Honolulu, Hawaii
Sometime mid June, my friend Lisa called and said she had the first week of July off. “Where do you want to go?” You see, I’ve told Lisa and my other friends that I will travel anywhere they want to go provided I can stamp my passport (this does not include countries where there’s a war going on).
So when Lisa asked me where I wanted to go, needless to say, I jumped at it. Knowing that she could only go for a week, I figured the closest place was Hawaii. If she had more time, I’d want to go to Europe or Asia or even South America, but I think if you’re going to any of those places for the first time, you should go for at least 2 weeks. If I was back in NYC, it’d be much easier to pick Europe, but I’m not, so I didn’t. And I know I wasn’t going to be able to stamp my passport, but I’ve never been to Hawaii or Alaska, and they’re both places I’d like to go.
We first tried planning something in Maui, but Lisa remembered she had a friend in Honolulu and he said we could use his car, so we were sold. Now my only issue was my dog, Sydney. Thankful Gianna, Lisa’s daughter, said she could watch her and that meant that I’d have to go to Poway early and fly out of San Diego via United Airlines, and I found us an inexpensive hotel (The Pearl Hotel Waikiki). And with that, our trip was planned: Sunday, July 2nd – Saturday July 8th. Now to just get Lisa out there.
DAY 1: JULY 2, 2023
Because Lisa was planning to go standby (non-rev) on her flight, it didn’t look like she was going to make the plane. Thankfully, she was able to buy a last minute one-way ticket on Southwest with both of us landing in Honolulu around the same time, noon-ish Hawaii time. Her plan was to fly Delta standby on her return
And let me make one mention, if you don’t already have TSA Precheck, Global Entry or CLEAR, I highly suggest investing in one of them, especially if you travel a lot. Just look at this picture. The empty portion in the foreground is for TSA Precheck, The crowded background is where everyone else has to check in
So when I arrived into Honolulu, Lisa had already been there for like 30 mins and met me at baggage claim where her friend Dan picked us up. He showed us around a bit then we went back to his apartment because check in at the hotel was at 4pm. We didn’t realize just how close he is to the hotel, just 2 blocks.
After chilling for a little bit, we went to the beach (also 2 blocks away perpendicularly) and grabbed a couple drinks at Duke’s and the drink to drink in Hawaii is the Mai Tai.
Duke’s Mai Tai is a drink made with Aloha, Hawaiian juices, rum and more dark rum poured over the top. Some recipes call for other things, but that’s how Duke’s makes theirs. It was quite delicious, but I went with a pina colada for my second.
We chillaxed for a few hours and took in the aroma, sunshine and atmosphere before we headed back to Dan’s to get our bags, then to the hotel to check in.
The hotel was a great choice for our purposes. We weren’t looking for glam, we just wanted a place to change our clothes and sleep. We didn’t want to spend any more time in the hotel than necessary. You can even opt out of house cleaning.
Thankfully, we both packed very light and were able to get all our stuff in one bag each. I mean, what more do you need in Hawaii other than bathing suits, shorts, tanks & flip flops? Also, Lisa had gotten a couple mini Ikea bags to attach to our suits for our money and waterproof phone bags. I also brought a couple of underwater cameras I got on Amazon. They’re meant for kids, but had the features I wanted and they were much less expensive than others. And after a quick haphazard unpacking and change of clothes, we went out on the town. There’s a mall, The International Market Place, halfway to the beach where we snagged a few photos and then headed for the beach.
After leaving the beach, we headed back to the hotel and then back to Duke’s since we were still awake and ready to mingle. Sadly, there wasn’t anyone there we wanted to ‘mingle’ with. Though we did meet this nice couple who had been there for like a week and chatted with them about their stay so far, before heading back to the hotel to crash for the night.
Btw, here are a couple issues I had with the hotel: the beds are akin to the floor, and the air conditioning (window) unit was really loud.