Mar 072014
 

After picking up the car at Alamo (which is actually off-site at the Honolulu Airport) we endured the typical slow evening traffic into Waikiki. Gave the car to the valet, and headed to the desk to check-in. This was my first stay since the renovations, and was looking forward to seeing what sort of room we’d receive.  The app looked promising, with something called a “Penthouse Ocean” room.

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Upon check-in he confirmed that was indeed a suite, and was on the newly renovated top floor of the tower wing.  It was a very large room, with a huge bathroom, and an even bigger rooftop lanai:

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We still had about 30 minutes of happy hour left, and went to check out the new lounge that had been added as part of the renovations.  Free beer and wine and a decent selection of evening munchies – definitely a great addition to this hotel!  It was getting late by this point, so we headed next door to Duke’s restaurant for some beers, burgers, and of course the delicious and famous Hula Pie:

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We were exhausted by this point from the long day trekking around Molokai, and ended up crashing quite early.  The view from the lanai in the morning east over Waikiki was fantastic:

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Headed back down to the lounge, where they had a very nice selection of breakfast foods, including bacon, pineapple, and waffles.  What more could you want?!

At this point, I received notice from United that our flight to LA was going to be 3 hours late, reducing our 3:45 connection to 45 minutes best case.  I checked to see what was going on, and it turned out the plane still hadn’t left Chicago!  It was on a 7:30 and counting mechanical delay…that wasn’t promising.  I called the 1K line see if they’d put us on the nonstop to Washington, but figured it was a longshot since these were $10 tickets with upgrades.  No questions asked, she was happy to give us the last two business class seats on the plane…ahead of 40+ people on the waitlist.  As an extra bonus, it was an international configuration play with real lie-flat business class seats, AND the last two seats were right next to each other!  What are the odds!

The downside was, we’d lose an afternoon in Waikiki since our flight would leave at 4:30pm instead of 10:30pm.  Since the Moana wasn’t able to give us a late check-out past 1pm anyways it worked out ok, as I’m not sure what we would have done for the 9 hours.  But I knew what to do with the rest of the time…hit the beach!

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Yes, it had been a very rough vacation and relaxation was in order:

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Back up to the room at 12:30 for a quick shower before heading to the airport.  Decided to take some shots of the suite just in case anyone was curious.  The suite came pre-prepared for Fido, in case you somehow got him onto the island past quarantine:

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View from the shower.  Note the tub, sitting room inside the bathroom, and another door out onto the lanai:

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Giant sink area:

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After cleaning up headed across the street to the ABC store to pick up a few gifts and things for the road.  A view of the street in front of the hotel:

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The Moana Surfrider:

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One last photo-op on the lanai before heading to the airport:

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Then it was time to put the sun down on the convertible and unfortunately head to the airport and away from paradise 🙁


  One Response to “Overnight at the Moana Surfrider in Honolulu”

  1. Hello and thank you for your post on the moana surfrider.
    I have stayed there many many times and in all the different rooms except the penthouse suite or the penthouse ocean room. I have made reservations for the penthouse ocean room not the suite as I got at a pretty good price. I wanted to know if this was the same room you had with the bathtub in the middle of the room? I have very little photos to see from and wanted to make sure this was the ocean penthouse room and not the penthouse suite and thank you for your time
    is there any thing else you can remember about this room or have any other pics ?
    and thanks again
    mahalo
    Suzette

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