Honeymoon in Hawaii!

Yes, our Honeymoon in Hawaii has come and gone! I recapped some of the highlights of our trip and activities, hopefully this will give you some ideas for your upcoming trip. We were in Hawaii from July 22-30, and stayed in Ko Olina (on the west side of the island) the first 5 nights and in Waikiki the remainder of our time at the Outrigger.

Below is our trip at a glance, click the Day link to read on more and see pictures.

Arrival (22nd)
Day 1 - Resort arrival, sunset Yoga, and Azul Restaurant.
Day 2 - Resort Spa, Aqua class, and a full day in the sun
Day 3 - Aloha Stadium swap meet, Dole plantation, Matsimoto's and the Dinner buffet at the Ihilani
Day 4 - Hanging out at the Lagoon followed by the Paradise Cove Luau
Day 5 - Checked in to Outrigger, window shopping on Kalakaua Avenue and the International Marketplace followed by dinner at Chuck's Steakhouse
Day 6 - Kuoaloa Ranch, Sushi dinner at San Sei in Waikiki
Day 7 - Surf competition, Cheeseburger in Paradise, and dinner in Kapolei with Family
Departing Honolulu (28th)

Honeymoon in Hawaii, Day seven

We will remember dinner at SanSei for a while. Good atmosphere, food, and service. Here's what one of our Sushi dishes looked like.

On our last whole day left in Hawaii, we planned to rent a car and take it up to Diamond Head and parasail. Seemed like a good plan, problem was Waikiki had very few available cars, and I didn't want to spend $150 to rent a Crossfire for a half day.

Based on our experiences the past couple days, Waikiki is just a bit too busy for us. Going from the resort lifestyle to Waikiki required too much adjusting. I'm sure we'll consider spending time on another island next time, either Maui or maybe Hawaii, the big island.

We ended up coming back to the Outrigger, which by the way was quite disappointing last night in terms of noise level. The paper thin walls and poorly designed plumbing from adjacent rooms kills any chance of getting quality rest at night. Our plan: to get on the sail boat tour, or take surf lessons. Guess what, surf lessons were sold out and the sail boat we planned to tour on was reserved for a private party until much later in the day. Things weren't going our way, but we weren't going to let it get us down so we rented a couple inflatable rafts (for about $10, nothing is cheap) and drifted on the ocean for a couple hours. That ended up being quite relaxing for both of us.

After dinner with family, we're now packing up for a 8:45 departure from the hotel tomorrow morning. It's quite sad, yes, but we had a great time.

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day six.

Dinner at Chuck's was good last night, but not how I remembered it. I guess since my last visit I've been spoiled with nicer Steakhouses like Mastro's, Fleming's, and Morton's. In any case, I felt as if I was coming down with a cold, so that might partially to blame. The atmosphere was great, the company even better (my new wife), but the food just didn't make it on my favorite-5 list. It ended up being a short night, right after dinner we headed back to the room to get some rest.

This morning we headed to the Moana Surfrider Resort, next door to the Outrigger Waikiki to be picked up for Kualoa Ranch. The name of the company, named after the mountain on which the ranch sits, is Hawaiian for "long back" which was given to the mountain for its distinct shape. We decided on a half day tour, which included any two 90-minute (or so) activities, which worked out perfect since it started raining just before lunch (on our Ocean Voyeuge).

This activity came highly recommended, and I would say that goes well deserved. Kualoa itself is really a natural wonder. It's apparent though that Hollywood has taken advantage of this phenomenon of a place, and not that I'm one to talk but between the movie props left in place and the explosives that have permanently disfigured the land, it's obvious this is no state park.

A couple impressions I left with. First, American, English speaking, tourists are far outnumbered by Japanese here. In fact, for each activity we were split based on Nationality (actually for the tongue the tour guide spoke in). And second, though convenient (and especially so after a long day I would imagine), the provided tranportation is a bit of a hassle if you're use to being in charge of your schedule. I would recommend driving and avoiding the package that includes lunch. While lunch isn't bad, it's not great either, and we finished about an hour ahead of schedule meaning we were waiting for the bus.

This is a neat place, and it's obvious there's a lot to Kualoa, and more than what you might remember from Jurassic Park.

We're off to satisfy our sushi craving at San Sei in the Waikiki Marriott.

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day five.

We checked out of the Marriott Ihilani today. This was part of our planned course for this trip. The idea was we'd get to experience the night life in Waikiki, and we'd stay in the Outrigger Waikiki which we've stayed at once before (on a previous trip about three years ago).

We spent most of the day doing the hotel move and returning our rental car. In the process we walked a good mile or so down one of the main streets here, Kalakaua Avenue. We traversed the streets and the homeless begging for cash. Definately much different than Ko Olina. We spent a little bit on the beach outside our hotel and I tried to catch some waves on a boogie board I rented. Good thing it was only five bucks, no luck with the waves.

We're headed shortly to our much anticipated dinner at Chuck's Steakhouse. Trouble is they don't take reservations we're probably going to end up waiting for a while. Who do they think they are, the Cheesecake Factory?

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day four.

Today, we got back in the rythm of resort life. We haven't left the resort today yet, but that'll change in about an hour. All in all, we haven't spent much time on our feet today. Most of our cardio is sitting up to apply SPF or waiving down our coctail waitress. In all seriousness, I did swim from one end of the lagoon to the other. I think that was all of the energy I had from breakfast. I lost count of all of the 757's that past by headed for Honolulu International. Oddly enough, there were several fighter planes (jets) that seemed to fly right through that the commercial airliner flight path performing neat tricks.

So, and as I mentioned above, we are headed out shortly. We'll be going to the luau that we postponed from Tuesday, and while this will be our first for this trip, we visited Jermaine's Luau on a previous trip. Paradise Cove is the luau we're headed to this time, which is conveniently located about 5 minutes walking distance from the resort we're staying at.

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We just returned from Paradise Cove. Very conveniently located if you're staying in Ko Olina. Just be aware of one thing, they don't accept the HTN (Hawaii Travel Network) vouchers, and what's upsetting is that HTN would leave you to believe they've taken care of your reservation.

Luau's are great big celebrations of food, namely the grandest being the roasted pig, dancing and other festivities. You can expect to get a preview of the earthen pit (called an imu) and usually the removal of the cooked Kalua pig at a Luau. The imu is an underground oven which contains banana tree stumps, burlap, and canvas for fuel and lava rocks which help retain the heat. The cooking process can take upwards of 12 hours, but results in very tender and tasty pork.

A few things to look forward to if you're considering this Luau, and not just the Mai Tai greeting. First, the activities that took place prior to the pig's unearthing were put together nicely. Timed perfect and for the most part everything was worth watching, to me, and captured most everyone elses attention also. There were about 500 people who attended tonights Luau.

If I had to pick my favorite 3 things, they would be the fire dancing, second the tree climber, and third would be a tie between the pig presentation and the show MC who really pulled the act together, IMO anyways. He was quick on his feet and funny, two qualities I can really appreciate in any performer.

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day three.

Today we spent most of our day off the resort property. It was a good change of pace, and the flea market we went to at Aloha stadium was a neat place to shop around. I'd highly recommend visiting the outdoor market the next time you find yourself on Oahu with a few spare hours. I stocked up on work socks, lots of shirts (@ 8 for $20), and nice work socks ($6 for 5 pairs).

Next on our list for the day was the Dole plantation. But don't think that we pass a 7-eleven without stopping for a Musabi first.

I really think they ought to sell these delictable wonders in the states. In case you don't know what a Musabi is, it's a seaweed wrapped rice and spam snack, and costs about a buck. Really quite delicous, try one if you get a chance, but be warned this is not a low carb food.

We'd passed by the Pineapple fields during our last trip here, on our way to North shore, but this time we made sure we stopped.

This is home of the largest human maze and the Dole fields that produce most of the islands and US states Pineapple. Perhaps you've heard of Dole? We took the Pineapple express train (a 20-minute tour) that circles some of the fields and helps give a little perspective on how Dole influenced the Hawaiian islands and it's diverse population. I won't spoil it for you, though this is another recommended stop for your next trip. As we've done in the past, we stopped at Matsimoto's grocery store for a refreshing treat. I really get a kick out of saying that, because this place is not known for selling groceries. In fact, it's known for their world famous shaved ice. Well worth the stop, but it was a bit out of our way. I didn't realize we'd end up backtracking about 20 miles in some of this islands' worst traffic. This was the first trip we've had the BlackBerry 8800 GPS to use to aid us in getting around.

The restaurant we've gotten used to for our daily breakfast let us down this evening. The buffet that we both ordered looked good at first glance. In fact, I'm sure the food was good. The problem was the food wasn't getting refilled. In fact, about twenty minutes went by after our first plate and the selection had been further reduced. I ended up going straight to dessert, but not after letting our server we were disappointed. It didn't sound like we were the first of her tables to complain. So now you ask, what did they do to make this up to us? They comped our wine. Wow, glad we ordered the house wine. Disappointing considering we've been there every day.

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day two.

To wrap up from yesterday: the restaurant where we ate dinner, Azul, was nothing short of amazing. We both we left with a great feeling leaving the restaurant. I had originally planned on ordering a rack of lamb, which wasn't available, and I would have to say I was glad it wasn't because the pork chop I ended up ordering in its place was the best I've ever had. Our server, whose name escapes me right now (actually, Steward), was magnificant. He explained every item on our plate, to the ingredients in the dressing. He explained the pork was the pork version of Kobe beef. We ordered the 'Ahi 3-ways' to start things off, which was also decadant. Talia ordered swordfish for her meal, and again, was some of the most flavorful and tender I've ever tasted. All in all, we had the best service we've ever had along wit some of the best food we've ever had, so not bad. My hat goes off to the servers at Azul in a big way.

Today, we woke up at around 7am and shortly after headed to the resort Spa for our 9am appointments. Nice place that is. We both had facials on the menu for our visit.

After breakfast we went back for a quick workout. Talia went to the lap pool and ended up in the aqua class while I worked on my biceps. We otherwise spent the day at the main resort pool, where Talia managed to get quite burned. Unpleasantly so, and we decided to move the Luau to later in the week so we could hang out in the room and avoid the sun. That's where we fell asleep for a little over an hour. I must have been tired because I usually don't fall asleep while watching movies...

Honeymoon in Hawaii, day one.

No doubt, this is paradise. In fact, and as I had predicted, we woke up this morning to the subtle crashing of waves from the Pacific Ocean. From bed, through the screen doors in our suite facing the lagoon, (and just beyond, the ocean) we literally listened to the sun rise. During a previous stay with Talia, now three days my wife, we had a similar room, and yes this is how I remember it. We officially began relaxing today. Between sunset yoga, listening to live music at the pool from our balcony, and snorkeling in the lagoon, and of course bathing in the sun. Here's a picture showing our view.

We secured reservations at Azul for dinner tonight. We'll probably end up Hokule'a Bar, like we did last night, which is a great casual bar here in the resort with lots of windows that let your imagination take you off and into the translucent blue sea.

This is a special treat since we're on the west side of Oahu, in Hawaii (right beyond Kapolei), just 19 miles from Honolulu where we flew in yesterday afternoon.

Much to look forward to tomorrow. Our complimentary breakfast (part of our stay package), morning facials, and perhaps another round of sunset Yoga. Oh, we'll also be heading to our first Luau for this stay at Paradise Cove tomorrow night. More to follow then.