Hawaii Day 01
As is my custom, I did not sleep the night before the flight. We had some breakfast at the airport’s Au Bon Pain, and the ham and cheese croissant was surprisingly decent (and cheap). Our first leg of the trip (Pittsburgh to Chicago) was delayed 20 minutes, and we had only built in a 1 hour layover. We were pretty worried about this, and things got a little worse when we found we would be sitting next to an old guy with a HUGE oxygen tank. While not ideal, things worked out well and I was pretty conked out at this point. Before I knew it, we were in Chicago, and fortunately our arrival and departure gates were quite close (same terminal, across from each other). We actually used the United flight magazine to look up the automated help number to call ahead and find out where our gate was (while we were getting ready to de-plane). Chicago’s airport was very large and busy; it was very different from Pittsburgh. We managed to get to our gate about 10 minutes before boarding, so it worked out perfectly.
The next portion of the trip was much better. The plane was only about 75% full, and our whole five person row had just me and Bunky. I was able to lay down across three seats to sleep, and it was glorious. We got a good view of the TV too. We had to pay $5 for snack boxes and $7 for a crappy roast beef sandwich. Neither was very good, but we had a lot of snacks that we had packed beforehand. The movies were Prince Caspian and Leatherheads. I fell asleep after the first movie, although I woke up in time to catch half an episode of The Office. I woke up with about 2 hours left on the trip, so it wasn’t too bad at all. Once we approached the island, it was all beautiful blue seas and mountains.
Our bags were among the first out, so the traveling portion of the trip was about as perfect as you can get. Our bags came out in the first 10, so we grabbed our Subaru Impreza and hit the road. I am not a huge fan of the Impreza. The seats feel rather low in the car, and cannot be adjusted much higher. Also the steering column doesn’t adjust very high, and so blocks the dashboard! I can’t tell how fast I am going whenever I go above 40 MPH. However, the Impreza does have waaaaaay better acceleration than my xA.
The gas here is rather pricey ($4.60/gallon) and many of the roads are only one lane. It seems like there is not much in the middle of the island; the coastline is where all the action is. The drive was beautiful, all mountains and coastline. I was intrigued by all the hills with netting on them (to stop falling rocks, I assume). It took kinda a long time to get from the airport to the hotel, but our GPS unit performed admirably. Jill even had moderate success with the spoken Hawaiian names. I noticed a lot of the convertibles here are Mustang, probably because the tourists all rent cars.
The hotel is awesome. We just checked in and there is a rainbow outside of our lanai. We got a free upgrade to a partial-oceanside room on the 19th floor, and a photo album. The inside of the hotel is actually open like a courtyard, and the beach is right there. After showering up, we went to Whaler’s Village. I thought it would be a real village, but really it was more of a nice outdoor mall located on the resort premises. We had pizza for dinner, haha (Nikki’s Pizza).
After taking the shuttle back, we walked along the beach area by the hotel. It was near sunset, and I took a lot of pictures. There were penguins and flamingos right on the hotel grounds. We were really exhausted, so after that we called it a day and headed back to the hotel room. I still can’t believe we are in Hawaii!
By SarahB, 8/25/2008 @ 7:33 pm
I’m so glad you had an awesome hotel. Who did you stay with? Just curious because I work at The Hampton Inn and I always wonder how other hotels treat their patrons. The gas was definitely a bit high but oh well what can you do. Oh also let me tell you we’re having an awesome promotion so check it out
Hampton Inn is offering 10% of their best rate available until 9/1/08 we’re also giving away some great prizes leading up to the TEAM USA competing at the Olympic Games. Good Luck!!
http://hamptoninn.hilton.com/en/hp/promotions/hx_summerpromo08/index.jhtml;jsessionid=SXEZ4FIZDCG4OCSGBJF2VCQ?it=specials,dreams&cid=om,hx,dreams,specials
Sarah B
P.S.
Check out this funny video, called “Ballad of a Traveler”, it is hilarious. He totally sums up the travelers experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2tgnUsj8NE>
By Jesus159159159, 8/26/2008 @ 10:19 pm
For my trip to Peru, the airplane had TVs in all the chairs! It was pretty cool, cause they were all touchscreens and you could play multiplayer games with the other passengers! (I played Chess with my bro next to me :D) (and it included a remote on the side of the chairs that could be taken out and used as a gamepad!). It was also like a Video-On-Demand sort of thing, and I saw Hair Spray and the Simpsons Movie! Very cute movie (Hair Spray that is). :3 Though, my trip back didn’t have the touchscreen TVs
At least you didn’t throw up after the plane ride like I did (but it was a throw up for having too much fun on the plane! =D)