Day 14

Farewells, Flights and Finally Hawaii 🌺🌴

After a fairly average sleep, Ted and I woke moderately early for our departure from the cruise ship. Since we hadn’t really had the chance to properly say goodbye to everyone the night before, we met Ben and Brett for one final breakfast in the Windjammer Marketplace before we all eventually went our separate ways. One of the best parts about cruising is always the people you meet along the way, and this trip definitely reinforced that again.

Before leaving the ship entirely, I also ducked downstairs to the pizza area to refill our water bottles and managed to farewell Scott as well, who was sitting there quietly having a coffee before rejoining another cruise tomorrow with Jonas. It sounded pretty good being able to stay onboard and continue cruising.

Thankfully disembarkation itself was much easier than embarkation had been a week earlier, and it was also very straightforward finding our airport transfer bus. The decision to pre-book the cruise transfer turned out to be a smart one too. When we saw the crowds outside waiting for Ubers—and the surge pricing that came with them—we were very glad we’d gone with the bus instead.

The drive to Los Angeles International Airport was busy but nowhere near as bad as we’d feared. Even though we arrived very early for our flight, Delta still allowed us to check in and offload our luggage straight away. Unfortunately we weren’t lucky enough to have our baggage fees waived this time, with Delta charging us USD$45 per bag. Considering checked luggage is usually included back home in Australia, it definitely feels a bit rough paying extra for it here.

Food prices inside LAX weren’t exactly cheap either. We wandered over to the international terminal hoping the options might be better there, but eventually settled on some simpler food from a convenience-style store instead. It was still expensive, but definitely more reasonable than some of the restaurants. Oddly enough though, the charge for the food never actually appeared on our bank statement afterwards, so perhaps we ended up getting lunch for free after all.

Another minor annoyance was that Ted and I initially weren’t seated together on the flight. When we tried fixing it ourselves through the Delta app, it attempted to charge us extra for selecting seats, although thankfully the gate agent sorted it out for us anyway.

Once onboard the aircraft—which oddly smelled faintly like fish—we were otherwise very impressed. The plane felt modern, clean and far nicer than some of the older aircraft we’ve flown on recently. Just before departure we became briefly hopeful that we might have an empty seat next to us, but another passenger boarded at the last minute and filled it.

The flight itself was excellent though. We had complimentary Wi-Fi for the entire journey and the entertainment system was genuinely very good. Despite downloading shows onto my iPad beforehand, I instead ended up watching old episodes of Modern Family and I Love Lucy for most of the flight. Since we hadn’t really eaten much earlier in the day, the crew were also very generous with snacks throughout the journey. I even managed to get a crewfie with two of the cabin crew, which has become a bit of a tradition for me whenever I fly with airline crew around the world.

The only rough part of the flight came during descent into Hawaii when we hit some fairly strong turbulence caused by storms around the islands. Thankfully the landing itself was smooth enough, although once inside the airport the signage immediately became confusing, with passengers wandering in all directions trying to work out where baggage claim actually was. At least our bags arrived quickly, even if they were soaking wet from the torrential rain outside.

While waiting for our luggage, we spotted advertisements for an app called Holoholo, which apparently markets itself as Hawaii’s cheaper alternative to Uber. It sounded fantastic in theory. In practice, not so much. After sitting there for over fifteen minutes unsuccessfully trying to find a driver, we gave up entirely.

Since Uber pricing was very high—well over USD$100 to Waikiki—we started looking into public transport instead. This involved walking about ten minutes to a nearby bus stop with our luggage, although on the way we passed Honolulu’s relatively new Honolulu Skyline system, which didn’t exist when we last visited in 2019. Skyline is Hawaii’s first modern rail system and is designed to help reduce traffic congestion across Oahu. Even though it’s still being expanded, it already looks very modern and impressive.

Fortunately our public transport gamble paid off brilliantly. The local bus took us directly to Waikiki for just USD$3 each, which felt like incredible value considering Uber had wanted over one hundred dollars. Safe to say we’ll absolutely use that option again in the future.

Thanks to gaining time again flying west to Hawaii, both of us were feeling tired fairly early as our body clocks were still running on Los Angeles time. Thankfully we were immediately very happy with our hotel, Waikiki Circle Hotel. The hotel has been something of a Waikiki institution for decades and is known for its distinctive circular façade and unbeatable location directly opposite Waikiki Beach. While it’s certainly not ultra-luxury, it has a relaxed old-school Hawaiian feel that suits Waikiki perfectly. Even better, our fifth-floor room has a fantastic view of the beach right in the centre of everything.

Ted was especially keen to revisit one of his favourite places from our previous trip, The Cheesecake Factory, where we headed for dinner after about a twenty-minute wait. Judging by the crowd outside, it seemed like half of Waikiki had exactly the same dinner plan as us.

After such a long day of airports, flights, rain, transport confusion and time zone changes, neither of us had any interest in staying up late. Instead, we headed back to the hotel for an early night which honestly suited us perfectly. After all, we still have three more days in Hawaii ahead of us.Read more