Our flight from the mainland to Hawaii was 9 hours long. I have to say, I was unpleasantly surprised that for almost $1000 a ticket ($924.86 to be exact) that we had to pay $25 for each checked bag (total $50) and that no food at all was free on board, not even some peanuts. For $10 you could get a sandwich, but the flight attendants made sure to let people know they didn't have enough for everyone. What? What am I paying for? At least my Coke was free. I will be writing to the airline to complain about this. While I understand this is a domestic flight, it's 9 hours! Throw us a bag of peanuts for our money! Mr. and I always travel with a hefty load of treats because I don't really like airline food so we didn't starve but still. The icing on the cake was that our movie there was Tron Legacy and coming back was Justin Beiber: Never Say Never. Thank heaven we brought our own DVD player and lots of activities to keep us entertained. Anyways, we arrived in Hawaii unscathed around 3:30PM on Friday.
We spent the first two nights in Oahu because this was both of our first time to Hawaii and we wanted to see Pearl Harbor.
So to PH we went on Saturday bright and early. We like to economize every once in awhile but after waiting forever for the public bus and googling at the bus stop how long it actually was to PH, we called an audible and took a cab. I will say our new iPhones came quite in handy because 1. we got lost finding the bus stop and it was able to tell us exactly where to go 2. we could look at bus schedules and maps on the go. Fantastic!
Arriving at Pearl Harbor, we walked the grounds until our time to see the Arizona Memorial. It's a timed entry because you go over to it on a boat after watching a short film. Key point: Everything we read said you are not allowed to bring any kind of food or beverage or bag to the AZ. So we did not buy any water. I was dying and hence drank out of the water fountain in my previous post. You can in fact bring water. So if you are heading there, all bags can be checked and bring a bottled water. At the AZ, we were surprised at how much it smelled like oil. Oil is still leaking out from the ship but it was still surprising.
After the AZ, Mr. and I took the tour of the battleship USS Missouri (the Mighty MO!) where Japan surrendered to the US at the end of WWII and the Bowfin submarine. We also saw the USS Oklahoma memorial. At the start of both the MO and the Bowfin, they take your picture and yes we were roped into buying both of the pics. Hee! At least with the MO, we got free dog tags with our name on them. I have to say that life on a submarine is not for me. I am way too claustrophobic to ever want to live in some place where you are sandwiched in and stuck under water. I am having a panic attack just thinking about it.
After PH, Mr. and I had some time so we went to the Waikiki Aquarium. I expected a bit more to be honest. I thought they would have like a dolphin show or something. I guess there is some kind of fish park elsewhere that has more attractions. We did see some cool fish though.
On the shuttle bus ride at Pearl Harbor, our driver mentioned that SPAM Jam was happening that night. Now, my family is nuts when it comes to SPAM. In fact, Mr. was introduced to my entire extended family at SPAMFest, a party devoted entirely to SPAM with only SPAM foods and we all wore SPAM shirts. It was quite the event so we had no choice but to go to this. We didn't sample any of the SPAM but we did buy some t-shirts. Miss Hawaii was there so you know it was a big event.
We closed out our Oahu visit the next day by going down to Waikiki beach for a bit. We didn't swim because we were flying out to our next island in the afternoon but it was fun to get our feet wet and just enjoy being on vaca.
Here is a Waikiki sunset from our room:
In Oahu, we stayed at the Hyatt which is across the street from Waikiki beach. I loved that we had free breakfast included and that breakfast started at 6AM. This may seem early but we were still on our time zone and we wanted to get out early to get to PH because we heard the crowds get nuts. The Hyatt was nice and I would stay there again. It was convenient and everyone there was friendly. No complaints.
Up next.... Kauai!
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