California here we come! The White House goes to Disneyland and Aulani - Update 10/2

This morning we were scheduled to have our surf lessons on the North Shore!! Knowing that it’s about an hours drive to get there I had scheduled them for 11:00 so we wouldn’t have to get up again toooo early if we didn’t want to. No alarms!! We were up, eating our breakfast & getting dressed in our bathing suits and were almost ready to leave when I got a call from our contact at the surf lesson place (Uncle Bryan’s Sunset Surrat Surf Academy). They had been out surveying their normal lesson spot and she said that due to the continued higher than normal surf from hurricane Julio they were going to move our lesson to what she called their “winter spot” which was more protected and would have less large swells. I was glad that at least they HAD an alternate spot to go to and they didn’t have to cancel. She gave me the new directions and off we went to pick up towels from the pool and hit the road.

I must say, I’m 53 now so taking my first surf lesson at this age was a bit of a stretch. But this was my 5th trip to Hawaii and the first time getting out of Waikiki so I wanted to try it at least once. I’m not a regular exerciser but I figured I had started learning to snow ski at age 45 – surely I could at least give this a try – at least when I fell it should be a softer landing, right?! I had no doubts but that DH & DS (especially DS) would get along great with it. The new location was sort of in a little park-like area in Haleiwa. I say park because there was a small playground area, a parking lot and sort of a public bathroom. OK, it WAS a public bathroom but it was disgusting and probably never, ever maintained by anybody for the last 5 years. Yes, I went because it was an hour drive and my morning cup of Kona coffee was calling my name. Probably not the first or last time I’ll ever have to drip dry or pray that cooties don’t know how to jump. But so yeah, there was a pretty big ewww factor here. (Probably TMI huh?!)

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OK, so our contact had said not to leave anything in the car, bring it over to their tent so we brought our backpack with my “good camera” and our beach bag with our wallets, towels & sunscreen and locked it to their tent leg with our cable lock. They passed out rash guards for each of us. We had booked a semi-private lesson for just the 3 of us. When I had emailed them prior to booking they had said they could offer this deal at $100 pp – which was like $20 more pp than just booking a regular group lesson. I thought with my limited abilities and Jared’s swimming strength that we’d probably get a lot more out of the semi-private lesson and that it would be worthwhile. I think that I was right and that this was a good move. We were glad we booked it like this. There were about 3 surf companies there in this spot when we were there and there was one with a pretty large group. One instructor can really only handle 2 surfers at a time – the others in the group have to sit on their boards off to the side, out of the way and wait for their turns. We got a lot more rides in with just the 3 of us. The water where we were going to surf was a little dark & dingy looking. Not the PRETTIEST place to go. It looked fine further out but as it got closer to shore it was murky right where the waves were breaking. Not sure why. DH didn’t think the waves looked very big but they were actually ALL ANY OF US NEEDED!! The were plenty big. If they would’ve been much bigger it would’ve been harder to get up.

Our instructor was Greg – he led us thru some rough path over to a small beach area where the surf boards were waiting for us. They had told us to leave our RX glasses behind at the tent (DS was not wearing his contacts either) so it was sort of a treacherous walk for the 2 of us to where we had to go. There were small amounts of trash, rocks, sticks and even broken glass along the way. I was a little nervous about stepping on something and wished we had kept our flip flops on. When we got to the surf boards Greg proceeded to give us some instructions on land about where we should lay on the boards (where our chests should be and where our arms should hit when outstretched etc) and then how to get up on the board. There was a specific process. Push & raise up with your arms outstretched. Pull your knees up under you. Squat. Pivot. Stand, knees bent, arms out. Well, let me tell you. The pivot part was not happening for this old lady!! :rotfl: LOL. DH & DS were both limber enough but there was just no way I could pivot while IN a squat position. (Greg eventually modified this for me to eliminate the pivoting.)

Greg was "towing" DS out of the way of the other surfers
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It was a 2 hour lesson and after getting out there for my first run I wondered if I would be able to last the whole time. Like they said when we started, it’s 90% paddling. DS with his competitive swimming background had NO problems paddling out there – and quickly. It was zero effort for him. I on the other hand would paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. Paddle, paddle, paddle. Rest. LOL. DH got along pretty good at first but after awhile also slowed down on the paddling part. Guess what? The further you ride. The further you have to paddle to get back!! :lmao: LOL. You also need to sort of go OVER, out of the other surfers way first THEN paddle back out (there were other surf companies there plus another instructor with a group from our company so you had to move out of the way). DS and DH caught on real quick and eventually got their movements to flow from one right to the next. Me. Not so much. I was too slow and couldn’t get the timing down so that by the time I was starting to stand up the wave was breaking and washing me off. Of course there are good points and bad points to wearing that leash around your ankle that tethers you to the surf board. On the good side – you never lose the board and it’s close by when you need to climb back on. On the bad side – the wave takes the empty board and it literally drags you behind it. Even with the rash guard I somehow managed to scrape up my elbows and I swallowed so much water.:sad2: OH and the tops of my big toes were rubbed raw from laying on the board. Then there was this bruising affect on my rib cage from the way you sort of push up when you paddle. I ALMOST got up but never really quite did it for more than like ½ a second. I asked to quit at 90 minutes. Well, actually I kinda wanted to stop at an hour but Greg wouldn’t let me give up that quickly. I figured if I got out early tho he could concentrate on the 2 of them and they could get even more rides in. Plus I hoped to get a few pictures.

This is Greg and DH (in the yellow rash guards). Greg is watching for a good wave to send DH off into
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Greg giving DH a push into the wave at the right moment
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And he's up!!
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It took me a few minutes to get back over to the tent. Then when our contact there pointed out the fresh water shower near the bathroom so I wanted to ditch the rash guard and rinse off before going back – I didn’t put my flip flops on because my feet were sandy. Well, so the sidewalk was HOT so I walked in the “grass” which turned out to be full of these little vine-like briars!! Still didn’t have my glasses on so I couldn’t see how to get out of them but all I knew was I had like a hundred thorns in the bottoms of my feet!! I started yelling and some man came running over to help me navigate away from them. But so then my only option was the HOT sidewalk. This whole debacle slowed me down a lot in getting back over to where they were surfing to get some pictures because I had to pull out the thorns. D’OH!! They were almost done with the lesson so I got very few pics. I was really bummed about that.

DS got on really good with it
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DH & DS coming back after the lesson was over (you can sort of see DH's stomach was red & bruised from rubbing on the board, even with the rash guard)
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Our lesson finished around 1:00 and after the guys rinsed off etc. it was easily 1:15 or so. So after the lesson we took off looking for shrimp trucks for lunch!! We were starved by now! There were a lot of them and we passed Matsumoto’s Shave Ice too – there was a HUGE line going all the way down the street there. We finally spied Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck and decided to stop there.:cool1: DH and I both had the garlic shrimp (and BOY oh BOY was it loaded with garlic)!! HOLY BAT CAVE!! Each plate must’ve had a whole bulb of buttery garlic on it!! It was a good deal too at only like $14!! DS got the garlic hot dogs which were also coated in garlic and they were like foot long ones too. I’m sure we all stunk to high heaven!! We decided to skip the line at Matsumoto’s and just get some shave ice at one of the trucks parked near Giovanni’s truck. That would save a lot of time. We actually got something that was like a blend of shave ice and ice cream. It was a really strange texture but interesting. It was flaky and sort of dissolved in your mouth.

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See all that brown stuff sprinkled over the rice & lemon? THAT'S ALL GARLIC!!
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There was a McDonald’s across the street from the shrimp trucks that I wanted to hit to go to the bathroom so we went over there. Of course the bathroom was locked so you had to BUY something to use it. I was perfectly OK with that. I just desperately wanted a normal and somewhat clean bathroom so we bought sodas.

After we left Haleiwa we decided to continue driving to find Waimea Falls and Turtle Bay. It was starting to get late sort of (must’ve been at least 3:00-3:30 or so) and I didn’t realize that there was a $15 admission fee to get into Waimea Falls. So once we found that out we decided to skip it and keep driving up to Turtle Bay. We just didn’t have enough time left for it to be worth the $45 admission but I could tell it would’ve been really pretty. It just would’ve been an in & out take a few pics kind of thing probably. If we would have done our surf lessons earlier, at like 9:00, then we’d have had plenty of time. By this time we’d also discovered that despite lotioning up that morning we were all terribly sunburned on the backs of our legs!! DH especially so because he’s the fair one who doesn’t tan. (While in a day or two DS and I tanned DH eventually peeled a little back there – WHO PEELS on the backs of their legs?!)

I took these right when we started to go to Waimea Falls (before we found out we'd have to pay)
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Sooo we drove on up to Turtle Bay and went down to the beach area there. We parked at the Turtle Bay resort which had parking in their furthest lot for beach parking. I’d hoped maybe we’d see some turtles but the waves were really big there. Well, not HUGE “Hawaii Five-O” type waves but they were big enough that we couldn’t go out to look for anything and they were definitely a lot bigger than they were where we had our lesson. It wasn’t a good spot to snorkel tho. There was a lagoon type area but it didn’t really look like people were swimming with turtles or anything. We just sort of stood there for a few minutes & looked around, not knowing what to do next. I kept wishing I’d done more research on the North Shore. It was very pretty but I was feeling a little unprepared. And I kept wishing I’d have packed our water shoes to bring on the trip but I didn’t. Some areas were pretty rocky – not good for flip flops OR to go barefoot. The day was flying by!! We finally decided that with it being at least an hour long drive back to Aulani that maybe we should just head back. I hadn’t had a chance to catch any sunsets yet so I wanted to get back before it was too late.

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Oh, and we also passed by Ted’s Bakery. I said we should stop to check it out but DH was like WHY?! I had no answer except to say that because “everybody stops there”. And ‘it’s supposed to be a good bakery”. DH didn’t see the point tho with those being my only reasons so we didn’t stop. D’OH again LeeAnn!! I’m sure we missed out on some fabulous goodies thanks to my lack of research!! At least we saw some gorgeous scenery along the way. It was a beautiful day for a beautiful drive.

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We got back just in time for me to get showered and go down to catch the sunset for some pics (they don’t do daylight savings time in Hawaii so the sun sets an hour earlier there than at home). I left DS & DH to finish showering as I really only had a few minutes before it would set so I decided to go alone. I headed over to the right toward the Marriott. I wasn’t sure exactly where the sun would set and didn’t know what view I would have from the left side of the lagoon & I thought it looked like a longer walk so I went right. WELL wouldn’t ya know there was a big wedding reception going on over on the lawn of the Marriott – there was a huge tent set up. Grrrr. So I sort of did a wide right thru the lawn & tried to go as far as I could away from it to get to the shoreline. I just made it before it set – but there was a line of clouds moving thru right at the same time so it was sort of a bust. I mean, it was OK but it could’ve been better. Guess I will keep trying!!

We decided to go over to the shopping center to get some dinner. Hadn’t really decided where. We walked around debating our choices & eventually settled on the Pizza Corner place. I didn’t take any pics of it but it was a decent enough pie – large for $24. We sat outside and the owner came out & gave us some leftover cinnamon bun things that we took back with us for breakfast.

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I saw your TR pop up and had to come check it out. I'm so impressed you tried surfing, you're braver than I am girl.:worship:

Love your pics too!
 
Love following along and since we were there at the same time it feels like I am reliving the whole thing! My daughter and hubby surfed with Uncle Bryans too, they did it Aug 10th and she loved it so much we booked her again on our return to Oahu around Aug 20. One of these days I will get my photos onto the computer and do my report.
I wanted to ask you about doing Disneyland and then Hawaii. We were offered a bounce back from Marriott (where we stayed for the second Oahu portion of our trip) and we jumped on it so now we are headed back within the next 2 years. As much as I like to escape the Toronto snow in winter, the summer was so lovely and all of us can take a good chunk of time to vacation then so it works well for my family. However, I am worried about DL being super busy and hot in the summer. Also, we were thinking of doing DL on the way back to help ease the time change coming home, what are your thoughts on that? We have done DL first and then off to Hawaii once before because it kind of gets out all the hectic energy of the first few days of a vacation and then allows you to really relax and enjoy Hawaii-did you find it that way? Would you do it in reverse? I just love dream planning what we will do next....
 
Love following along and since we were there at the same time it feels like I am reliving the whole thing! My daughter and hubby surfed with Uncle Bryans too, they did it Aug 10th and she loved it so much we booked her again on our return to Oahu around Aug 20. One of these days I will get my photos onto the computer and do my report.
I wanted to ask you about doing Disneyland and then Hawaii. We were offered a bounce back from Marriott (where we stayed for the second Oahu portion of our trip) and we jumped on it so now we are headed back within the next 2 years. As much as I like to escape the Toronto snow in winter, the summer was so lovely and all of us can take a good chunk of time to vacation then so it works well for my family. However, I am worried about DL being super busy and hot in the summer. Also, we were thinking of doing DL on the way back to help ease the time change coming home, what are your thoughts on that? We have done DL first and then off to Hawaii once before because it kind of gets out all the hectic energy of the first few days of a vacation and then allows you to really relax and enjoy Hawaii-did you find it that way? Would you do it in reverse? I just love dream planning what we will do next....

Congrats on your bounce back deal!!! We considered going over spring break last year but would've only had 7 nights - that's not long enough for a trip like this that is so far and so expensive for airfare. That's why we opted to wait for summer, when we'd have more time. We found the weather in CA to be awesome for August. I mean, compared to FL in August it was excellent!! (We almost always vacation in August due to summer swim team not ending until the end of July.) It was actually pretty chilly at night and early in the mornings (low 60's). It was 80's during the day - so much better than the 90's you'd find in FL. And far less humid. We did not find the crowds to be unmanageable at DL. Yes, there were some things that had an hour long line - but we expected that and used the fast pass system to try to avoid as many of those waits as we could. We would have had the same if not longer waits at WDW. We liked that they haven't implemented the new Fast Pass + bull at DL (yet). We feel like we can get a LOT more rides in with the old system. The new FP+ thing at WDW only gives you 3 / day which is dumb, dumb, dumb. We would probably do it the same way again if we were to ever plan the same CA / HI trip in the future (DL then HI). It really was nice to only have to adjust to a 3 hr. time difference (x2). But I'm really thinking that the next time we go to DL it will be a CA only trip so we can venture out to see more of CA. It also made the whole trip a lot more expensive because of the way the airfare worked out (plus of course the DL park tix). It is cheaper to just fly to / from Hawaii. I think I would just do Hawaii by itself next time. It is way too expensive and too far to not go for at least 10 nights tho.

I haven't had time this week to work on more pics or my next TR update. Hopefully I will get to it in the next few days….it will be short & sweet tho because we didn't do much for the rest of our week at Aulani...
 


What an interesting day you had -- surf lessons and all! You are so great at capturing such great photos of surf. Loved the sunset pic with the surf splashing up on the rocks :thumbsup2
 
What an interesting day you had -- surf lessons and all! You are so great at capturing such great photos of surf. Loved the sunset pic with the surf splashing up on the rocks :thumbsup2

Thanks. Photography is a passion of mine and Hawaii provides an amazing opportunity for so much beautiful scenery. The sunsets are incredible!!
 
Sorry I haven’t updated in like a week. I’ve just had too many irons in the fire to work on it much...

After our busy day on Tuesday with the surfing & north shore we actually didn’t plan to do anything else on our last 2 days at Aulani other than just hang around and enjoy the resort and rest up. I went down to the pool at 8:00 to scout out our “spot” for the day. The back row where we’d been on Monday was already gone. Well, there were 3 seats in the middle of that row but NO UMBRELLA over any of them. That would never do. It was much too hot. I considered going over to a shaded spot that would overlook the lagoon but the CM standing watch there said it would be hotter later in the day SOOO I ended up in the same chair section where we’d been on Monday but moved up 3 or 4 rows to a spot in the middle row that had an umbrella over 2 of the chairs. It was more in the middle of the whole section and we ended up having it be sort of a cut-thru for more people (more traffic). BUT I got to sit right in front of a beautiful Hibiscus plant all day.

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We spent a fair amount of time enjoying the lazy river and slides during these last 2 days. Sometimes body slides can be so rough and you feel every bump & seam – this slide was really smooth. And fun. Pretty fast. The tube slide was really fun on the double tubes. We always “crashed” at the bottom and got knocked off (I was glad I had a strap for my RX sunglasses). It was a good time. Sometimes the tubes were running low but we never really had to wait to find tubes. They seemed to turn over fairly quickly - but the line was usually long. I liked how the tube slide just sort of dumped you out into the lazy river. We enjoyed the new grotto pool early in the morning, before it got too crowded to enjoy. It was funny how full it got later in the day but how enjoyable it was EARLY.

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I took another walk around the resort & grabbed a few more pics. There were weddings daily at the little chapel and they always came down on the beach for pics. All the ones I saw were Japanese brides and the photographers always had an umbrella over the brides. They were always so picture perfect looking.

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For lunch on Wed. we had 1 large slice of pizza leftover from Pizza Corner so I ran up to the room to heat that up & brought it back down to eat while DS and DH ordered something from Off The Hook for lunch. We stayed down at the pool ALL DAY again and I went up to shower in time to come back down for more sunset pics. There were more low clouds right at the horizon that cut off the sunset a few minutes earlier than I would've liked so I was glad I got down there early enough to catch it. I think dinner that night was probably at the Ulu Café again. It was another very relaxing day in paradise with not a lot of excitement. Just recovering from our big day on the north shore yesterday. It was a very low key day. Ahhhhh….

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Looks like you are having a lot of fun. We will be there over Thanksgiving!

My family will be there over Thanksgiving also! Where are you coming from?
Loving the wonderful pictures. I'm so excited for Aulania and DL.

Carla
 
Updating before the weekend bcuz we're going to be away on a college visit this weekend so I won't have time again for another update until next week….


Sigh. Thursday was our last day at Aulani. :sad: I was already dreading having to pack & leave even tho we still had 3 nights on Maui ahead of us. It had REALLY been a splendid week once the hurricanes passed and we’d really enjoyed all of our days so far. I made sure to get down to the pool a few minutes earlier this morning so I could try to get those chairs in the back row again. BINGO!! I scored the same 3 that we’d had on Monday. I didn’t bother to bring my DSLR down once again. I figured I’d just bring it down that night for sunset again rather than worry about schlepping it around. Any pics today would have to be cell phone ones.

At some point that last morning I remembered that we hadn’t walked up past the Marriott to look for the sea turtles so we made our way over there. I think we didn’t plan it out very well tho as it really was one of those last minute spur of the moment “hey let’s go” deals. Looking back I’m not sure WHAT we were thinking. We only took our cell phones for pics (the underwater camera and snorkeling stuff was up in the room - DOH) and we just went in our sandals & flip flops. Once again I really wished I had brought our water shoes. It was sort of a hard path to go along over the rocks & stuff and you had to go out on the rocks a little bit to look for the turtles. It’s not exactly a path or a beach that you walk up - it's just rocks. It was a little slippery and the rocks were uneven & slippery. NOW I wish we’d have just gone out the front of the resort and walked up the sidewalk then cut over to the beach. It’s not very easy to walk on the rocks with flip flops. Definitely NOT our brightest move.:rolleyes1 ANYWAY, we found 1 turtle but dumb us we weren’t prepared to photograph him since we’d forgotten the underwater camera. Here’s the best one that we got of him.

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You can see in these pics why water shoes would have been handy to have:
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We finally decided that we’d been gone long enough that we’d better get back to our stuff before the CM’s decided we’d abandoned it. I actually thought they sort of “knew us” by now and that we had enough stuff scattered around our “spot” that they wouldn’t take it. But still, it felt like we were getting close to the 1-hour rule. As we got back we decided we should eat lunch and we stopped at the Little ‘Opihi’s place located down on the beach. This was the first time we tried this place. We got their last 3 “summer rolls” pre-packaged lunch boxes. It was only about 1:00 (and they’re only open from 11-5:00) so I was surprised that they were running out of food that early. They didn’t have a large selection to start with and the summer rolls were apparently very popular. They were good and somewhat reasonably priced. Shame that this is another place that closes at 5:00. Have I mentioned that our biggest peeve with the resort is the lack of affordable meal options after 5:00?!

After lunch DH & DS rented one of the stand-up paddle boards and toodled around in the lagoon for awhile. They shared it. The hour was more than enough time. They said it was pretty boring just going around the lagoon. I walked around and took a few last pics around the resort, then, as much as I hated to go, I left the pool a little earlier than usual to go up and start packing. I wanted to try to organize our bags to have our Maui stuff in our carry-ons like I did for our Disneyland portion of our trip. I also didn’t want to leave TOOOO much to finish up after dinner. I reallllllly hate packing….


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You can see the line for the tube slide snaking up the side of the "volcano"
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I had made dinner reservations at Roy’s for our last night for about 8:00 or 8:15 (so I’d have time to snag one more Aulani sunset before we had to walk over there for dinner). Here's our last Aulani sunset:

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I was really looking forward to what Roy’s would be like. I knew it would be our most expensive meal and had brought $150 in gift cards with us that I’d collected here & there. I knew that wouldn’t quite cover ALL of it but I knew it would help soften the blow on the wallet for the balance. It’s been too long now for me to remember exactly what we ordered but it was all good – interesting and beautiful presentations. I know we ordered some sort of like spring rolls (with something called dragon sauce) for an appetizer. They were good but very small. I always admire nice presentations and wish I could do that at home for my food photography that I dabble with. I have accepted that I will never be that good tho. :rotfl: LOL. I think that DS would’ve liked a larger meal tho (these portions definitely weren’t designed with a 17 yo growing teenage boy appetite in mind)!!

Our spring rolls:
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Whatever the combo was that DH ordered:
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What DS ordered - I think it was a chicken dish (definitely NOT big enough for him):
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My entree included 3 things. I think I had 2 stuffed shrimp. Only 2. Not enough for sharing...
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TOMORROW we head to Maui for the final leg of our 2 week adventure!!

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What type of gift cards did you use at Roy's?

They are owned by the same company that owns Outback and Carrabbas (+ a couple other restaurant chains)...so I just used Outback cards (and made sure that Roy's was listed on the back).:thumbsup2
 
They are owned by the same company that owns Outback and Carrabbas (+ a couple other restaurant chains)...so I just used Outback cards (and made sure that Roy's was listed on the back).:thumbsup2

When you buy the gift cards a head of time do they have an expiration date? I'm a planner so I would def be buying like a year ahead :)
 
When you buy the gift cards a head of time do they have an expiration date? I'm a planner so I would def be buying like a year ahead :)

The ones I had did not have an exp. date. I picked some up at the grocery store, saved one from a Christmas gift, and I ordered a couple from my DS's swim team SCRIP card program. (I also ordered a couple of $25 Hard Rock Cafe cards to bring with us 'cuz I knew we were planning to eat at least once at the Hard Rock in Waikiki for DS.)

I perpetually collect cards. I buy a $25 Disney gift card every week with my groceries and save them to bring on all of our trips. I used $1,100 worth on this trip. If you buy one every week that's $1,300 a year. Since we go somewhere Disney every year they come in super handy. :thumbsup2 When we were at VGC I just went by the front desk on our last afternoon, got our balance and plopped down $625 worth to settle up everything except whatever we had for dinner that night.
 
So it was already Friday and our glorious week at Aulani was already over. We really hated to leave but at least we were heading to Maui for a few nights before home. I had booked a fairly early inter-island flight (9:45 I think) because the Sheraton Ka’anapali had said we could have a Noon check-in.:cool1: Since we only had 3 nights there I figured we may as well get there early enough to enjoy it for as long as possible. We left Aulani about 3 hours before our flight (I wasn’t sure if we’d hit some rush hour traffic or not) so wanted to allow plenty of time. We did hit a little traffic as we approached the city & the airport but nothing toooo bad (certainly nothing as bad as DC traffic). Then our GPS (on DH’s phone) cut out right before we got back to the car rental place (we were driving under another highway and had experienced the same thing the day we got there too). Hummm. So mental note for next time – no satellite reception under other highways. We located the rental store by driving around the block a couple of times and dropped off the rental and their shuttle had us back over to the terminal within 5 minutes.

The flight to Maui was only about 40-45 minutes or so. Short & sweet. We could see Mt. Haleakala out of the window on the plane. I thought it looked pretty cool with the clouds ringing around the top of the volcano and the summit sticking out above the clouds. We were planning to go up for sunrise one morning while we were here so I especially found it fascinating to see from a distance. Such a different view from the plane.

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We collected our luggage and made our way to the car rental agency where we picked out a car (not a huge selection again in the “standard” aisle). We got a Nissan Altima which BARELY fit most of our bags in the trunk. Lots of shoving & grunting with this one trying to put the stuff in (we’d had an Impala on Oahu which had a slightly bigger trunk, although with both cars we had to put some stuff in the backseat next to DS). We had forgotten how beautiful and different Maui was from Oahu and were now delighted to be there. The drive from the airport in Kahului across the island to Ka’anapali was familiar even tho it had been 8 years. We noticed lots of modern turbine windmills on the hills this time that we didn’t remember from before. As we neared our resort we stopped at a Safeway and picked up a few things (more beer and some some snacks). We would have a refrigerator in our room here but no other amenities for breakfast options. (I didn’t know just how much I’d actually miss our studio accommodations yet.)

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We pulled up to the entrance of the Sheraton and checked in. Being crafty and on a major budget we had booked 2 of our 3 nights with Starwood points and then our last night on cash so we were only going to be given a “standard” view room and requested the 3 nights be linked together so we wouldn’t have to change rooms. The Sheraton was noticeably not as lavish or as impressive as Aulani and nothing appeared to have been changed or updated since our last stay here in 2006. We were not given leis or anything to welcome us. No cold water or wet cloths. Just your basic check-in. We immediately knew we wished we’d STARTED here and then gone to Aulani. Although we’d loved this property 8 years before it was not going to measure up to Aulani this time around. But we’d booked it this way (Oahu then Maui) because the flights home (on Alaska Air) had better timing (MUCH shorter layovers) to go home directly from Maui than from Honolulu.

It was just about Noon when we got there so our room was ready. Below are some pics of the room & the view. Not too bad for a “standard” view. I think the biggest thing I noticed with the room, which was perfectly FINE was that it could’ve been ANY hotel room at ANY hotel ANYWHERE. Aulani was really done well and has a lot of character and ambiance. This was just a room. Anyway, we were only paying cash for 1 night out of this WHOLE 2 WEEK TRIP so it would be fine. It just wouldn't be Aulani. :) We dropped off our luggage, changed into bathing suits and made our way down to the pool area to find some lunch. We went to the Cliffside Grill but all the tables were full so we had to sit in an annexed area where it turned out the servers didn’t actually visit. We had to go over to the bar to order (it took us awhile to figure that out).

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After we ate lunch we began the dreaded lounge chair hunt. While this resort is very large and spread out with multiple buildings they didn’t appear to have very many chairs. With it being mid-afternoon and prime pool time it wasn’t going to be easy to find chairs together. And there was a noticeable lack of umbrellas and shade compared to Aulani. They have a BEAUTIFUL beach area here but chairs and umbrellas were not free like at Aulani – they were full day rentals. We weren’t about to pay for a full day rental when we only had a couple of hours. The beach here is at famous Black Rock (where they do lots of cliff diving and off-shore snorkeling) and as such is a popular public beach with lots of foot / thru traffic.

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We finally found a few chairs that we could drag together in the grassy area between the pool and the beach. DS wasn’t happy with the spot tho because there was a designated smoking area near a shower / beach access path that was only a few feet from where we were set up. We immediately noticed that while Oahu was at least 50% Japanese tourists Maui had a lot more European tourists. This meant a lot of chain smoking around the shower. We just really didn’t have a whole lot of options on where to sit at this hour of the day so I promised him that I would be down EARLY the next morning to find better seats for us. I remembered this being a “thing” from the last time we were there and knew with a lot fewer chairs available I’d need to be down there by at least 7:00 AM. Uggg.

We hung out by the pool for a couple more hours then went up to shower for dinner (in time to catch the sunset of course).

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Then we walked down the beach path to the Whaler’s Village for the evening which only about a 10 minute walk. The Sheraton really is in a good location on Ka'anapali Beach. It was still prime time for dinner and “the boys” didn’t really want to wait long so we went to some place called Maui Fish & Pasta on the corner which didn’t have a wait. Should’ve stuck it out & waited for Leilani’s. I would call this Fish & Pasta place only so-so. We got a calamari appetizer which was very different from your standard calamari. It may have been the best thing out of everything we ordered although I don’t think I’d call it the best calamari I’d ever eaten...it was sort of presented in a salad which is unusual. DS got a burger or chicken sandwich or something with sweet potato fries (I can’t tell from the picture what it was), DH got a fish sandwich or burger or something (can’t quite tell which) and I got a rigatoni pasta dish with meat sauce (which was kind of dry or something – not saucy enough IMO). It was all kinda meh. You can see from my pictures that it was just kind of food on a plate. ZERO presentation went into it. Nothing to write home about. (Now we know why this place was the only one without a wait.) :rolleyes2 We probably wouldn’t return and I personally wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. There is just too much GOOD food to be had in Hawaii and it’s too expensive to not LOVE everything you eat.

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After dinner we just walked back to the Sheraton. Boy are we an exciting bunch or WHAT?! We watch sunsets & eat! LOL :rotfl:

At some point that afternoon, DS who was getting bored of just “hanging around the pool” asked if this was all we were going to do for the rest of the trip (and he didn’t mean are we gonna go for a drive around the island or take the road to Hana – he wanted to DO something). “Well, yeah. Kinda” we told him. We hadn’t planned on doing anything else because everything costs so much and we really were trying to stick to a budget. BUT we could see his point. He’s an only child and didn’t have anybody to hang out with or do things with. So we started feeling guilty and started thinking maybe we should plan something for us to do that offered some excitement. So before we went to bed we went online and researched some zip line places. We’d already planned to go up to Haleakala for sunrise on Sunday morning so we’d be up and out and BACK early. So we decided although we’d be tired from getting up at 2:30 am we may as well add a zip line excursion to the day (it was too late to find an opening for the next day anyway). We looked at 2 or 3 places – some were on the other side of the island and some were REALLY expensive but we just wanted something fairly close (that had openings) and something moderately priced so we picked one based right by the resort there in Ka’anapali (Skyline Eco Adventures). They had a few different options and we decided to go ahead and do the longer one that had 8 lines. After all, we weren’t likely to do this again any time soon. DS seemed really happy with the plan and now we knew he’d be more tolerant of “just hanging out” again at the pool the next day with this to look forward to. So we booked that for Sunday afternoon and then went to bed. It would’ve probably have been better to plan it for the morning so it wouldn’t be as hot but we wanted to leave enough time to get back from Haleakala, change clothes and time to grab lunch. I think we had to be there to check in at like 12:30 or something.
 
P.S. We stayed at the same Sheraton in 1997 after it's grand reopening. Everything looks the same except im sure they have updated the rooms.
 
I can't believe how my days have been flying by - haven't had time to work on this since the beginning of the month. I haven't even been on the DIS hardly at all either. I only have a few more days to write but there are lots of pics to go thru to finish this up (I took a LOT of the sunrise at Haleakala). I had to take a break from this to work on some seasonal fall / Halloween photography stuff for my personal portfolio plus "we" have been working on college apps which were due Nov 1st. Hopefully maybe I can get back to this next week before I lose all my readers!! :)
 

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