Frustrating Hawaii Day Can't Remember the Number!!!

---

Aloha to everyone,



We are sitting at the airport on Maui, Kahului, having a cold drink while we wait to head to our gate for boarding our flight to Honolulu. We got here a bit early as it didn’t take us nearly as long to get thought he rental car check-in as I envisaged. However by the time pointed out all the cars ‘issues’ to the very nice young man at the Dollar Rentals check-in we did take a while….the bonnet kept jumping open to the first catch, the key fob ‘door opening’ didn’t work at all - locked everything but wouldn’t open and it took me 3 days when I quite by accident discovered that if I used the key to open the drivers door and turned the key twice to the right it activated the central locking – had been reaching in and manually unlocking Joy’s door until then…..the little knob on the cruise control function kept falling out….the CV joints on the car were in real need of some major attention as they constantly ‘clunked’ repeatedly when turning sharp corners…think that was about it. I very calmly and politely pointed these things out and he wrote the faults on the window for those who no doubt did the work out back somewhere. I must have been nice to him because he said they would waive the charge for filling the car with petrol.

Decided to start this blog while we are having the drinks etc. Just discovered that airport food is REALLY, REALLY expensive here, as in the rest of the world. Just as well my brain doesn’t do the dollar conversion or we wouldn’t eat anything here.

Anyway back to yesterday, Sunday here, when we started with a lazy morning. Little lie in before getting going and heading just down the road to the ‘iconic’ little bakery famous for their cinnamon rolls….breakfast…..rolls topped with copious cream cheese…had been recommended by Craig and Steph (frequent visitors to Maui) and they lived up to all the advertising……YUMMY!!!!

We then changed into our togs and went up to one of the hotel’s 2 pools and lazed in and beside the pool for an hour or so.

It was a very hot morning and early afternoon so we didn’t last more than the hour at the pool before getting changed again and heading out for lunch and our planned afternoon activity.

Another big drive for a photo opportunity….right up to the summit of Haleakala. This is the 10,000 foot high volcano that dominates the island of Maui, and is THE place to go to take in the sunrise and the sunset. We headed off to do the sunset!!! About a 35 mile drive up a very good road….but VERY windy and slow and you are obviously climbing the whole way. Fantastic views all over Maui as we got higher and eventually drove through a layer of cloud that sat about halfway up the mountain. We kept climbing, along with a lot of other car loads…most of them I wasn’t going fast enough for and many overtook me in the craziest of places even though I did the decent Kiwi thing and pulled over whenever possible….I was doing the speed limit as much as the road would allow it but that means didly squat on this island…..I’ll digress and get it off my chest now…..speed limit signs here seem to just be an advisory thing..the fastest allowed speed was 55mph which is about 90kmh, generally the limits were around 30, 35 and 45 mph on roads that at home would definitely be 100kmh….however while I drove on cruise control at just over the posted speed limit all the time all the rest of the traffic went past me like I was going backwards….especially in the areas posted at 30, 35 or 45 mph. Obviously there is no traffic enforcement on the island…I must have pissed a lot of drivers off in the week I’ve been here by driving ONLY just over the speed limit. Anyway that’s my bitch about that!!!!

We had to stop and pay $30 to get into the National park about half way up the mountain and that turned out to be another frustrating experience…..try to get a credit card to accepted in a ‘bl…y machine that doesn’t want to take it, especially when you have a queue of about 20 cars and building behind you.

We stopped near the summit and looked down into the massive crater….and the word massive doesn’t really do it justice. Joy got some great photos so I’ll include one or two. Got to the summit posted at 10023 feet about an hour before sunset was due and it was COLD…we had brought jerseys with us and they went on but weren’t really quite enough. The other thing we found, especially Joy, at the height was the air was very thin and made breathing while walking around quite difficult. However the views were simply incredible and I’ll add some photos to show them. As sunset approached Joy really started to struggle with her breathing so we headed back down the mountain and actually found a layby a little bit further down that provided really great views of the sunset as it went down behind the layer of cloud so we lost nothing at all.

All in all it was a lovely afternoon and evening with fantastic views of just about the whole island…and we had road down to ourselves with no one trying to push us off the road for driving at the speed limit!!!

Sunday ended with a later dinner at Moose McGillacuddy’s restaurant just down the road.

Then back to room to start packing the cases ready for our repositioning day today, Monday.

The computer in the laptop is about to run out so I’ll add some more tonight once we get settled into our hotel in Honolulu.

We are now in Honolulu….and kinda wishing we weren’t!!!!!!

Since we arrived here from Maui it has been one big ‘disappointment’….and you would be correct if you can pick that I’m biting my tongue a bit.

The flight from Maui went very smootly….no problems at all.

After landing around 1.45pm we got our bags OK and headed to the ‘rental car centre’ in the shuttle bus…no problems. Arrived at the Dollar Rentals place at 2pm and a queue with 50 – 60 people met us…again 10 ‘customer service desks’ (and I use the term very lightly with tongue in cheek) and only 3 working. I queued while Joy sat outside on the concourse with the cases….and I queued for nearly 2 hours. Had another Kiwi next to me in the line so we chatted for a while but with each person taking 10 -15 minutes to process it was slow going. There ain’t no such thing as customer service in this game at all….. I finally got served and our rental processed only to be told that there would be about an hour and a half wait for a car to become available. Went downstairs with Joy and the cases and handed our rental car cards into the office and told to sit and wait….may take up to 90 minutes. At least 60 – 70 0ther groups all milling around waiting….no drink outlets anywhere…nearest was at the terminal building at least a 20 - 30 minute walk away and no one was doing that in case your name got called out when a car became available. So we waited…..and waited….and waited. We had a ‘compact car’ booked…small type Ford etc. When our name was finally called we were shown to a great big flash Chevrolet Impala car….about 3 upgrade sizes from what we had booked (they had obviously run out of compacts). This car is not only big but has all the whistles and bells in it…electric everything…….keyless start, auto-stop when you stop at a traffic light….you name it, this beast had it. Took me about 10 minutes to figure out how everything worked…very comfortable to say the least.

Folks, by this time it was after 5pm and I would have driven away on a horse and cart if they’d offered us one!!!!

We finally headed off with our hotel address loaded into the TomTom ( the car actually appeared to have some sort of GPS built in but haven’t yet figured out how to work it) and immediately hit Honolulu peak hour traffic on the H1 highway taking us to Waikiki. This is 5 lanes absolutely bumper to bumper crawling along at less than 5mph with about 8 miles to drive according to Tom. Fun, fun, fun!!!!! I actually misread the TomTom instructions and took a wrong turn and got off the H1 earlier than I was supposed to so ended up getting to the hotel through the ‘back streets’ if there is such a beast here. Arrived at just after 6pm and starting to feel a bit jaded.

NO SIGNS POINTING TO ENTRANCE TO HOTEL lobby for check-in. Went round the block a couple of times before figuring it out. So much traffic you couldn’t just stop and try to see where to go!!!. Eventually got into the next bl…y queue of cars for the hotel check-in when the valet parking attendant came and said he would help us get the cases out and park the car for us….’How much is that?’ I asked…… $50!!!!!per day!!!!! Yikes…..We decided to do that for 1 night and will then reassess the parking…we can pay to park over the road in the Honolulu Zoo public car park and that works out at $22/ day so that might be explored tomorrow!!!

Got to the check-in desks and started that process. Handed over the debit card, on which all our US$ had been put to pay for the deposit (in case we wreck the room) and all the extra charges that they seem to add on over and above the nightly room rate (resort fees and taxes…..just spell RORT) only to be told that it had ben declined……WHAT?????? OK, maybe their system doesn’t like debit cards so handed over the main VISA car…..DECLINED again. By this stage I was starting to have to bite my tongue…just about had enough of the place. Went to an ATM in the lobby and had the receptionist watch me take $100 out of the debit card with no trouble at all. So she tried the debit card again…’Oh sorry Sir, it needed a PIN number put in’……duh, of course it does lady….so that was duly entered and sweetness and light prevailed. Just as well we don’t drink as I think we’d both have had to go and drink a bottle of something very strong by this stage!!!!

Finally got up to our room and it is a very plain hotel room with absolutely no view of anything except a roof. The room has no tea making facilities, just a small fridge and a TV and an incredibly noisy AC system. Hopefully the bed will be comfortable!!!!!.

We eventually wandered down the Beach Front street and had something for dinner…our first food since breakfast in Maui this morning.

Just an initial observation…we though Maui was expensive…Honolulu is expensive on steroids.

Oh well tomorrow can only get better hopefully😊

Have to be up and on the computer at 7am to try to book tickets for Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling on Thursday so an early start.

That’s the end of a very frustrating day so looking forward to things improving from here on out.

(Sorry…NO time to add photos this time but will do a photo catch up next time)

So until next time……..

---