There is a special place in my heart for Hawaii. My first trip was to Oahu in 1988 with my grandmother who passed away recently. Her brother, James, lived there for many years and taught at the native Hawaiians only King Kamehameha School. I remember touring the school while listening to him play the organ in their beautiful building and then lunching at the Royal Hawaiian hotel also known as the Pink Palace.
My second trip was in 2008 with my husband. We flew into Honolulu late one night and stayed at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort and Spa. Since we were only there for one night we were upgraded to a fabulous suite. The next morning we were up early for the 12 hour Circle Island Tour where we visited Pearl Harbor, toured the Dole Plantation, walked along the North Shore, plus many other sites. I highly recommend this tour if you only want to spend a limited amount of time on Oahu but want to visit as many sites as you can. Since I had been to Honolulu before and my husband had not, this was the perfect solution for us. The day was exhausting but well worth it.
Later that afternoon we flew Hawaiian Airlines to Kauai where we spent the remainder of the trip at the Kauai Marriott Resort. Unfortunately we were there during their rainy season in mid-October and boy did it rain! The only really pretty day was our departure day. I overheard many resort guests commenting that they normally come to Hawaii this time of year and it never rains this much. We did have periods of sun each day but I didn’t come home with a tan.
While in Kauai we rented an open-air Jeep and explored the island each day. We drove from one end of the island to the next and toured everything in between. One of our favorite things to do on vacation is take a sunset dinner cruise and this one didn’t disappoint! We joined about 20 other guests aboard a catamaran located in Poipu and traveled west, then north all the way to the Napali coast. It was beautiful and so relaxing.
We had planned to take a zip-line tour or a helicopter tour of the island but on our third day I found out I was pregnant with our 2nd child.
Our vacation wasn’t exactly how I had planned, but we enjoyed our time in Hawaii and will make plans to take our children there in the future.