So we jetted off from tropical Fiji, bound for Hawaii, USA. We left Fiji Good Friday night and due to the time difference we landed in Honolulu Good Friday morning, 6 am.
Aloha!
After being dropped off at our hotel by our taxi (who Sandy gave a 30% tip too?? She isn’t too good with the money/budget thing as most already know). (Lucky I have Jon, it’s a great way to get him to do all the work!!) We found we couldn’t check into our room until 12 noon (it was 7am), all good as we were still able to have the hotels continental breakfast. Consisting of, wait for it, mini donuts, pancakes, muffins, toast with the choice of butter, cream cheese or cinnamon sugar (most American guests where JAMMING on the cream cheese and topping it off with the cinnamon!) pineapples – which we have had coming out of our ears since we left Australia, and bananas. That was ok, at least there was some fruit and the bananas were perfect. Little did we know it would be the last time we saw banana’s on the menu, too healthy obviously.
First point about the stay in Hawaii. Tipping, what you need to know; Tip EVERYONE! if a bus driver smiles and says hello as he drives past you tip him, if the hotel receptionist answers a question you tip her, it is crazy, apparently the mainland US isn’t as bad, we’ll have to wait and see.
Hawaii wasn’t really what we were expecting. Actually, not too sure what we were expecting from this part of our trip, maybe exotic beaches, cocktails by the pool, hula girls, sun tanning babes! We stayed in Waikiki, which was pretty full on, hundreds of hotels, convenience shops, restaurants and retail shops.
Day 1:
Walked around the city for bit trying to get our bearings. Even though it was good Friday EVERYTHING was open, including the massive Almo Mona Shopping complex (second biggest in the USA). We caught the bus, yes Sandy caught public transport! And walked into the biggest food court we have ever seen, you name it they had it, mexican, chinease, french, mexican, fast food, slow food, mexican. After walking around and getting lost, we headed back to the hotel to rest up a little.
Day 2
Early start for us, grabbed a StarBucks Coffee and headed out on the bus again, for the farmers markets and hike up Diamond Head (I think I got a photo of it, will check and post). Both these activities were great. The farmers market was similar to our local Sunday markets just with Hawaiian produce, and the walk up Diamonds head had the best views of Honolulu. With nothing planned for the afternoon we figured we would just jump on the first bus we saw and see where it took us.
Destination Sea Life Park, on the south-east side of the island about 45-60min away from Waikiki. It didn’t look like much as we rolled up, sort of an old 80’s sea park, little run down, but it was pretty cool inside. Caught an insane dolphin show, checked out the usual sea creatures close up and got to have our first American Hotdog!
We ended the day with a guided twilight tour of the Honolulu Zoo (2 hours, of which 45 minutes was spent looking at and learing about Pink Flamingos???)
Day 3:
After experiencing the local bus south we figured it was a fairly decent & cheap form of travel around the island, so we got up early again jumped on the bus bound for Pearl Harbour.
This is a must do experience if you go to Hawaii, even as Aussies, the whole experience of the tour is pretty moving. Best part of the tour was meeting a survivor of the Arizona who told us his story about December 7, 1941 - it is definitely a highlight of the trip so far.
With that being said the low light has to have been the bus trip home, time waiting for the bus 1hour 15 min, bus ride home 1hour 30 min, chances of us catching public transport around the island again, 0%.
Figuring charted tours were the way to go we headed back to the hotel to book ourselves into as many tours as we could for our final two days on the island.
That night we were booked in for Germaine’s Luau, an authentic (or as close too, tourist experience) Hawaiian party. It was another hour bus ride to get out, although this time it was a private charter and the bus ride to and from the Luau was good fun thanks to our driver, Cousin Wally, who kept us all entertained with Hawaiian stories, jokes and songs. The Luau itself was an all you can eat buffet (man do Americans love their buffets, and boy can they eat) included in the price of the ticket was 3 complimentary cocktails (which was great as it only takes me 1 cocktail to start getting boozed) The night was like an Hawaiian cabaret show, good value all round. We sat with some other Aussies who were great fun. I won the 3rd prize on the door giveaway! Chocolates, lollies and a massive cocktail glass, which we had to unfortunately leave behind in our hotel as we really didn’t have time to post it home, would have made the perfect wine glass!!
Day 4:
3rd day in a row we were up and off early, only this time we had a 6am pick up. We had seen Hanuema bay on bus trip home from the Sea Life Park and it looked so amazing from the lookout point we knew it was a must for us. The tour consisted of hotel pickup & drop off and snorkel hire.
The bay was formed from a dormant volcano head that the ocean had breached and filled up. It consists of 36 different types of fish and if you’re lucky enough some morning sea turtles come in to feed, we were not lucky enough. Sandy was a little scared (shit scared) of snorkelling but once in the water took to it like a fish to water (pardon the pun). We snorkelled around for a couple of hours and then finally got to do what we came to Hawaii for, lay in the sun and sleep! It was awesome.
Tour 2 for the day was the North Shore tour of our island. We were picked up by our bus 20 minutes after being dropped off from snorkelling so it was pretty go go go, our tour driver was a surfer dude called Harry. He was a riot, and loved us Aussies! Although he had only lived on the island 5 years his knowledge of the island, its customs, history and natural environment was unbelievable, seriously not sure if we should believe everything he told us.
This tour consisted of a trip to the east side of the island, visited the shrimp farms (prawns for all you down under) whale watching, sunset beach, pipeline, turtle beach, and a stop off in the little town where they hold the triple crown surfing competition every year.
Day 5:
Ok, our last day on the island before we were due to jetset across to the mainland. This blog is a little lengthy so we’ll keep it short. We had booked ourselves in to a day tour of the Big Island (Kona). The gist of the tour was, got up at 3:30am, flew out at 7am, got on a bus for 10 hours, drove over 400km, it rained nearly all day, saw a cool waterfall, one of the world’s most active volcano, had a buffet for lunch (told you they love their food) stopped at a black sand beach and finished it off with a drive past the spot where our beloved Captain James Cook was killed. All in all a very long and tiring day, got home at 10pm and had to be up by 5am for a 7am flight...... good times.
Ok so we are now on the plane to LA, off to Disney Land tomorrow (rides, rides, rides) (Not on your life, it’s the tea cups for me all day!) (Don’t be a girl, Jonny! If he doesn’t go on some ADULT rides with me, I’m going to talk about the wedding for the rest of the trip, right up to January!! Tough decision, Sandy – 1 Jon - 0)
Talk again soon
Mahalo
Aloha!
After being dropped off at our hotel by our taxi (who Sandy gave a 30% tip too?? She isn’t too good with the money/budget thing as most already know). (Lucky I have Jon, it’s a great way to get him to do all the work!!) We found we couldn’t check into our room until 12 noon (it was 7am), all good as we were still able to have the hotels continental breakfast. Consisting of, wait for it, mini donuts, pancakes, muffins, toast with the choice of butter, cream cheese or cinnamon sugar (most American guests where JAMMING on the cream cheese and topping it off with the cinnamon!) pineapples – which we have had coming out of our ears since we left Australia, and bananas. That was ok, at least there was some fruit and the bananas were perfect. Little did we know it would be the last time we saw banana’s on the menu, too healthy obviously.
First point about the stay in Hawaii. Tipping, what you need to know; Tip EVERYONE! if a bus driver smiles and says hello as he drives past you tip him, if the hotel receptionist answers a question you tip her, it is crazy, apparently the mainland US isn’t as bad, we’ll have to wait and see.
Hawaii wasn’t really what we were expecting. Actually, not too sure what we were expecting from this part of our trip, maybe exotic beaches, cocktails by the pool, hula girls, sun tanning babes! We stayed in Waikiki, which was pretty full on, hundreds of hotels, convenience shops, restaurants and retail shops.
Day 1:
Walked around the city for bit trying to get our bearings. Even though it was good Friday EVERYTHING was open, including the massive Almo Mona Shopping complex (second biggest in the USA). We caught the bus, yes Sandy caught public transport! And walked into the biggest food court we have ever seen, you name it they had it, mexican, chinease, french, mexican, fast food, slow food, mexican. After walking around and getting lost, we headed back to the hotel to rest up a little.
Day 2
Early start for us, grabbed a StarBucks Coffee and headed out on the bus again, for the farmers markets and hike up Diamond Head (I think I got a photo of it, will check and post). Both these activities were great. The farmers market was similar to our local Sunday markets just with Hawaiian produce, and the walk up Diamonds head had the best views of Honolulu. With nothing planned for the afternoon we figured we would just jump on the first bus we saw and see where it took us.
Destination Sea Life Park, on the south-east side of the island about 45-60min away from Waikiki. It didn’t look like much as we rolled up, sort of an old 80’s sea park, little run down, but it was pretty cool inside. Caught an insane dolphin show, checked out the usual sea creatures close up and got to have our first American Hotdog!
We ended the day with a guided twilight tour of the Honolulu Zoo (2 hours, of which 45 minutes was spent looking at and learing about Pink Flamingos???)
Day 3:
After experiencing the local bus south we figured it was a fairly decent & cheap form of travel around the island, so we got up early again jumped on the bus bound for Pearl Harbour.
This is a must do experience if you go to Hawaii, even as Aussies, the whole experience of the tour is pretty moving. Best part of the tour was meeting a survivor of the Arizona who told us his story about December 7, 1941 - it is definitely a highlight of the trip so far.
With that being said the low light has to have been the bus trip home, time waiting for the bus 1hour 15 min, bus ride home 1hour 30 min, chances of us catching public transport around the island again, 0%.
Figuring charted tours were the way to go we headed back to the hotel to book ourselves into as many tours as we could for our final two days on the island.
That night we were booked in for Germaine’s Luau, an authentic (or as close too, tourist experience) Hawaiian party. It was another hour bus ride to get out, although this time it was a private charter and the bus ride to and from the Luau was good fun thanks to our driver, Cousin Wally, who kept us all entertained with Hawaiian stories, jokes and songs. The Luau itself was an all you can eat buffet (man do Americans love their buffets, and boy can they eat) included in the price of the ticket was 3 complimentary cocktails (which was great as it only takes me 1 cocktail to start getting boozed) The night was like an Hawaiian cabaret show, good value all round. We sat with some other Aussies who were great fun. I won the 3rd prize on the door giveaway! Chocolates, lollies and a massive cocktail glass, which we had to unfortunately leave behind in our hotel as we really didn’t have time to post it home, would have made the perfect wine glass!!
Day 4:
3rd day in a row we were up and off early, only this time we had a 6am pick up. We had seen Hanuema bay on bus trip home from the Sea Life Park and it looked so amazing from the lookout point we knew it was a must for us. The tour consisted of hotel pickup & drop off and snorkel hire.
The bay was formed from a dormant volcano head that the ocean had breached and filled up. It consists of 36 different types of fish and if you’re lucky enough some morning sea turtles come in to feed, we were not lucky enough. Sandy was a little scared (shit scared) of snorkelling but once in the water took to it like a fish to water (pardon the pun). We snorkelled around for a couple of hours and then finally got to do what we came to Hawaii for, lay in the sun and sleep! It was awesome.
Tour 2 for the day was the North Shore tour of our island. We were picked up by our bus 20 minutes after being dropped off from snorkelling so it was pretty go go go, our tour driver was a surfer dude called Harry. He was a riot, and loved us Aussies! Although he had only lived on the island 5 years his knowledge of the island, its customs, history and natural environment was unbelievable, seriously not sure if we should believe everything he told us.
This tour consisted of a trip to the east side of the island, visited the shrimp farms (prawns for all you down under) whale watching, sunset beach, pipeline, turtle beach, and a stop off in the little town where they hold the triple crown surfing competition every year.
Day 5:
Ok, our last day on the island before we were due to jetset across to the mainland. This blog is a little lengthy so we’ll keep it short. We had booked ourselves in to a day tour of the Big Island (Kona). The gist of the tour was, got up at 3:30am, flew out at 7am, got on a bus for 10 hours, drove over 400km, it rained nearly all day, saw a cool waterfall, one of the world’s most active volcano, had a buffet for lunch (told you they love their food) stopped at a black sand beach and finished it off with a drive past the spot where our beloved Captain James Cook was killed. All in all a very long and tiring day, got home at 10pm and had to be up by 5am for a 7am flight...... good times.
Ok so we are now on the plane to LA, off to Disney Land tomorrow (rides, rides, rides) (Not on your life, it’s the tea cups for me all day!) (Don’t be a girl, Jonny! If he doesn’t go on some ADULT rides with me, I’m going to talk about the wedding for the rest of the trip, right up to January!! Tough decision, Sandy – 1 Jon - 0)
Talk again soon
Mahalo
Emotional blackmail Sandy ... harsh but fair. Adult rides Jon ... you've been owned.
ReplyDeleteHi guys.. Sounds like your trip is well underway after a few hicups...LOL
ReplyDeleteFirstly - Congratulations on the engagement, that is just wonderful news..
Enjoy Disneyland - jon I hope you go on the tea cups -at least..ha ha ha
Take care and look forward to your next installment..
Sandy, i'll post some photos of annmarie's wedding on my blog after Saturday so you can check it out!!
Take care
Kris xx