Leis, Limos, and Waikiki Beach

Side Note: I wrote this on the plane from Hawaii to Australia and was unsure where I left off on the first post - so you may read some similar stuff.

I am writing this at 38 000 feet on Way to Oz!

Wow, where to begin, Right now we are again hurdling back in time – oh wait no - now we are going forward in time – in fact we just went over the equator and are about to pass the international date line. – So it is 8:00 pm in Toronto on July 28th – HAPPY BIRTHDAY APRIL!!! And it is 2:00 pm in Hawaii (where we just came from) and we are on our way to Sydney Australia. Where it is 10:00 am on Tuesday July 29th ! HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANNY! - It’s hard to wrap your head around sometimes.

Leis and Limos

So where did I leave off on the last blog entry. I am not sure if I shared with you the rest of our flight and our limo ride from the airport to the Westin Moana Surfrider in Waikiki. I had arranged for a limo to pick us up as last year when Warren and I arrived in Honolulu, we had a heck of a time renting our car and then maneuvering our way to Waikiki. The traffic at 3:00pm is unreal – apparently Honolulu has traffic all the time, typical city that grew before it’s infrastructure did.

So to make it easy I found a company that was recommended by a contributor on TripAdvisor that offered an airport transfer with lei service.We used ABC Limousine Service. So yes we got leied at the airport! (clean those minds up!) We didn’t tell Montana – we thought it would be a great surprise to see a limo driver holding onto a card with her name on it and welcoming her with a lei in the traditional Hawaiian way. She was excited in a 13 year old way. She said “SICK!” We are getting that people react different ways to new experiences at different ages. LOL!!!

ABC Limousine Service also picked us up to take us back to the airport - arrived on time and were awesome - It really is great not having to worry about transfers to the airport and getting there on time!

The driver took our bags and while we waited for the driver to get the car (Yes we felt important) another limo (that I thought was ours came up)

I panicked as I thought – ok I guess that I should have done more research on this limo company! – But when I went to talk to the driver it wasn’t our driver! Thank goodness – So my recommendation is to use Martin Kims ABC Limousine - This was the car we actually had!

We had a wonderfully relaxing transfer into Waikiki with Montana bartending

Ok maybe she was drinking as well!

Arriving at the Westin Moana Surfrider

We arrived at the Westin Moana Surfrider and were greeted by 2 lovely Hawaiian ladies that gave us a cold cloth, some lemongrass iced tea and another lei. The hotel itself is beautiful! It is one of the original and had lots of class and history. Everytime you walked in the lobby you could imagine ladies in full dresses from the turn of the century walking with parasols.
We got a glimpse of the ocean and Waikiki Beach as we walked to the front desk. It was exciting to see that beautiful blue and turquoise ocean again.
Waikiki was busy. Really busy. This is why we only stay in Waikiki for a few days. The beach was busy as were the stores.

We booked with our points for the room we were to stay in and decided to spend the extra to upgrade to a one bedroom suite. This was one of our better choices. With a little extra money and “relating to the world of the front desk person” (always be friendly to the people who check you in – make sure you get what is going on for them – be interested in how their day is going – not only is it great to meet new people but it is a great way to get extras) We ended up with one best rooms on all of Waikiki Beach. It was absolutely amazing! We could see the whole beach from the Sheraton Waikiki to Diamond Head. It also had one of those celebrity toilets! It had a built in bidet, seat warmer etc. Montana and Warren thought that was just really cool!



We spent a lot of time in our room as we were adjusting to the time difference etc.

Waikiki Beach, Surfers and the Turtle

As we were overlooking the Beach and the water – we could see all the swimmers, surfers, beachcombers , the sandy areas under the water and the rocky areas. As we looked out I saw a turtle! A huge one! It was great watching him (yes all you SBI’rs! I couldn’t believe it a Turtle!!!) – In the whole 2 weeks we were in Hawaii last year we never saw one turtle! The people that were in the water had no idea that he was there!

We were hot when we arrived and were excited to be in Waikiki so we chose to go swimming right away. Now this is where I messed up – I didn’t make sure we bought a waterproof camera to take pictures of us bobbing around in the water. Boy was it fun!

We were tired but needed to eat. Last year we never made it to the famous Dukes for a meal. So I pre booked it for our first night. The meal was ok. But I think it was hard to tell as we were so tired. So we had their salad bar and a few appetizers. We requested a table by the water and were not disappointed. The view was beautiful.

By 8 pm we were exhausted. I never even realized I had fallen asleep until I woke up at 4 am! By 5 am Montana woke up, so we decided to let Warren sleep and we went out on the balcony and watched the sunrise over Diamond Head. It was beautiful!