February 11, 2014. The Queen Elizabeth. Honolulu, Hawaii.

Today, while everyone else was out on excursions, Ken and I explored the ship. At 9:00 am, The Queen Elizabeth arrived at Dock 11 in Honolulu. The weather was perfect so passengers flocked ashore, getting on buses or walking along the shore to shop. We leave at 11:30 pm so folks will be able to tour the whole island. The tours seemed interesting but we had been to everywhere before, so we decided to explore the ship. The ship was empty. Even the swimming pools had no people, so we were able to enter every restaurant and every bar in the whole ship. And we talked to the working people too. As there were no passengers to be served, they were more than welcome to chat with us. We even ate lunch at the wrong restaurant. On this ship, when you book your cabin, you are assigned to a restaurant, where you can eat every meal. There are two casual buffet restaurants where you can eat at any time, but the regular, formal restaurants are assigned. But today, after touring the restaurant on the second floor, The Brittania Restaurant, the man in charge welcomed us to stay for lunch, so we did. The couple next to us were from New Zealand so we enjoyed our conversation with them. This ship has lots of beautiful bars, which we saw for the first time today. The décor and the art work on this ship are beautiful. Today, it took us two hours, but we took the time to enjoy it all. It is about time!!