On March 8th at around 8:00am, the Pacific Princess entered the Apra Harbor passing many naval ships and submarines as we made our way to our dock in Guam (territory of the USA). Guam and the Aleutian Islands were the only two U.S. Territories to be captured by the Japanese during World War II. Guam has become a major tourist destination with more than 80 percent of the tourist coming from Japan.
Today, we headed out for Hagatna which is the capital of Guam and the Tumon Beach area. It was interesting to note how high gasoline prices are here on the island. Unleaded gasoline was $4.97 and the rising. Since Guam has no mass transit system, the ratio of cars to citizens is almost 1 to 1.
The island has some very impressive reefs, clear blue waters, and great beaches. Most of the major hotel chains have beach front locations. Our shuttle bus dropped us off at the Hyatt Regency which was convenient to many locations. We took advantage of their complementary Wi-Fi and got caught up on email. After that, we boarded the Red Guahan Shuttle similar to a “hop on/hop off” and toured the city. After lunch at Ruby Tuesday’s we returned to the Hyatt and then back to the ship.
Our ship departed at 5:00pm, en route Iwo Jima.
