Hilo - Celebrity Eclipse Honolulu to Vancouver Land Cruise Trip - May 14, 2023

Today's stop was in Hilo on the big island.  This was the first time the ship would actually dock (as opposed to anchoring in the harbor) since we left Honolulu making it easy to just walk off when we were ready.

But first I was up early to watch the ship pick up a local pilot and make our way into port.

A tugboat was ready to assist in case we needed it.

We booked an excursion through Viator for today's port called Hilo Shore Excursion:  Volcanoes National Park, Rainbow Falls and Highlights run by C Big Island Tours.  This would prove to be a great tour.

We checked in for our tour in the port building and were on our way by 9:15 a.m. (15 minutes earlier than scheduled as they sent buses as soon as they filled them).  Our first stop was a black sand beach (Richardson Ocean Park).  There was a light rain when we made this stop but it didn't stop us from checking it out.  As I was heading back to the bus, I noticed an adorable Saffron Finch that was happy to let me take its photograph.

Next up was a Japanese Garden at Liliuokalani Park and Gardens.

Young Black Crowned Night Heron

Saw more Saffron Finches at this park

There was a quick stop at the statute of Kamehameha the Great who was the conquerer and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Then we continued on to Rainbow Falls which you could easily access from an easy paved path (with a few steps) from the parking lot.

At the top of the falls is a short trail into a rainforest area

The highlight of this excursion was Volcanoes National Park.  We stopped by the main sign and then continued on to two different stops with views of Kilauea Crater.

This boulder was thrown from the crater.

Although there wasn't an immediate threat to an eruption, they have been noticing more activity so are closely monitoring the volcano.  

It had started to rain again by the time we reached this second viewpoint but it was worth it for an even better view of the crater!

After viewing the crater, we continued on to walk through a lava tube, a cave created by moving lava (Thurston Lava Tube).  We walked down through a lush forest with a lot of ferns to get to the entrance of the lava tube.  And then climbed back up at the end.

Our guide mentioned this catwalk (didn't have time to snap a shot without any people) was used to film part of Jurassic Park III around the aviary where pterodactyls came out, will have to go back and watch that scene!  

Our last stop was Big Island Candies for some amazing chocolates and other treats.

We were there on a Sunday so it wasn't running but they did have viewing windows to watch the process.

The bus then returned us to the ship with plenty of time to spare before sail away.

Once again, a tugboat was at the ready for our sail away and I even got a great short video of the local pilot disembarking and waving goodbye to the ship.

I can't tell you what exactly we did later that evening, the days tend to blend together as I try to put together this blog, but as we did every night (but the last), we ate in the main dining room and then that night was the first of three different nights (every other night) that we would turn the clocks forward an hour as we set sail for British Columbia.