Hawaii Trip, Day #1: Travel Day - Headed to Oahu Hawaii!

Travel days... Not the funnest part of vacation, especially when you are traveling solo with a toddler.

Packing

First, all the stuff you need to pack!!! I have to admit, I'm a procrasti-packer. I normally don't pack until the day before OR even a few hours before. The reason? There's stuff you use everyday that you need to pack! Or last minute laundry stuff. So yeah... I didn't pack until the day before we left and wasn't finished packing until about 15 minutes before we left the house.

The Airport 

My home airport was easy breezy. My friend dropped us off at the airport, which helped so much. Then, checking in at Hawaiian Airlines. I have to say, I love flying Hawaiian Airlines. But what I don't like about it is -- they don't give you your seat assignments UNTIL you are at the GATE! THE GATE! Not checking your luggage, but at the gate. So, you have to check your luggage, go through security, go to the gate -- to get your seats. Weird! They wouldn't let me choose while doing the online check in or when checking my luggage. It made me feel rushed to get to the gate and make sure we had seats. As it turned out, we didn't have time to eat breakfast or explore the terminal - as we were already boarding about 15 minutes after getting our seat assignments.

We ended up getting a window seat, which was nice - since there are only two seats in the row. No need to worry about anyone else in our row.

The Plane Ride

We were delayed about 20 minutes. Other than that, the plane ride was relatively uneventful! Little Guy did amazing!!! I brought a lot of Toddler-Worthy-Plane-Distraction-Items --> Were they a Success? I'll have to do another blog entry after the trip on that... But some cute things: Little Guy called his Teddy Grams "Baby" and he was playing with the animal crackers and making animal noises :)

Arriving in Oahu 

When you fly to Hawaii, you have to fill out a form saying you didn't bring anything with you that is on this list before arriving at HNL. Well, apparently there were people on our flight that brought some "no-no" items with them. Therefore, we were diverted at the airport to another portion of the airport where the Sheriffs came on board to "escort" these folks off. That means we were delayed about 40 minutes on the tarmac. THEN, we were so far from the baggage claim!!! I ended up walking to the baggage claim (bad idea - it was so humid!!). Then, someone told me the wrong carousel number and I was waiting at the wrong one! Argh. Our luggage was the LAST pieces of luggage on our carousel. Not to mention, I couldn't find a luggage cart - they were all empty and no one at the airport (employees) would help me locate one. I got lucky finding one.

It gets worse...

Rental Car 

To get to the rental cars you have to take a shuttle. Well, there's no sign in the terminal to tell you that. So, I was waiting and asking some very unhelpful people (more HNL employees). For being in Hawaii, I have to say the most unhelpful people I have ever come across were working at this airport. This was by far the worse airport I have ever been to.

Imagine, I have a crap load of luggage WITH a baby and now I have to get onto a shuttle to pick up the rental car...! So now I'm waiting for the shuttle to come... waiting... waiting... waiting... 20 minutes or so? After waiting 20 minutes in the terminal to find out I needed to wait for the shuttle.... Grrr.

Then, the shuttle finally comes and are people helpful? Nope! They were pushing their way to get onto the shuttle while I had a crap load of luggage AND a baby strapped to me. Tsk tsk. Don't they realize they're going to have to wait for me anyways? Trying to get past me and push your way onto the shuttle is actually delaying the process. When we got off, I then had to reload all my luggage on a luggage cart. Does anyone help? Nope!

Mind you, it's not like I "need" the help. I can do all this myself (which I did). It's the point that people were literally watching me and not offering to help. Which is so odd! When we flew to Florida in December, there were people bending over backwards to help (even when I didn't need it). When we flew to Austin, the same thing - people were forcing their help onto me. It's just a different mind frame I suppose and something I didn't expect would bother me. Watch a lady with a lot of luggage and a toddler and not offer to help when you are just standing there doing nothing. To see this repeatedly makes it even more odd.

We get to the rental car place and then we have to wait ANOTHER 40 minutes just to check in and get the car! Oh my... I'm normally a patient person, but at this juncture I was getting pretty pissed off.

I finally load my rental car (with no help AT ALL from anyone!) and head to the hotel. My darn GPS took me to the wrong place originally and I had to re-map it while ON the Freeway. Not my finest moment, I may have muttered some not so sweet or nice word choices.

Arriving at the Hotel 

At this point, I'm exhausted. Absolutely bone tired and need a nice nap...! At least the room was ready and we were able to get in with no hassles. We stayed at the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel. The check-in guy was pretty friendly and nice. He must've thought I looked crazy -- I didn't realize my hair was sticking out everywhere due to the humidity and I was really unfriendly at this point, just wanted my key and to lay down for a little bit!

The good part is, we did have a "Partial View" of the ocean from our room. The bad part is, we are right next to construction!! It's really loud!!!

First thing we did was go to the beach! It's right across the street. Little Guy was scared of the waves and cried!!! We didn't go in the water, I just put my feet in.



Then we ate dinner and called it a day. I was tired. Do you blame me? :)

Best part of the day: Seeing the Pacific Ocean :)

Worst part of the day: The entire Honolulu Airport Experience. Worst airport experience I have EVER had.