Castle, meets 1001 Arabian Nights – fabulous. In these days of growing Islamophobia, it was good to be reminded just how cultured and refined Arab culture can be.

This was followed by a lovely lunch with our Honolulu friends Jerry and Eloise, then a bit of exploring of Chinatown – which was looking fairly shabby and down-at-heal, especially compared to the bustling modern streets of Waikiki.

It's the contrasts that make Honolulu so fascinating to explore. It's an exotic Polynesian setting, but it's also a big, All-American city. It's polished and manicured in places, yet shabby in others. It offers plenty of examples of low culture, but also lots of opportunities of high culture too.

You always have a good time in Honolulu – especially after you've found out that you're not going to be obliterated by a ballistic missile after all!

January 5th & 6th – The World Cruise Begins in LA

After a superb Gala Dinner in Beverly Hills to kick off the 2018 World Cruise, we spent a little time walking around Beverly Hills to see how the other half live. From what I can see, they live pretty well!

The luxury boutiques along Rodeo Drive were gearing up for the Golden Globes, so they had no interest in a couple of oiks from the UK pressing their noses up against their shop windows. We then did a walking tour around the extremely upmarket residential area just above Rodeo Drive – unsurprisingly, this looks a pretty good place to live, and boasts some interesting architectural oddities, including a building designed to look like a witch's house, and a house inspired by the curves and mosaics of Antoni Gaudi.

Then it was time to join the ship and enter into the parallel universe that is the World Cruise – there were plenty of familiar faces, and lots of new faces that I'm sure we'll get to know over the next 4 months. So, we will be travelling for 121 days, visiting 54 ports in 22 countries – should be fun.

Next stop Honolulu!