I was on a recent trip to Hawaii and promised to recount some of my hot tub stories. We took a Norwegian Cruise around the Hawaiian islands. The Pride of America is a clean, beautiful ship. They had beautiful art on display for sale and for auction, such as the piece pictured above. Between excursions, we spent time enjoying the ship's facilities. They had a basketball court on the top level, and there was table tennis, other games and a well-stocked library. They had 2 pool areas and 4 or 5 hot tubs. My son K and I usually ended up in one of the hot tubs, occasionally husband M would join us. Daughter L was usually with her boyfriend somewhere. This friendly waiter came by one time and suggested K and I have frozen non-alcholic Shirley Temples as we don't really drink. It was such a treat drinking them in the hot tub!
The other thing I noticed was how friendly all the guests were. As soon as we would sit down in the hot tub, the people already there would ask us where we were from or whether we went on any excursions that day. We met people vacationing from Australia, Tasmania, Texas, Wisconsin, Arizona, Canada, and so on.
We had docked in Maui, the first stop of the cruise. The hot tubs were busy that evening, son K and I chose to insert ourselves into a tub with 6 people already in it. They were all talking to each other, and we learned they had all been on an eco-adventure type excursion together. It had rained that day and the rope they needed to get across some river had washed away. The leader told them they had to hold hands to make it across. Two of the couples were long-time friends from Arizona in their late thirties celebrating anniversaries or something. The other 2 ladies were retired, good friends from Canada. Well, now they were all friends having bonded through this life-threatening experience. They joked, laughed and chatted about it over glasses of wine and bottles of beer which no doubt fed the easy cameraderie.
I was sitting beside one of the Canadian ladies who was explaining to me what had happened. It turns out she and her husband had been booked on this cruise for months and he developed a heart condition at the last minute. While it was not life-threatening, they did not want to take a chance with insurance and getting sick in the US. So her good friend was able to step in on a week's notice and take his place! This meant the first lady would be able to re-coup a large part of her costs.
We started talking about retirement. She said she kept busy with her passion for collecting antique jewellery. She goes to all the fairs and shows, builds up her stock and sells them on Ebay! In fact, the money she has made from this hobby paid her hotel costs this trip.
We also talked to the 2 couples from Arizona. One lady was a real estate agent and said there were a lot of Canadian retirees buying property in Arizona. She said her husband is a musician/entertainer who works on boat cruises in the San Diego area. Son K talked to her for a bit, she seemed very motherly. I forget details about the other couple except their real estate agent friend said they were a lot more wealthy than her!
Then there were the newlyweds from Wisconsin...I'll save that story for another day, hopefully before I forget those details!
