It's been a while. I know, I know. There is no excuse. Ubernerd, thanks for the gentle nudge for more travel posts.
Alright, let's get started. And not to oversell it, but Hawaii is truly a magical place.
Like a good blogger, I need to put a disclaimer about sponsors. My Hawaii trip was partly sponsored by my brother. Yes, that's right. I have an awesome brother.
This trip would have been absolutely impossible without my brother because as you know, I'm pretty broke.
The seed for an Hawaii trip was first planted in October. The conversation went something like this:
Brother: I still have x [it was an indecently high number] days of vacation I need to use up before the end of the year. I was thinking of running the Hawaii marathon."
Me: Cool, Hawaii seems like a pretty cool place to run a marathon. You should definitely go.
Two weeks later...
Brother: The Hawaii trip is probably not going to happen. I don't have the time to do all the planning AND prep for the marathon. Plus, I don't even know if I can actually take time off.
Me: That's too bad. Hawaii does sound pretty awesome.
Brother: How about you come with me? I'll pay for your flight if you plan the trip. I would have had to pay for accommodations anyways.
Me: Seriously!?!? Hell yeah!!!
Then began a month worth of frantic scouring for flights, car rental, hotels, local attractions/food places.
Since Hawaii is one of the it destinations and we were planning to visit in the slow season (early December), I figured accommodations would be fairly abundant. There's a pretty wide range to choose from: room sublets, apartment rentals, resorts, hotels. Not so. All the affordable rentals were fully booked up. I must have e-mailed over 60 Flipkey/Airbnb places. Everything before and after that one specific week was available. It was the strangest thing.
Then duh! It was the Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbour. Combined with the Honolulu marathon, accommodations anywhere within walking distance of Waikiki beach was pretty much all full.
Lady Luck was on our side, Waikiki Gateway Hotel posted a Groupon just as I was at my wits' end. The Tripadvisor rating for the hotel was mediocre at best, but "the overall cleanliness" category seemed okay, so we took a chance.
We only had six days (we had to cut the trip slightly short. My brother's company decided that he was too important to be away for too long), so we decided to focus on only two islands - O'ahu and Hawaii.
Toronto->Newark Airport, New Jersey
What can I say about Newark Airport except that it has its own mini-train? And that the airport employee who directed us to the correct terminal knew the New Jersey->Hawaii weekly flight schedule by heart?
We arrived in Honolulu airport at about 10pm. After 15 hours of traveling (not including delays), we were definitely not our normal cheery selves when we picked up our rental car. I might or might not have gave the rental guy a slightly snippy remark when he suggested upgrading to a convertible. Sorry rental guy! I'm usually much nicer, I swear!
Serendipitously, we missed the turn to our hotel but found a nearby underground parking that was much cheaper than the hotel parking. A major find since parking in downtown Honolulu is like the proverbial unicorn, rare and pricey.
Someone *cough* managed to spill soda all over my stuff when we were checking in. Not a great start to the trip. By the time we got to our room and got everything cleaned up, it was already close to midnight (or 5 am EST) and we decided to call it a night (or rather, I passed out on my bed).
So ended our first day (or rather, first two hours) on O'ahu. The trip does get better (and with actual photos), I promise.
Alright, let's get started. And not to oversell it, but Hawaii is truly a magical place.
Like a good blogger, I need to put a disclaimer about sponsors. My Hawaii trip was partly sponsored by my brother. Yes, that's right. I have an awesome brother.
This trip would have been absolutely impossible without my brother because as you know, I'm pretty broke.
The seed for an Hawaii trip was first planted in October. The conversation went something like this:
Brother: I still have x [it was an indecently high number] days of vacation I need to use up before the end of the year. I was thinking of running the Hawaii marathon."
Me: Cool, Hawaii seems like a pretty cool place to run a marathon. You should definitely go.
Two weeks later...
Brother: The Hawaii trip is probably not going to happen. I don't have the time to do all the planning AND prep for the marathon. Plus, I don't even know if I can actually take time off.
Me: That's too bad. Hawaii does sound pretty awesome.
Brother: How about you come with me? I'll pay for your flight if you plan the trip. I would have had to pay for accommodations anyways.
Me: Seriously!?!? Hell yeah!!!
Then began a month worth of frantic scouring for flights, car rental, hotels, local attractions/food places.
Since Hawaii is one of the it destinations and we were planning to visit in the slow season (early December), I figured accommodations would be fairly abundant. There's a pretty wide range to choose from: room sublets, apartment rentals, resorts, hotels. Not so. All the affordable rentals were fully booked up. I must have e-mailed over 60 Flipkey/Airbnb places. Everything before and after that one specific week was available. It was the strangest thing.
Then duh! It was the Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbour. Combined with the Honolulu marathon, accommodations anywhere within walking distance of Waikiki beach was pretty much all full.
Lady Luck was on our side, Waikiki Gateway Hotel posted a Groupon just as I was at my wits' end. The Tripadvisor rating for the hotel was mediocre at best, but "the overall cleanliness" category seemed okay, so we took a chance.
We only had six days (we had to cut the trip slightly short. My brother's company decided that he was too important to be away for too long), so we decided to focus on only two islands - O'ahu and Hawaii.
Toronto->Newark Airport, New Jersey
What can I say about Newark Airport except that it has its own mini-train? And that the airport employee who directed us to the correct terminal knew the New Jersey->Hawaii weekly flight schedule by heart?
We arrived in Honolulu airport at about 10pm. After 15 hours of traveling (not including delays), we were definitely not our normal cheery selves when we picked up our rental car. I might or might not have gave the rental guy a slightly snippy remark when he suggested upgrading to a convertible. Sorry rental guy! I'm usually much nicer, I swear!
Serendipitously, we missed the turn to our hotel but found a nearby underground parking that was much cheaper than the hotel parking. A major find since parking in downtown Honolulu is like the proverbial unicorn, rare and pricey.
Someone *cough* managed to spill soda all over my stuff when we were checking in. Not a great start to the trip. By the time we got to our room and got everything cleaned up, it was already close to midnight (or 5 am EST) and we decided to call it a night (or rather, I passed out on my bed).
So ended our first day (or rather, first two hours) on O'ahu. The trip does get better (and with actual photos), I promise.
Yay! Glad to see this new post pop up in my rss feed reader!
ReplyDeleteAs kind as your brother way, it's not like you got a completely free trip. It was sort of like a working vacation, lol.
How pricey are unicorns?? Have you you tried shopping around or haggling with the sellers?
Look forward to the upcoming entries!
He actually offered to pay for the entire trip but I didn`t think it was fair so we went dutch on the accommodations+car rentals+miscellaneous expenses.
ReplyDeleteWorth of an unicorn? Let's see. According to Harry Potter, an unicorn hair is worth 10 galleons and an unicorn horn 27 galleons (according to HP Wiki, the exchange rate is 1 galleon for US$7.35). So I assume the worth of an unicorn varies, but is likely directly correlated to its hair abundance.
What's "went dutch"? Is it some kind of Kingstonian slang? lol.
DeleteWow. I think galleons are worth more than pounds sterling!
It means we split the costs.
DeleteYep, according to JK Rowling, one galleon is about 5 pounds... It makes sense if galleons have an heavy gold content.