Nov 232014
 

I should subtitle this entry “because there hasn’t been enough drama already” but I’ll resist. Woke up to an email…my Virgin Australia flight had been canceled. For some reason, the inbound was canceled so might flight was canceled as well. Called Virgin, and they said “no problem, you’ve been rebooked for tomorrow.” Um, I don’t want to go tomorrow, I want to go today. Ugh.

Fortunately, my good friends at Solomons Air also had a flight that day…but Virgin wouldn’t rebook me on it. It actually took nearly 30 minutes of fighting to get them to agree to give me a refund. Ugh. There was an upside though – the new flight on Solomons wasn’t actually about $100 cheaper booked day of…so in the end, things actually worked out well!

Got to the airport only about an hour before the flight after all the drama, but no problems at all. Checked in, got the exit row again, and life was grand.

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Oh look, same plane as a couple days prior! That’s because Solomons only has one jet…

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Welkam on board!

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Solomons Airlines flight 700
Honiara, Solomon Islands (HIR) to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)
Depart 15:00, Arrive 17:15, Flight Time 3:15
Airbus A320, Registration H4-BUS (ex Air Canada) Manufactured 1992, Seat 15C

The flight was only about half full today, which meant I had the entire exit row to myself. Score! Double score…there was no sketchy sandwiich on this flight but a proper meal. It was described as “beef” and was actually reasonably tasty:

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Quick shot how the “other half” lives on the way out.

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Landed right on time, and decided to give the eGates at Australian immigration a try, not wanting a repeat of my experience coming into Darwin. It worked like a charm, and soon I was on the airport express train downtown and back to the Four Points hotel. The downtown area was an absolute security nightmare, with the G20 set to happen in a couple of days.

Checked in, had a quick shower, and headed out to get some dinner. While I was talking to the front desk lady about something, I heard a loud popping sound, kind of like if someone had popped a giant piece of bubble wrap. I looked around expecting to see something broken, on fire, something. What I didn’t expect to see is a giant flying creature that apparently I had stepped on.

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Quiet evening, caught up on sleep a bit, and then had another full day to decide what to do. With the giant security mess, I decided I would get out of dodge for the day and see something new. Caught the train down to the Gold Coast…or at least attempted to. It took me like three tries to figure out the trains…because not every train goes to every station. Then you need to take a bus. Then, your iPhone decides to die when the bus drops you off, so you have no idea where anything is in town. Yeah, that.

Grabbed some lunch, and my iPhone decided to come back to life. I had an email from my hotel…note this was about 2pm. The email told me they were sorry, but needed me to move out of my upgraded room to my original room no later than 4pm. Um, you told me at check-in I had the room for both nights. Replied that I’m sorry, at the beach for the day, but happy to discuss with them when I return. This was followed up by an email instructing me if I couldn’t move on time, I would have to pay for the upgraded room. Uh, you expect people to sit around their hotel all day waiting? Then, they offered to pack up my belongings and move them for me. Um, no. That’s a recipe  for things to get lost and the blame game to start.

Finally, sent them an email saying I was really disappointed in the way they were treating a platinum member over what is a $50 a night upgrade. (It was just a high floor room.) They went silent. When I got back later, the new manager on duty was very apologetic, offered Starpoints in compensation, said I could keep the room, and said “this whole situation could have been handled much better.” Ok, apology accepted.

Back to enjoying the beach. Wandered around for a bit, and what do we have here:

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Couldn’t resist, and had a very fun hour or so trying! Sometimes, the most fun travel experiences are the ones that are totally unplanned. I went down to the Gold Coast with no plans what so ever, and ended up having an unexpected great time.

A few shots of the beach at Surfers Paradise:

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Post-surfing lesson reward. Mmmm…

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Surfers Paradise has this meter maid thing down. I think I’m going to suggest to DC that they make this the meter maid uniform in DC as well:

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Caught the train back in time to get some quick dinner before crashing early. It had been an unexpectedly busy day going down to the beach (rough life, I know) and was going to be an even earlier morning with the flight to Auckland!

Sep 152014
 

Thanks to an early night, managed to wake up early…around 530, and headed out for a “short” run to fight off jet lag.  Headed down Kalakaua towards Diamond Head, before realizing it was too early and it wouldn’t be open yet.  Slight detour to Starbucks.  Had coffee, read the paper for an hour, and then started the run.  Got to Diamond Head, hiked up to the peak, and ran back.  Around six miles total, and the perfect antidote to jetlag!

Got back to the hotel, and had a huge container of pineapple and some aloe juice from the ABC store before giving up on being productive at all.  Grabbed a towel, headed down to Waikiki, and just sat in the sun for a few hours.

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I may have only had 24 hours in Honolulu, but between a walk, dinner at Duke’s, the run up Diamond Head, and beach time, I’m pretty sure I maxed it out!

Around 1:30 I called for the car, put down the sun roof, and headed back to the airport on a gorgeous day.  No problem dropping the car off, and soon I was at the extremely empty United check-in area:

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Thanks to the United mobile app and TSA pre check, I was already checked in…which was sort of a pity because it would have been entertaining to see the look on the agent’s face when I checked in all the way to Paris!

Less time in security means more time for liquid Aloha!  Went to the Kona Brewing Company in the terminal to grab a lite lunch…and of course a few Big Swell IPAs:

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I told the waittress to bring me the tastiest app on the menu whatever it was…the kalua pork quesadillas didn’t disappoint!

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After a quick lunch, I decided to do some plane spotting.  HNL is great for it, since it’s an open air terminal and you can get up close and personal with the planes.

Delta and a Korean Air A330:

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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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