Many of you know that our big news this year is we are hosting a foreign exchange student. His name is Vasco Corte-Real from Lisbon, Portugal. If you read any of our Ashland blog from a few months ago, you met him there. Since we knew he would have 2 weeks off at Christmas, we had loosely been planning to go to Puerta Vallarta at this time, but the program really doesn’t want you to take the kids out of the country. So early on we said to him: the US is a big place, is there anywhere in particular you’d like to go? He says “Hawaii?” like maybe that was too much. We just looked at each other and said “Yeah, we can do that!”
Ash hasn’t been since 2002, and I haven’t been since 1993. He was on the big island for 2 weeks, and I was in Honolulu for work for a month so worked in what I could on the weekends. We are excited to be back.
We had a 5:30am flight Monday, 12/23, out of Sacramento to LAX.
Our layover was 3 hours which we spent in an Admiral’s Club and got a little breakfast.
The flight to Lihue, on Kauai, took about 6 hours. It was uneventful as you want a flight to be!
We are staying at the Sheraton Kauai Coconut Beach Resort. The photo includes the pool area with the Pacific in the background.
Kauai is the most northern of the 5 or so main Hawaiian Islands when we think of Hawaii, although there are 137 total.
This is our room. It’s small but free! Ash was able to book it on points. Retail rate for 3 people: $1499 per night. Crazy. It will be a little crowded but the price was certainly right given the alternatives.
It does have a cute little balcony, and you can sort of see the ocean from it.
We got settled in the room again then explored the property a bit. We went to the beach and Vasco and I checked on the water temperature which was cool but not cold like at home.
Our rental for this portion of our trip is a Ford Mustang convertible. Because why not? They gave Ash a deal he couldn’t resist, and we were glad he didn’t.
We got going pretty early for our first thing – a Luau – because we’d noticed traffic was pretty bad. And it got worse as we went on and what should have been a 15-minute drive was 45 minutes. Good thing we weren’t in a hurry.
On our way, we stopped at a corner stand a got Vasco fresh coconut water.
Our destination was Luau Kalamako, about 9 miles down the coast and inland for a couple of them. It was on a sugar plantation. There was a train ride that would take you on a 2.5 mile ride through it but we passed on that. There were also gift shops and other typical tourist stuff which we also passed on.
I did manage to get to a luau in 1993 so knew what to expect, and this wasn’t all that much different. There was a cast of dancer and emcees who told a story about how the islands were inhabited through the eyes of one family, with lots of traditional Hawaiian dancing of course. The food was a buffet, with roasted pig as the big event.
And of course, fire dancers!
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It was an enjoyable evening, but we were all so tired we went back to the room and straight to bed.
As I type this it’s Christmas Eve morning. We have 2 more nights at this resort in Kauai, and then Maui for 2 nights and finishing with 3 nights at Waikiki. We don’t have a ton planned outside of a couple of more dinner reservations and are looking forward to making it up as we go.
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For the record I flew in economy, ok economy plus for 6 hrs… I am not a princess
Of course you are ❤️
Noted
Enjoy!! Aloha!!
Thank you! Merry Christmas!
Hello Steve this is Bryce, I hope you are doing well! I heard that Kilauea is errupting, what a spectacular site that would be.
That worked!