Day 6 Transfer day to Maui
I woke up very early to get some photography of the grounds. Also headed out to the point to catch the sunrise over the property. Here are some shots. Wish I had done this earlier, as there are some additional shots I realized I wanted after the fact.
DW and I went and purchased our pictures packages (also another thread complaint about the pictures coming on CDs vs a USB. So I can’t even verify we got the right pictures as my MBPro doesn’t have a disk drive. I do have one at home though.)
We packed up the van and headed to the airport. Gassed it up, caught the tram back, all very easy. Then it took a turn for the worse. The Southwest counter was a MESS. HUGE line, no differentiation between bag drop off and full service. Luckily I’ve got status so I went to the status line, but that was a mess. Took us over 20 min to get helped (and we were at the front of the line!) One guy (local) who was either inebriated or on something just walked up, the customer service person chastised him for cutting the long line, but still helped him, and proceeded to yell at me for not using the bag drop line. (Which was about 50 people long). Then said if someone’s in front of her she has to help them…which is total BS, I’ve seen plenty a gate attendant turn someone away who was in the wrong line. -Ok, entitled rant over.
Get bags checked, get boarding passes, then its a LOOOOOOOOONG walk to the southwest gates. They are basically the furthest gates from the checkin/security area. They are in a whole other terminal, that they’ve blocked access to, from the outside, and now made it like an extension of terminal 2. Got on the plane, we left about 30 min late, arriving about 15 min late. Not too bad EXCEPT, that meant we landed at the same time as a number of mainland flights. Took about 45 min to get our bags, then another 45 min to get our rental car. All in about a 5 hour door to door transfer.
At this point we also met NN and GP at the airport, to get GP signed on as a driver of the mini-van, so they can take the kids one night and DW and I can get a date night! FINALLY!
We stopped in Kihei for a late lunch at Coconuts. DW and I, loved our fish tacos. Boys did not care for their steak tacos, mainly cause they had coleslaw and mango relish. They wanted good ol street tacos, which isn’t what these were. But they were still good. Kids just ordered wrong. Check out BigTex's trip report for a picture of the fish tacos. I agree it was pretty darn good.
Finally got to check in at the Grand Wailea. Grounds are beautiful. Different than Aulani, but just as beautiful. More tranquil. Less going on. And the whole property is just larger so there’s more room to spread out. Got upgraded to ocean view, which was nice, especially since this whole stay was with points. Walked the property, kids swam for a bit, grabbed a couple Mai Tai’s and then found the quick service/to go restaurant for an easy (cheap-er ish) dinner. Saw the beautiful colors of the sunset, and off to bed.
(NOTE: these were contraband rock jumps. Kids were told shortly after this not to jump. Glad I got the pics!)
I go to LA for work and I'd love to try it!
At least you captured a couple of pics!
