Island hopping
Before we left for Maui, Karen received an email from Hawaiian Airlines regarding inter island flights. She thought it might be fun for us to hop over to Oahu for one of the days of our vacation. We did some thinking about it and then decided, what the heck let’s do it.
We wanted to maximize our time on Oahu so we booked the 7:15am flight. That meant getting to the airport at 5:45am and that made for an early morning today. After parking the car, we headed straight for security since we had no luggage. At 5:55am, we were sitting and waiting at Gate 17.
They started boarding the plane at 6:50am and because we were in Group F, we were some of the last people to get on the plane. The first thing I noticed is that the plane was older and had none of the amenities that you normally find. We took off right on time at 7:15am. Once we reached cruising altitude, the flight attendants came around with juice, coffee or water. I did not even get a couple of sips of my juice when the pilot announced that we were starting our descent into Honolulu. I chugged my juice just as the flight attendant came around to pick up the garbage.
We landed just before 8:00am and immediately grabbed the shuttle to the rental car centre. Because I am an Alamo insider and had done the check-in last night, all we needed to do was to go downstairs, find our car and be on our way. I approached the Alamo agent and gave him my name. He looked up the reservation and then walked over to the desk and started talking to the other agent. Now I knew there was a problem. As a surprise for Darlene, Karen and I had booked a Ford Mustang convertible. What do you think happened? The agent said there were no convertibles because of a recall that just happened the day before. After some discussion and a $50 reduction in our rental rate, we ended up in a Subaru Forester. Because we were in a hurry, we did not look the vehicle over properly. What that meant is that we only had USB plug for charging cell phones and no vents in the back seat.
We decided to do a loop round the entire island. Our first stop was the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. We made sure to book tickets in advance and what surprised us is that it is free. We first watched a short film that covers the events leading up to the attack and what happened on the morning of December 7, 1941. It is shown before you go to the memorial so that you have some context for what you are about to see. After leaving the theatre, you board a U.S. Navy boat which takes you to the memorial.
The USS Arizona Memorial is a one hundred and eighty-four foot white structure that sits over the sunken battleship without touching it. You walk through the assembly room to get to the shrine room. It is in this room on a marble wall that the one thousand one hundred and seventy-seven crew members’ names are engraved. Because we only had about ten minutes, you do not have much time to pause and reflect about the events on that day.
After the boat ride back, we spent some time walking around the memorial grounds which is within the active Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, a combined United States Navy and Air Force installation.
It was a quick ride to our next stop which was a mobile location of Leonard’s Bakery for malasadas. If you have not had one, it is a traditional Portuguese fried dough confection rolled in sugar. I can highly recommend the Haupia filled malasada.
From there it was about a thirty minute drive to The Dole Plantation. It first started as a fruit stand in 1950, and then in 1989 it opened to the public as Hawaii’s “Pineapple Experience”. You can ride the Pineapple Express train, get lost in the pineapple maze or tour the gardens. We did none of those things. Our purpose was to come and have the world famous Dole Whip. Karen, Nana and I went with the Dole Whip Float that came in a souvenir cup. Darlene went with the original Dole Whip with pineapple toppings.
Oahu’s North Shore is known as the global surfing capital and it was the next stop on our tour. During the winter the waves are massive and many surfing competitions are held here. We stopped in historic Haleiwa to check out some shops and grab some lunch is this very laid back town. You can’t go to the North Shore and not go to a beach so we made a quick stop at Sunset Beach.
It was getting later in the afternoon, so we had to make some decisions on what we wanted to do next. Therefore we drove to the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as Punchbowl Cemetery. It sits inside a long extinct volcano and is the final resting place of many American veterans. You can walk the grounds, and the view of Waikiki and Diamond Head is one of the best on the island.
We continued down to Waikiki and found a spot to park the car. It was getting close to sunset, so we headed straight to the famous Waikiki Beach. We had to make sure that Darlene and Nana got here.
The last time Karen and I were in Waikiki was twenty years ago and boy has it changed. So many more stores on the main drag but the biggest change was to the International Market Place. When it opened in 1956, it was a maze-link collection of small booths selling souvenirs, clothing and crafts under a banyan tree. It closed for huge renovation in 2013 and when it reopened in 2016, it was now an upscale shopping mall. All of it’s charm and quirkiness was gone.
It was now after 7:00pm and the car had to be back by 7:30pm. So we got back to the car and raced to the airport and dropped it off at 7:45pm with no time to fill up the tank. After I explained to the agent what happened this morning, he waived the refuelling fee. With the discount we received earlier today our rental only cost us $31.46 USD instead of $96.08 USD. The shuttle bus took us to Terminal 1 and after we got through security, a kind airport employee gave us all a golf cart ride to the gates. By 8:05pm, we were sitting at Gate B5 waiting to board our 9:00pm flight.
Once again the flight was quick. As a joke, Karen decided to start her stopwatch to see how long it would be from the time the flight attendant gave us our juice to the time he would be back to pick up the garbage. Any guesses? It was forty-six seconds.
We touched down at 9:33pm and by 10:00pm we were back in our car heading to Raising Cane’s to pick up a very late supper. And then it was back to the condo. It was a long but fun day.