Blogs from Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii, United States, North America - page 6

Come to Hawaii and relax on the beautiful beaches of Waikiki goes the advertising blurb. I have yet to lie on the sand and have swum 3 times only at Waikiki, seems like a waste of a holiday to do just that, there is so much to see and do. Today's early morning start involved a 7am out of bed, breakfast and catch the green trolley line to the Diamond Head Crater to hike to the summit. Our stop to catch the trolley was opposite the zoo and the beach where we watched one seriously good game of beach volleyball, 2 couples who looked quite professional. The green trolley takes you up to the gate where you need to pay your $1- to access this national park. It was made a national natural landmark in 1968, ... read more

Amazingly with all the noise of the next door Queen Kapiolani Hotel parking, valet and luggage areas as well as various construction work nearby we managed a sleep in and Martin slept till 9-30am. Our plan today was to take the blue Waikiki trolley on the South East corner tour of the island. We thought 11am would be great, however after a slow lazy morning we managed the 1-36pm departure. We chose to get this double decker bus at its third stop which is at the Duke statue along Waikiki beach. After some very assertive lining up we managed to get a seat on the top facing the coast. This is a 2.5 hour round trip, with informative commentary and two stops for photos. You can pay a single $20- fee or purchase a multi line ... read more

The mission for today was to purchase trolley bus tickets. We had looked at this online and found a 7 day pass for $59- per adult which included all 4 lines. Stop and go and get on and off as you please. Pink line was shopping, red historic, green scenic and blue line panoramic coastline. But when we went to purchase them online it said it would take 2-5 days to process the tickets. We have only 7 days left so we decided to purchase them on foot at the depot. Well this was a search and a half, but eventually we found the depot in T Galleria off Kalakaua Ave up near the Royal Hawaiian centre. Two very slick sales ladies then lead us through a power 5 minutes of a speed dating version of ... read more

Today was huge in fact it was 30 hours of huge. Getting up at 5am Australian time Friday 7th, driving the 1 hour to Proserpine airport from Mackay, waiting for our delayed Jetstar flight to Brisbane and then the hanging around until 6pm to depart Australia direct to Honolulu. Gotta love airport food and drink, almost $100- spent today just hanging out and eating and drinking. Pick the terrorist today, 2 gunpowder swaps in Proserpine, and a full body scan in Brisbane. So after a 9 hour flight we arrived 7-30am Friday the 7th USA time. ( this was 3am Saturday Australia) which is no problem when you can sleep on a plane, and a huge problem for Martin who only sleeps luxuriously tucked up in a real bed.And guess who got pulled aside for a ... read more

Day 5 Honolulu & the Sunset Cruise 17 June 2015 We started the day slowly with an enjoyable breakfast at a cafe up the road from our hotel. Today was the day we visited the Waikele Premium Shopping Outlet which was part of our package tour. Now some of you who know how I love to shop (not!) may be guessing that I was debating if I really wanted to go, but we decided to anyway. It was a shopping centre made up of many international brands. We wandered through many of the outlets. Thank goodness we have a little 7 year old granddaughter to buy for. I always find it difficult to buy for adults!!! Tom wanted a new suitcase but we had found an excellent outlet near our hotel where we bought one, so ... read more