Altantis Submarine Adventure and Paradise Cove Luau
Adrian's been home on leave for the past couple of weeks, and we've used the spare time to catch up on some island activities that we missed before he left for the middle east. He has to go back to work on Tuesday, but we've had a great time and made some fantastic memories.
On Thursday we had a jam-packed day. We took a submarine tour in the morning, spent mid-day at the mall, and finished up the night with a luau.
We were kind of nervous about the sub tour because we didn't know how the kids (or me!) would react to it. We were running late (as usual), but arrived just in time to sit and wait for 20 minutes for the boat that transports passengers out to the submarine to arrive and pick us up.
We boarded the crowded boat and discovered that, in addition to having some nice plastic seats, the vessel also boasted a gift shop! Yes, a gift shop! Woohoo! We loaded up on dollar candy bars, AA batteries, and an overpriced refrigerator magnet, but decided against the Altantis submarine t-shirts that would have gotten stained within...oh, an hour or so of purchase.
I was impressed that I could use my visa debit card out on the open sea. Now THAT'S shopping!
We watched as the submarine surfaced, and that was a pretty neat sight. The sub blows air to let any nearby vessels know that it's coming up, and then you see the submarine through the water a bit. Finally, it erupts from the ocean, and when it does, it looks like this:
The submarine ride itself was only about 45 minutes. We were able to see all sorts of colorful little fish (although, I'd seen some of them before when we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay) but also some predator fish and sea urchins and coral and sea turtles. Obviously, Atlantis has no control over what we see or don't see, but it seemed like the right side of the submarine (the side we weren't on) got to see a lot more cool fish for some reason (conspiracy?).
Under the ocean we saw two large sunken ships, artificial reefs made out of all sorts of stuff, large portions of two airplanes (that was really cool), and some Japanese-made fiberglass pyramids filled with sea life. The sunken planes and ships would have been cooler if they'd actually went down in those spots instead of being purchased by Atlantis and sunk, but I guess I can't have high drama all the time.
A portion of one of the ships looked like this (can you spot the two sea turtles?):
The boys were thrilled with the little adventure and Adrian and I shared our deepest kiss (120 ft. under water). Something neat to note is that when you get deeper into the water, all red becomes filtered out. Everything looks blue or blue-green, like this:
(What I'm holding in that picture is a replica of the Plexiglas windows of the submarine (the inside of the window is covered with glass as well. The Plexiglas in the windows of the sub are three inches thick.)
And here's a pic of my guys enjoying the trip:
Here I am:
After the submarine tour was over, we goofed around a bit inside the Hawaiian Hilton Village. It's filled with shops and statues and waterfalls and sunburned tourists.
Here's a pic of Adrian and the boys goofing off with a giant tiki:
After dropping some cash at the mall, we headed out to the Paradise Cove Luau.
We got there just after a couple of huge tour buses had arrived, and so our wait in line was frustrating, but we had Mai Tais in hand in no time. The Paradise Cove Luau is fun because it has games and activities as well as food and entertainment. Adrian and the boys played with some of the traditional Hawaiian "toys" they had at some of the booths, and we watched the casting of the nets into the ocean and the ceremony to unearth the cooked kalua pig. We also saw a guy climb a palm tree (all the way to the top!) and shower the crowd with plumerias (Xavier hunted around until he found one to give to me, isn't he sweet?).
The boys even got traditional (well, kind of) Hawaiian tattoos:
Xavier got a fierce-looking shark, and Orian got a turtle.
Dinner was a buffet of traditional Hawaiian foods like the kalua pig (ha, I'm so greedy, I filled a third of my plate with that bad boy), white rice, macaroni salad, poi, haupia (kind of like coconut jello), taro rolls, and fresh pineapple, and not-so-traditional foods like fried chicken, iceberg lettuce salad, and banana-nut cake. The food was fantastic, though, and we all ended up completely stuffed. We also got three free drinks, and indulged ourselves in the ancient Mai Tais and Blue Hawaiis that the local's ancestors so enjoyed.
While we ate, we were treated with a show by dancers representing many of the Polynesian islands. The costumes were incredible. The entertainment wrapped up with an exciting fire show that had the kids the most attentive I've ever seen them.
Despite the inebriated looking grins on their faces, the boys did not partake of anything harder than guava juice with a shot of cherry syrup:
It was a really fun and busy day, and I hope that the boys will always remember the special things they got to see and do when they lived in Hawaii.
And as a bonus (well, because I like posting pictures), here's some un-related pics:
Here's the boys burying daddy in the sand at Bellows (much of the upper body work was thanks to me...I've got skills).
And that's a sleepy little honu resting on the beach at North Shore.