Las Vegas holds a special place in our hearts at Strip Walking. The vibrant energy of the Strip, the dazzling lights, and the endless entertainment options make it an unparalleled destination. However, as much as we adore Las Vegas, we also recognize the allure of exploring other parts of the world. It’s essential to embrace new cultures, cuisines, and experiences beyond the glittering streets of Las Vegas. So while our loyalty remains with Las Vegas, we are always open to the excitement and adventure that await us in other corners of the globe. And recently my family and I went on an adventure to some islands you may have heard of in the South Pacific…. Hawaii.
Our Hawaii adventure started back in June 2023, at my daughter’s junior high softball game. I was trying to convince my wife to let me go on a trip to Vegas with Geoff in August. But it’s also our anniversary month, and my wife was determined that I should go somewhere else… with her, not Geoff. However, I had a secret weapon up my sleeve. We hadn’t been to Hawaii since 2019, just before COVID hit. I knew she couldn’t resist a December trip to Maui, and I was right. So, I got the green light for Vegas in August, but in return, I “HAD” to go to Hawaii in December… well OK, if I really had to…
Planning
Being the total credit card points nerd I am, there’s hardly any trip where I’m willing to cough up cash for flights or hotels. Using my stash of points, I swiftly put together a Maui trip in early December, right smack in the middle of whale season. With my Hyatt points, I booked a condo at Kaanapali Alii. These are pretty fancy condos, and I snagged one with a Lanai (fancy word for balcony/porch) that looks out over the ocean. The location just north of Lahaina would be great for views, easy access to food and excursions, and we would be seeing whales without even stepping out of our room.
For flights, I was able to use United points to book a relatively easy (for Hawaii) Omaha to Denver to Kahului itinerary both going there and coming back. The bulk of the flying from Denver to Kahului would be on a widebody 777 jet. We were all set for a fantastic trip to Maui the second week in December. It would be our second visit to Maui and third trip to Hawaii.
Tragedy
The fire of August 8th, 2023, will forever be etched in my memory as a stark reminder of the unpredictability and devastation of natural disasters. The impact of the wildfire on Maui, particularly the town of Lahaina, placed our comparatively trivial trip-related inconveniences into perspective, in the face of the profound suffering, damage, and loss of life endured by the local community. It’s a humbling experience, as it prompts me not only to acknowledge the disruption it caused to our plans, but to empathize deeply with the individuals and families affected by the tragedy. My thoughts and sympathies will always be with those who faced the harsh reality of that day, and I hope for strength and resilience for the community as they continue to recover from the aftermath of the event.
Re-Planning
Kauai captured my attention following the fire. With its lush landscapes and serene waterfalls, it held an irresistible allure. The recount of a friend’s (Jen) recent visit painted a vivid picture of the island’s beauty, adding to its appeal. The prospect of trading beaches and sunshine for rain and waterfalls was just too good to pass up.
With a lot less Hyatt options on Kauai, we ended up at the Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa. While not as luxurious as the accommodations I had booked on Maui, this resort was definitely impressive. As for flights, those got a little tricky, as United doesn’t fly 777s from Denver to Lihue, the location of the main airport in Kauai. Narrow body 757s were my only direct from Denver option, but I did notice that United would interline with Hawaiian airlines….. let me book trips that included flights on Hawaiian airlines. So there was the option of an Omaha to Denver to Honolulu to Lihue flight where I could still do the bulk of my flying on the bigger 777 aircraft. However, the points price on this flight was out of my budget.
So I ended up booking the ol’ 757 flight from Denver to Lihue. Most airlines let you reschedule on any flight without paying the increased cost, so I was hoping that United would change my flight time enough that I would be allowed to do this. Spoiler alert…. it never happened.
Aviation Geek
Returning from Kauai, I did book the island hopping itinerary where we took Hawaiian airlines from Lihue to Honolulu and the United 777 from Honolulu to Denver, followed by a 737 from Denver to Omaha. Most of the major US carriers fly overnight flights from Hawaii back to the US, so we would arrive in Denver at 7 AM and have a long 5 hour layover before our flight to Omaha.
While 5 hours is longer than I would like, I’m one of those people that prefers a decent buffer between my flights in case the first one gets delayed. Also, I had some United Club lounge passes I got from a credit card I figured we could use during this layover. In general, I think airport lounges are WAY overrated, but at least they provide some free snacks and drinks to sit and enjoy on largely uncomfortable furniture.
If you don’t give a sh*t what type of planes we flew on to Hawaii and back, you are probably not alone. But I am a bit of an aviation geek. OK, I’m a big aviation geek. And being an aviation geek, I did consider flying from Omaha to Chicago just to get on a Boeing 787 aircraft, which I have never flown on. But I couldn’t make my family and myself fly several extra hours just to get on Boeing’s latest aircraft. Also, it would be my luck that they would switch aircraft last minute and all that extra flying would be for nothing.
Enough about the planes already
And if you thought I was done talking about aircraft and flights, you would be wrong. I was pretty proud of two other details related to my seat selections.
The back corner
First, on the 777 coming back to Denver, they have some aisle seats at the back of the plane on the left side that only have 2 seats on the outside rows instead of 3. Usually our family of 4 we end up with two random seat mates because my wife sits with one of our daughters in a row and I sit with one of our daughters in a row. This little corner of the plane let us have a little more room across the aisle and ensured we would have no seat mates.
No Middle Seats
The second thing is going to go full AV Geek on you. Airlines, pilots, gate agents, and computers, are all doing calculations for every flight to make sure the plane is within weight and balance limits. A plane outside of weight and balance limits is probably going to crash. The FAA gives the airlines an average weight per person to use in these calculations. This includes the average carry on luggage weight for a traveler.
In the winter months, the average weight of travelers increases due to the addition of coats, hats, sweaters, and other cold-weather apparel. Furthermore, the 757 aircraft in use are quite old, some have been in operation for almost 30 years. Many FAA rules and regulations have changed over that time. To ensure compliance with FAA weight and balance regulations, United Airlines occasionally restricts the use of middle seats on 757 flights. These seats appear differently on the seat map during the flight booking process, appearing as seemingly absent middle seats. For someone seeking to reserve two seats without a neighboring seatmate, these blocked-off seats present an ideal solution.
Foiled Again
I should note that these seats will actually have a sign on them when you get on the plane, and you will not be allowed to sit in them. But that is fine with me, my daughter can sit by the window and I can have all the elbow room I want on the aisle. I booked two rows that had these seats blocked off and bragged to my wife about all the extra room we were going to have because I knew how to play the game.
Not more than a week later, I received an email from United. I eagerly opened it, hoping it was the schedule change that would allow me to book any flight I wanted. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. They must have recalculated the weight and balance or switched to a different model 757, because they had rearranged all the seat assignments and no longer had blocked off seats. Even worse, they had separated our two groups, so we were in multiple rows apart, which wasn’t a big deal, but kind of annoying.
My solution was to use my remaining United points to upgrade to Economy Plus. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I’m very tall so a few extra inches of legroom is a huge deal, particularly on a 8 hour flight. The “credit card points experts” would say this was not the best use of my points, but my knees would completely disagree. Now that the travel arrangements were set, I can stop talking about aircraft and get into the trip.
Obligatory Casino Story
Before we get to our flight out, lets back up just a bit. As is tradition on my Vegas trips, we spent the night in Omaha before our flight. We don’t live in Omaha, so this eliminates the drive early in the morning before a flight. Ameristar in Council Bluffs was offering me comped nights so I took advantage of that. We hit up the buffet for dinner and then I sent the girls to bed and tiptoed down to the casino for a little gambling action.
Of course you should always start by swiping your players card at the kiosk. After doing this, I had $35 in free play. If you have read any of my other gambling stories, you know where I headed next. I found ol’ reliable, a dragon link slot machine and gave it a whirl. While I didn’t hit a bonus on the $35 in free play, I had put $100 in the machine with the intention that it was bonus or bust. I knew my slot machine wouldn’t disappoint me, and it didn’t. The bonus hit, I profited $150, and headed back up to the room.
It wasn’t more than a 15 minute casino session, but I was happy to take my extra $150 and head to bed, knowing our flight tomorrow was an early one.
Day 1
Our flights went smoothly and on-time. There isn’t much to talk about there, and that’s a good thing. No angry Godfather’s Pizza employees, no flight delays, boarding issues, or yelling passengers. I was a little disappointed the flight across the pond didn’t have live TV on it, because I could have watched NFL games, but I should have expected that.
Arrival in Paradise
We got to Lihue about 4:30 PM local time. We collected our bags and caught a shuttle to the rental car area, but walking wouldn’t have taken much more time. The rental car desk was busy, so it took a bit to get checked in there, but soon we had loaded up our sweet mini-van and were on our way to the resort. It was about a half an hour drive to the resort but after our long day it seemed like about 4 hours.
We finally arrived as it was starting to get dark, check in was simple and in a rarity with pretty much any hotel chain, we were actually upgraded as was promised on the perk list of the status I currently had. We got an ocean view room which is really all you want in any hotel room in Hawaii. It was very close to the front lobby area and we found a little shortcut through a service door that was kind of hidden which made getting in and out of our room very quick.
Starving Family
They didn’t even bother to toss us a bag of peanuts on the flight, so by the time we stumbled into our room, we were all hangry and ready to devour anything in sight. The resort’s restaurant is fancier than a peacock in a tuxedo, with prices as high as Mount Everest, and more fish dishes than Finding Nemo’s family reunion. When we asked the front desk for options for pizza delivery, the guy said there was none, but there was a place just down the street where we could get carryout.
I usually would’ve whipped out my phone to pinpoint the exact location, but we were just too wiped out for all that. So off we cruised, scouring the streets for this mystical pizza spot. And let me tell you, it was like diving into the abyss, with scarce signage to guide us. Pretty sure we zoomed right past the pizzeria recommended by the hotel staff. But hey, fate had other plans, leading us straight to the Koloa Pizza Kitchen instead. Tucked away in the “Historic Koloa District” — a “must visit” area Jen had told me about. This neighborhood was bursting with quaint shops and dining spots, but who cared at that moment? Our minds were singularly focused on one thing: PIZZA.
I gave the BBQ pork pizza a glance, but we settled for the mundane choice of pepperoni. The pizza was absolutely divine, although it can be quite challenging to discern the true quality of food at a restaurant when you’re ravenously hungry. Without hesitation, we devoured a couple of pizzas and retreated to our room, finally getting some well-deserved rest.
Day 2
The girls got up pretty early, which makes sense because our bodies thought it was 4 hours later than it was. They went to the beach and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise while I slept. They said they saw a drone flying along the beach. Being a newly licensed part 107 commercial drone pilot, I had brought my drone with me to get some shots along the beach of a sunrise just like this one. I figured I had all week to get those shots, and I really wanted to sleep at that moment. This would prove to be a huge mistake as it was the only calm, wind-free, rain-free day of the entire trip.
Waimea Canyon
We loaded up and headed out to Waimea Canyon, aka “The Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. I should note that it was nice to stay at a resort that had FREE self parking. The lot was plenty big so there were always spots available, and it was a relatively short walk to our room. It was almost an hour drive to the canyon, about as far away from us as anything on the island. But its Hawaii, so there were plenty of sights to take in along the way.
Lack of planning really hurt me here again. Two things I didn’t anticipate. 1) Virtually no cell phone reception. 2) Lack of signage. Once I realized that things were not really well marked, I tried to get on my phone to figure out where the locations were that we wanted to visit. But I had almost no cell service the entire way, so we ended up stopping at a small shop/restaurant and paying something like $10 for a paper map <GASP>.
We still took in many breathtaking views, including a few waterfalls. It ended up being the only views of the Napali coast that we would get, as our dinner cruise around the west side of the island would later be cancelled because of weather. Another thing I found interesting, I knew in advance there was a daily park fee so I expected to encounter a ranger station or visitor center or something driving in where we would pay the fee. But there were simply unmanned kiosks at the parking areas and you were expected to purchase your pass using these kiosks.
Puka Dog
Jen had told me I absolutely had to go to Puka Dog. She has a real knack for finding the best eateries in a given location and I knew if she was recommending it, then I must try it. I had informed my family we were going here well in advance, mostly because I just like saying “Puka Dog”. My family was a big skeptical after looking at the menu. This didn’t deter me one bit.
I knew Puka Dog was on the way back to the resort from Waimea Canyon (and just 5 minutes from the resort), so lunch after Waimea had already been decided by me before the trip started. When we arrived, the line was out the door. Despite the eye rolls and side eye looks from my girls, we got in line.
We aren’t fancy people, based on our Puka Dog orders, we all got some variation of the pineapple relish dog with mild garlic lemon sauce. There is no seating, but there is a park and a beach right across the street. We took our food over there and dug in. Unsurprisingly, everyone loved it! My only minor complaints are 1) its not big enough 2) you run out of hot dog with about 2 bites of bun left. But still, this was our favorite meal of the whole trip and we would be back later.
NOpali Coast Dinner Cruise
After lunch we went back to the room and chilled for a few hours. The girls did some swimming at one of the resorts many pools. I walked around the grounds to snap a few pictures and take it all in. By now the wind and kicked up and it was far too breezy for me to feel comfortable putting my drone up.
When I got back to the room, I had a text from the tour company that was doing our Napali Coast dinner cruise saying that it was cancelled because of forecasted poor weather (wind/rough seas). I called them and they told me that pretty much the rest of the week the weather was going to be unsuitable for sailing, so I just asked them to refund our money.
The cancellation was a bit disappointing. One of the must-do activities when visiting Kauai is sailing down the Napali coastline. It’s where many scenes from Jurassic Park were filmed. I suppose we’ll have to save that for next time.
A Giant Kick In The Nuts For Dinner
For dinner, we decided to check out Brennecke’s Beach Broiler, which is actually located in the same spot as Puka Dog, just on the second level of the building. (Another awesome recommendation from Jen!) While we waited for a table, the Packers/Giants game was in the late stages of the fourth quarter on Monday Night Football. I’m not usually a fan of either team, but this week was different. I was one of just 4 people remaining in my $3000 NFL survivor pool, and I had bet on the Packers for this week. I was feeling pretty lucky because I almost went with the Texans, who ended up getting crushed by the Jets the day before.
But now it was late in the 4th quarter of a close game, and I had a TV right above me as we waited to be seated. I got to watch the Packers score a TD with 1:33 left to take the lead by 1, miss a 2 point conversion, then watch the Giants come back down the field and kick me out of a 1 in 4 shot at $3000. I don’t remember what I got for dinner and I’m sure it was a perfectly lovely restaurant, but all I was seeing was red (and NY Giants blue) that entire meal. After dinner, it was back to the resort and we called it a day.
OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES DETAILING MY ADVENTURE IN HAWAII:
- Day 3 – Kayaking the Wailua River, hiking to Secret Falls, the Lu’au Kalamaku
- Days 4 to 6 – Horseback riding in the rain, Waterfall Adventure, Kīlauea Lighthouse, United Airlines Annoyances
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