Who's up for a visit to Hawai'i? Well, we have been. For about 10 years we've been planning this one and it is finally here. If you happened to follow our trip reports, yes, we just got back from Disney World less than a week ago. And, no, we are not made of $$. In fact, my wife and I are both high school teachers just outside Baltimore, Maryland. We have been saving and planning for this Hawai'i trip for quite some time. This summer's visit to The World was a bit of a surprise. We are DVC members and already had annual passes from our visit last summer. We had just enough points to visit DW and our daughter wanted to do the Disney Soccer Academy, so it all worked out for us to do two vacations this summer. The flip side is....we'll be eating Ramen Noodles 3 meals a day for the next few months.
Anyway, you didn't sign up to hear our budgeting plans or anything, you are here to see pictures (and maybe a tale or two) of Hawai'i, I'll bet!
So, we'll start at the beginning! On Tuesday morning, we were up at 3am and driving to the airport by 4am. We were getting to the airport because there had been a name error with our tickets which (according to the person on the phone at USAirways) had been resolved, but we wanted to get there early to make sure. Turns out, nothing was resolved and they wanted to charge us $200 to fix things. After significant arguing and frustration with the total lack of quality customer service (at one point, the teller just walked away while I was asking a question and went through a door and closed it), my wife checked with TSA to see if they would accept multiple IDs with our tickets and they said it was no problem at all. People use the term "money grab" quite a bit around here and to me, this was a true money grab. Basically, USAirways said "they won't let you through security with that problem and it will cost you $200 to fix it. And we refuse to acknowledge the fact that you already fixed it with us a couple months ago" to which TSA said, "No problem, you're all set." OK, airline complaints aside....by 7am Maryland time we were on the plane and about 2pm Hawai'i time we were landing in Honolulu.
Got our luggage, caught our shuttle bus, and were at Aulani by 4pm. Here's the view coming into our room - yes, we really liked the woodwork on the door!
We had an 'island garden view' room, which basically means you are facing away from the ocean, but aren't over the parking lot. Well, my wife did some research and put in a specific room request and boy did she score big time. Here is the view from our balcony.
And here is a little stowaway from the Disney World trip last week.
Once we had settled into the room, we decided that we were pretty seriously needing some food, so we headed downstairs and tracked down some eats. Our daughter simply got chicken tenders and chips (10 hours in the plane made it tough to be food adventurous) while my wife and I split a bbq/guava pork flatbread from Ulu (one of the counter service restaurants). Food was great and the view of the ocean (don't worry those pics will be coming later) was amazing. We also picked up the refillable mugs since we plan to be staying in the resort area for at least 4-5 days this week and it is definitely a good savings for us to get them.
After eating, we came back up to the room crazy tired and almost ready to turn in at 6pm. But, that would be giving in to jet lag, so...put on the swimsuits and went out to the pool! A quick turn in the lazy river and then some swimming in the infinity pool was actually quite relaxing and the water was good for all the sore muscles from 10 hours of plane seats. We just spent about 45 minutes enjoying and then did head back to the room.
Anyway, you didn't sign up to hear our budgeting plans or anything, you are here to see pictures (and maybe a tale or two) of Hawai'i, I'll bet!
So, we'll start at the beginning! On Tuesday morning, we were up at 3am and driving to the airport by 4am. We were getting to the airport because there had been a name error with our tickets which (according to the person on the phone at USAirways) had been resolved, but we wanted to get there early to make sure. Turns out, nothing was resolved and they wanted to charge us $200 to fix things. After significant arguing and frustration with the total lack of quality customer service (at one point, the teller just walked away while I was asking a question and went through a door and closed it), my wife checked with TSA to see if they would accept multiple IDs with our tickets and they said it was no problem at all. People use the term "money grab" quite a bit around here and to me, this was a true money grab. Basically, USAirways said "they won't let you through security with that problem and it will cost you $200 to fix it. And we refuse to acknowledge the fact that you already fixed it with us a couple months ago" to which TSA said, "No problem, you're all set." OK, airline complaints aside....by 7am Maryland time we were on the plane and about 2pm Hawai'i time we were landing in Honolulu.
Got our luggage, caught our shuttle bus, and were at Aulani by 4pm. Here's the view coming into our room - yes, we really liked the woodwork on the door!
We had an 'island garden view' room, which basically means you are facing away from the ocean, but aren't over the parking lot. Well, my wife did some research and put in a specific room request and boy did she score big time. Here is the view from our balcony.
And here is a little stowaway from the Disney World trip last week.
Once we had settled into the room, we decided that we were pretty seriously needing some food, so we headed downstairs and tracked down some eats. Our daughter simply got chicken tenders and chips (10 hours in the plane made it tough to be food adventurous) while my wife and I split a bbq/guava pork flatbread from Ulu (one of the counter service restaurants). Food was great and the view of the ocean (don't worry those pics will be coming later) was amazing. We also picked up the refillable mugs since we plan to be staying in the resort area for at least 4-5 days this week and it is definitely a good savings for us to get them.
After eating, we came back up to the room crazy tired and almost ready to turn in at 6pm. But, that would be giving in to jet lag, so...put on the swimsuits and went out to the pool! A quick turn in the lazy river and then some swimming in the infinity pool was actually quite relaxing and the water was good for all the sore muscles from 10 hours of plane seats. We just spent about 45 minutes enjoying and then did head back to the room.
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