Day in Honolulu, and redeye to DC

 Airports, Flights, Hawaii-France-Andorra-Vegas, Mileage Runs  No Responses »
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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DC to Honolulu, and evening in Honolulu

 Airports, Flights, Hawaii-France-Andorra-Vegas, hotels, Restaurants  No Responses »
Sep 102014
 

Ok, this took far, far longer than I planned to get around to.  I figured “I’ll be spending 30,000 miles on planes over the course of 12 days, lots of time for writing.”  What I didn’t take into account is that my sleep schedule would get so out of whack that I’d find myself wandering streets at 3am enjoying cities in a whole new way, and sleeping when I could.  Plus, the trip ended in Vegas.  I don’t really need to explain much more.  I got home after this mother of all mileage runs absolutely wrecked in more ways than one.  Then there was life, and work, to catch up on…but finally…here we go!

In case you missed the post about how this trip came up, I’ve linked it here for reference.

Soon, the big day was here, and it was time to head out!  Decided to be a bit frugal and take the Metro to the airport, which in rare form was running with no delays and everything went smoothly.  So smoothly in fact, that I was from home and through TSA in under 30 minutes.  Ended up with almost an hour before my flight, so popped into the Delta SkyClub for a quick breakfast.  I wanted to check out their new offerings…and was seriously happy to find greek yogurt and hard boiled eggs.  No salt anywhere though.  Grrr.  At least I had a chance to stock up on protein knowing Señor Jeff would soon try and put me in a carb-induced coma.

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Boarding was right on time, and we were on one of United’s oldest 737-800s today…but at least there was WiFi!

United Airlines flight 1662
Washington DC, National (DCA) to San Francisco, California (SFO)
Depart 8:15, Arrive 11:19, Flight Time 6:04
Boeing 737-800, Registration N18220, Manufactured 1998, Seat 2E

Today’s route of flight was rather strange, I assume due to the storms covering the flyover states.  Although we were blocked 6:04 gate to gate, flight time was announced at just 5 hours and 5 minutes…rather quick for this route.  I was rather excited to be on this route, instead of having to trek out to Dulles and it was my third ever transcon out of DCA, and the first on United.  So happy to have this route as an option now!

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Not only were full pre-departure drinks offered, but they came with refills if you were a quick enough drinker.  This was going to be an excellent crew!  There was almost no wait for takeoff, and we were airborne less than five minutes after leaving the gate.

Today’s breakfast choice was either scrambled eggs and sausage (powdered scrambled eggs on planes scare me…Jeff’s sausage pucks scare me even more), or the big tray of carbs.  I decided to go with the carbs and a bloody mary, figuring at least it might put me to sleep.

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Overnight at the Moana Surfrider in Honolulu

 Hawaii February 2014, hotels  1 Response »
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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