Finally

It’s vacation time again. Every so often, Karen likes to celebrate her birthday in Hawaii and this is the year. So we booked our flights and our condos for two weeks on Maui. After a while, I realized that I still had a lot of vacation days and wasn’t sure what to do with them. Karen said well why don’t you go to Maui for an extra week. I thought about it for a moment and said why not.

The first thing I had to do was to figure out where I was going to stay for the week. Lucky for us, we have very good friends that live in Hawaii. Darren and Allison along with their daughters Shayla and Sienna moved to Maui about a year ago so that Darren could star in his own show in Lahaina. For those of you that don’t know, Darren is an Elvis Tribute Artist and he is one of the best. It has been his dream for many years to star in his own show in Hawaii and late last year that dream came true.

I called Allison asking her if she knew of a cheap place for me to stay and she insisted that I stay with them. But she said it would be on one condition, that I don’t tell Darren that I am coming. She wanted to surprise him. Karen and I have been able to surprise him four other times. I can’t believe that we will pull this off again.

Since I was going for an extra week, I first tried to change my departure date but that would have ended up costing too much money. Lucky for me I was able to find a flight using our Aeroplan miles (22,500 miles and $134.36 CAD in taxes). The flight that I paid for, I will have to use at a later date. My flight this morning was at 8:00am so I decided to stay last night at the Hilton Garden Inn ($89 CAD) so that no one would have to drive me early in the morning.

Once I got to the airport which was just before 6:00am, it didn’t take me long to get my bagged checked, go through security using the new Global Entry and get to the gate. I think in total it took me about twenty minutes. The play boarded pretty quick and we were able to leave the gate on time. Unfortunately the planes were stacked up on the runaway so it was a little bit longer before we were airborne. It’s very weird travelling solo … no one to talk to. Instead I spent the flight catching up on Suits Season 2.

We land in Los Angeles at 10:30am local time. I got off of the plane pretty quickly and headed over to the Air Canada Maple Leaf lounge. I walked up to the counter and the lady said I wasn’t able to use my passes because my connecting flight was with United. Even though United is a Star Alliance partner, you can only use the lounge if you are on an Air Canada flight. She also told me that I had to get over to Terminal 7 since that is where United flies out of. In total it took me over an hour from the time I left the plane to the time I was sitting at the gate.

I had about five hours before my next flight was scheduled to leave. Around 2:30pm, they announce that our 3:00pm flight was delayed until 5:15pm. Many people around me including myself start bitching. Shortly there after, they announce that the flight has been cancelled and that you need to go and talk to customer service about getting on the 6:50pm flight. After standing in line for what seems like an eternity, I get up to the agent. The lady apologized and gave me a $7 food voucher along with my new boarding pass. She then proceeded to tell me that the 6:50pm flight was delayed until 8:27pm. ARGH!!!

I spent the next five hours just hanging out in LAX. I used my $7 food voucher on a $14 pizza from Wolfgang Puck’s which wasn’t too bad. I also found some quiet spots in the terminal where I was able to stretch out and charge up all devices. The electronics sure did get a workout today. Between texting Allison in Hawaii and Facebooking with Karen at home, I was able to keep everybody in the loop.

Finally at 8:30pm local time, we started boarding the plane. At some point while waiting, I noticed on the screens that the flight was not completely full and there were actually rows with no people. I asked the gate agent if she could move me into one of these rows and she did. The flight was close to six hours but it wasn’t too bad because I was able to stretch out and get a few hours of sleep. Soon enough, the pilot came on and said to prepare for landing.

We arrived at 12:55am Hawaii time to a beautiful 75°F. I got my bag and proceeded to the car rental shuttles. The other thing I did when waiting in Los Angeles, was call Enterprise to let them know that I would be late. They told me that they would be closed but that Alamo would honor the reservation. Alamo stays open until the last plane arrives for the day. I got there and very quickly was in my blue 2014 Hyundai Elantra ($164.87 USD booked through Costco). I fired up the GPS and headed to Lahaina. It took me about a half and hour to get there. I knocked on the door and Allison answered. I could hear Darren ask who is at the door. When I stepped in and said hi, I could see the shocked look on his face. We did once again. We talked for a few minutes and since it was late (2:30am) we all headed to bed. I am so happy that I am finally here.