South Pacific Cruise, Part 5 – Hawaii: Hilo & Honolulu
Cruise to Hawaii; Aliens, like me: immigration frustration in Hilo; walking it off; Michener’s Hawaii; Hilo Highlights tour; 3 days in Oahu; shopping Honolulu’s Ala Moana; ghastly strawberry guava jam and other sugary low-lights; Round the Island coach tour of O’ahu; upscale local fare at Fete in Honolulu’s Chinatown; walking to Waikiki, wow!; seen around the ship
Our first stop in the Americas! Fun fact: Hawaii is the 50th state – the 49th being Alaska and the 48th Arizona.
Cruise to Hawaii with aliens like me
Clearing immigration into the States was a most annoying exercise, as it turned out that physical visa-holders like me (only a handful of us on board, it seemed) did need an I-94 form, without which the officials declared we couldn’t be processed. (Non-pariahs like Roy, all of whom were on the e-visa system, simply filled in the visa-waiver form.)
Eventually, a clever woman with an even cleverer smartphone was apparently able to call up the entire USA immigration admin system, match my new visa photo to their records – which included a previous 10-year US visa that expired eight or nine years ago – and let me off the ship and into the country.
