Our latest trip, this time to Hawaii (or more correctly Hawai’i, but I’ll stick with the far easier to type version), began as all the other ones seem to — with about 30 minutes of sleep. We’ve really got to get better at packing, we always think we’ve started early enough to get a decent night’s sleep but always, always, end up in a panic at the end as we throw stuff into suitcases and hurry out the door. Though Hawaii should be an easier destination than say St. Lucia due to the availability of the same goods and services you’d expect elsewhere in the United States (except more expensive), there were enough annoying specialized things like prescription snorkeling masks, medicine, clip-on sunglasses, and camera stuff that it was important to have some planning in the packing process.
Anyhow, collapsed in bed at 3:30a prior to our 4a wake-up alarm. Awake not nearly refreshed and do the final packing (and in Addison’s case, all the packing) and house prep before our taxi was set to arrive at 5:15a. Yes, we’re old people, I still don’t really fully trust Uber or Lyft.
Maybe I should have. The taxi driver sure seemed tired — AC blasting, a little weave-y on the road, and stopping waaaaay too early at stoplights and such. Thankfully (maybe) once he got on the interstate he was quite the speed demon and we made it to the airport shortly after 5:30a.
I figured 5:30a on a mid-may Wednesday would be a perfectly empty time at the airport and boy was I wrong. The line for American (and other airlines it shares the kiosks and baggage check-in with) snaked around the terminal lobby. As we had already printed our boarding passes (thank you Michelle!) we ended up doing curb-side and that, combined with TSA pre-check (on all four of us, miraculously) got us to our gate fairly quickly. We had just enough time for some Breuggers bagels (mine had “peppered bacon” and yes, it was nasty) before setting off to Dallas-Fort Worth at about 7:30a.
The flight was largely uneventful. At least I think it was. I was knocked out stone cold for the majority of it. Unfortunately so was Addison and as a result he didn’t pop his ears properly and was in considerable pain prior to landing. Genetta wasn’t doing great either as she had been harboring a cold for a day or so and it was really asserting itself. It was a smaller plane, 3 seats left / 3 seats right, and felt downright cramped by the time we had taxied to the gate. I thought we’d never stop taxiing, I was only half-joking when I suggested to Addison that maybe there had been an itinerary change and we were driving the plane to Los Angeles then flying on to Honolulu. It didn’t help that we had a tight connection to our flight to Honolulu to add a bit to the normal travel stress.
We needn’t have worried, we disembarked at a gate in the same concourse as our departure gate. Not to say the departure gate was near — nothing is near in DFW — but it was nice to not have to change concourses (DFW has five total, accessible via a nifty monorail called SkyLink). Addison and I got some Chick-fil-A breakfast (mainly some sausage-type biscuits, hashbrowns, sweet teas, that sort of thing, you know, health food) and we ate at the gate quickly before boarding. I learned a few things in that pre-boarding time. First, that the flight from Dallas to Honolulu was a bit longer than I thought by about two hours (going from five to seven) and second, Hawaii is normally five hours behind (sharing a timezone with the Aleutians of Alaska) but doesn’t observe daylight savings time. So tack on another hour for that and then a little extra for strong headwinds and we were looking at nearly nine hours in the air. Addison wasn’t pleased at the nearly 100% increase in flight time that he was promised. Ooops.
Once in the air it got a bit better. A proper plane makes all the difference — this one a 3 left / 4 middle / 3 right and glorious in-headrest entertainment. I watched Bohemian Rhapsody (perfectly fine, though with crappy earbuds I’m sure it lost some impact, and I’m still scratching my head over Best Actor on that one) and parts of Into the Spider-verse, Fifty First Dates (due to it being set on Oahu), Star Wars (the OG), and a couple other movies. I just couldn’t settle on one, but jumping around as well as playing with the flight tracking app had me good to go. Michelle watched The Boy Who Would Be King or somesuch. The food wasn’t too bad, lunch was Asian chicken wraps with ginger soy dipping sauce, Hawaiian kettle chips, and some chocolate covered fruit and granola that was quite good. That and some snacks (including those tasty Biscoff cookie wafer things) and drinks helped lots.
In Flight Map, all the entertainment I ever need on flights!
We finally landed at just after 2p Honolulu time, 8p back at home. Right at the gate we were met by a lady that told us where to find the transportation to our hotel (as we weren’t renting a car on Oahu due to traffic and parking fees being exorbitant) as well as gave us each a welcoming lei. No, it wasn’t free — our travel agent had said it was a fun thing to do and it kind of was. Kind of still scratching my head how a non-airport non-traveler person was allowed in the gate area but hey Hawaii. Our fiftieth state!
The (very tired) Youngs with their welcome leis (lei?)
The airport was big but also had a loose vibe (in addition to strangers bearing flowers wandering around past the security checkpoint). The bathroom stick figures wore Hawaiian shirts and dresses and the Hawaiian words for “men” (or, perhaps, “brah”) and “women” was just under the English. Parts of it were connected by open air bridges that crossed over lush landscaping that included gorgeous (and large!) blossoms. Baggage claim was pretty laid-back too and we soon found ourselves outside on the curb with Lady Lei and two strangers waiting for our limo van.
Yeah, Hawaii…
Lush airport landscaping
Control tower at Honolulu’s Daniel K. Inouye International Airport
As a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met (or a scary murder hobo you really shouldn’t under any circumstance be talking to) and I really, really like to talk once the older of the two noticed Michelle’s Louisiana Music Factory shirt (or perhaps our WW2 Museum luggage tags) and struck up a conversation about New Orleans we were off to the races. The were from Slidell and it was a mother and daughter on vacation in Hawaii celebrating the daughter’s graduation from the University of South Carolina. Weeee, another connection!
We talked about our plans (they were doing Oahu then Maui) and other things as we were driven through the highly congested Honolulu streets to our hotel — the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. Along the way we passed dockyards (cargo containers emblazoned with “Young Brothers” were everywhere), an impressive Coast Guard cutter, and many buildings with murals. Honolulu has many impressively tall buildings and the city sprawls up the valleys and ridges of the mountains to its north. The mountains were amazing — lush with vegetation and suitably craggy with white cloud banks stationed atop them permanently.
Unsurprisingly, we added Hawaii to our list of plates that we’ve been accumulating (in any order, no, never doing the A to Z again!) — leaving only Montana. Some (very faint) hope of that — we did see Colorado and Washington despite being on an island thousands of miles in the middle of the Pacific! We arrived at the resort and I stood in a quite long line to check-in while Michelle (not feeling great) and Genetta (ditto) stayed with the luggage and Addison went off exploring. He returned with some fruit for Michelle (and his favorite Teriyaki beef jerky which he excitedly told us was quite astonishingly $6 cheaper in Hawaii) and that, combined with free water bottles handed out during the wait to check in, saw the ladies through the process and had us off to our rooms by around 4p.
We were staying in the Rainbow Tower in oceanfront room 1027. When booking our hotels through the travel agent I had asked for oceanfront if possible and had grappled with whether it worth the increase in price. The view from our room allayed those doubts — we had a beautiful view of Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head, a volcanic cone right on the coast, beyond. Below sprawled one of many pools on-site. The only disappointment was that we didn’t get the two queen beds that were requested (and the reservation said they weren’t guaranteed) so we had two fulls. Not ideal but workable. The room itself was nice enough with a large screen TV (still unused two days later) and a decent bathroom (albeit with a funky sliding door) and a nice balcony with two chairs and a small round table.
View down Waikiki Beach (and Diamond Head in the distance) from our room
The “Super Pool” of the Hilton Hawaiian Village
As we were extremely hungry and tired we decided to head to dinner just shy of 5p. We wandered down to the lobby then along the pool area replete with waterfalls and ponds filled with koi and smaller blue fish to the Tropics Bar & Grill across the way in the ground floor of an adjacent tower. We were seated almost immediately. The food was fairly expensive (it being Hawaii) but the servings were very generous. Honestly it was a situation where I’d gladly pay two-thirds the price for half the food. Michelle had fish and chips, Genetta has chicken wings, Addison had nachos with kalua pork (pork cooked in an underground oven, often see at luaus), and I had a slab of beef brisket accompanied with corn on the cob, fresh vegetables, and very tasty potato salad. It was different, though, being more like roasted potato wedges with a herb garlic and scallion topping. It was great. Michelle had a sweet tea with ginger pineapple flavoring adorned with a pineapple wedge and tropical flower.
Koi swimming about a pond at the Hilton
Beautiful tropical plants and waterfalls everywhere
The Rainbow Tower, our home for the next three days
Michelle’s fancy fruity tea
BBQ beef brisket with excellent “herb” potato salad
As we were wrapping up a guy wearing a leaf crown and Polynesian garb (mainly just a loincloth) ran around the resort lighting all of the tiki torches in the vicinity. We returned to the room (via the funky elevator system where you punch in your floor in the lobby and it directs you to the correct elevator and from there it is mostly a direct trip). Michelle and Genetta relaxed while Addison and I changed and headed back down to the beach. We watched the sunset at around 7p and swam a bit in the fairly warm ocean water (after a brief period of adjustment). Sadly I only had the GoPro with me (as we were swimming) so couldn’t get great shots of the spectacular sunset). In addition to sand there were bits of coral like rock. One nice thing was that the water was perfectly clear unlike at home. After getting out we dried off a bit and rinsed off our feet and shoes before heading up to the room to shower. Exhausted, we collapsed in our beds about 8p.
View of Waikiki Beach at sunset from our room
Sunset on Waikiki Beach
Diamond Head in the late evening light
The pool area of the Hilton lit up for the night