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Published: September 30th 2009
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View of our Hotel
Front of Moana Surfrider Hotel in Honolulu Checkout from the hotel is at noon today, but the flight doesn’t leave until after 5:00 PM, so we still have time to do a little more before we leave.
We started by sleeping in and not getting up until we were ready (no alarm clock today). We considered eating breakfast on the hotel terrace overlooking the beach, but after all the fancy meals we have had the last two weeks, we decided something simple was all we wanted. We had seen a Burger King while we were walking around the night before, so we went and had plan old ordinary croissanwichs (like back at home).
Then we came back to the hotel and packed up all our things to see if everything would fit in the suitcases or if we would need to buy another. Actually there was a little room to spare, so we could do a bit more shopping.
There is something called an ABC Store in Hawaii. I guess that must be Hawaiian for “souvenir store” because there is at least one (sometimes more) on every block in Waikiki. We had seen others on the different islands we had visited. Each store seemed to
Pool at the Hotel
View of Pool from the beach-side of the hotel have similar merchandise at approximately the same price, but they all were a little different too. There are also several Hawaiian quilt stores near our hotel, but we did not have enough extra room in the bags for a quilt. But we did go through quite a few souvenir stands and picked up enough stuff to finish filling all the bags.
While we were shopping the radio in the stores announced there was a Tsunami watch. Thankfully it did not hit Hawaii but it did reinforced lots of stories from our tour guides about previous hurricanes and tsunamis in Hawaii.
Back at the hotel we packed everything, checked out of our room, checked the bags with the bellhop, and went off for one more stroll down the front street along the beach. We had a light lunch which included pineapple and came back to just sit on the front veranda of the hotel and watch the people. It turns out this hotel (Moana Surfrider) is a popular place for wedding pictures. We saw 4 limousines pull up (about every 15 minutes) and unload the bride & groom and photographer. They took some pictures and left again. The night
Janet leaving the hotel
Janet after checking out of the Moana Surfrider Hotel before we had seen at least one other couple plus an entire wedding was scheduled on one of the floors.
There was a little confusion about the pickup for our ride to take us to the airport, but everything worked out well. We actually got to see several other hotels as the bus kept going around picking up more passengers. I am pretty sure we stayed in one of the fanciest hotels, which was nice for one night but we can see there are other choices if we went back for a longer stay.
Check-in at the airport was kind of slow because the airline did not have but 3 people working. However we and our bags did get processed and we caught our flight back home. It was a Boeing 767. We had to move a jacket from one bag to the other so both bags would be below 50 pounds (49.5 and 48.7).
After being pampered for almost 3 weeks, it was quickly back to reality - even on a 7 hour flight from Honolulu to Dallas there was only limited food service in coach if you wanted to buy from the airline, so we
David leaving the hotel
David after we checked out of the hotel brought some Starbucks sandwiches and a box of cookies to take on the plane for our dinner.
The flight was smooth and arrived on time in Dallas - which was the important thing. We had just enough time to get to the gate for our connecting flight back to St Louis (they were boarding as we walked up). The second flight was not very crowded and we even arrived early. Somehow the luggage made the connection too. Elizabeth came to pick us up at the airport and we are back home now. After practically no sleep on the overnight flight, we are a bit tired now, but David does not go back to work until Friday and Janet does not go back until Monday, so we still have time to rest up from our terrific vacation.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our great adventure in the Pacific.
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