Day of Delirium #83 - Going to Hawaii

Sung in my best Will Smith voice to the tune of Going to Miami ;)

I decided I will post each day of my trip as a blog entry. I will try to post some pictures but I really want to get them all on a site that you can then go to at your leisure and look at them.

I can say that this trip was spectacular and that Hawaii is everything I thought it would be and more. The flights were perfect, the ship was amazing, each excursion was wonderful and seeing TrueBldTwilight/HonoluluGirl-Suz was the icing on the cake.


So to begin:

Friday 5-13-11:

Mom arrived at my house at 7am and we were headed out the door at 7:15am - a world record for me :) I was actually fully packed and ready to go when she arrived - I don't think that has ever happened before.

We drove to the Philadelphia airport and promptly pulled into the wrong parking garage and had to go all the way out and back around in order to get the right garage. I won't lie, I panicked. I thought it wasn't the best start to the trip but then I also thought that will be the worst it will be... and guess what ... it turned out to be true (for the most part lol).

Arrived at US Airways first class line and within 5 minutes we were checked in and ready for security. I love the first class line :) And we were lucky with weight as my bag was 48 pounds OH MY!! Security was nothing, no pat down, no xray, just a regular walk through so we were good to go.

Plane boarded and left right on time and Mom and I spent a good portion of the first flight (Philly to Phoenix) chatting about Hawaii until finally she read her book and I read some FanFiction. We arrived in Phoenix on time and immediately went to the next gate and boarded the plane to Hawaii. Those of you on Twitter when this happened might have seen that we were on the oldest plane I had been on in a long.... ooops since Forks last year. This plane still had ashtrays in the seat arms and in the bathroom. I was in shock and we just laughed.

 Dangrdafne and DangrMomma on the plane

Our movies for the Phoenix to Honolulu portion of the flight were True Grit (which I did not want to see) and the third Narnia movie. I watched True Grit and all I will say about it is that the girl was amazing! I really enjoyed watching her in the movie other than that ... meh. The Narnia movie passed the time but I slept through apparently the important part because I have no idea what was happening when I woke up - oh well lol :)

Then we started to descend. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to see Hawaii from our plane and it delivered. It was almost like we were landing in a different country or something. In fact, when we driving to the hotel we seemed surprised to see American places LOL!

We started to walk to baggage claim and were shocked when we had to go outside to get to the other terminal and it was like a hidden garden IN the airport.

It was gorgeous and so Hawaii. Got our luggage and went to get the shuttle bus for the hotels. We chose to be cheap and go the bus route instead of a taxi - note for next time and for everyone else, spend the money and get a taxi! I thought we would get to see the sunset from our hotel... has anyone ever watched the Chevy Chase Vacation movies with the Griswold's?? Well that is what happened to us. After the 4th trip around the SAME section of Honolulu, I started to laugh and cry 1) because I was exhausted at the point, 2) because we were definitely NOT seeing the sunset and 3) because we were the Griswold's. THEN when the man behind us suddenly woke up and realized he missed his hotel... we went around a FIFTH time!! We were in hysterics. Needless to say we did NOT see the sunset that night.

We finally arrived at the Marriott Waikiki, the last ones to get off the bus. It hotel was stunning to say the least. The lobby is open air and it was just gorgeous. Flowers and trees everywhere and the nicest people working at the desk. We got our room and were thrilled to get in and find we had a balcony. It was a gorgeous room with the comfiest beds. The best part, the hotel is connected to Norwegian Cruise Lines so on the TV we could watch a channel all about the excursions that are available on the cruise. Now we had already picked all ours but it was cool to see what we would be doing.

Oh and as we flipped through the channels I stopped on the Weather Channel and said "I've been there." My Mom was confused but looked up and I said "I have been there, that's LaPush Baby." (told you I was exhausted) It indeed was LaPush. It was that photography show with Peter Lik and he was in Washington State at Forks, Hoh Forest and LaPush! He also ended up having one of the murals on the boat too I later found out.

I do highly recommend this hotel just as it is and definitely recommend it if you are going on the cruise. It was a great place to stay and being connected to the cruise line had many benefits.

Next up - embarkation day for the cruise...