We started with a great Christmas eve with Henri’s clan in Lexington. On the menu were oysters, shrimp, lobster, and stuffed clams — yum! And who could forget Lisa and Vickie’s Christmas cookies — wafer thin (a good thing)! A few HT’s and games of Jeopardy later and we were ready for Santa to arrive. Which he did for us in the form of a 6am cab Christmas morning. Merry Christmas to us — a ride to Logan. From there, we flew to Minneapolis, where we stupidly bypassed lovely looking ramen noodles, then on to LAX and then finally to Honolulu. 19 hours after starting our journey, we were sipping Mai Tai’s and nibbling poke nachos to the local hotel tunes. A different way to spend Christmas — but with a great ending!
The next day, I got up to explore and walked up and down the beach. The day starts about 6am here, with the hotel employees out to groom the beach and set up the umbrellas and chaise lounges, along with the metal detector crowd searching for lost jewelry and the early surfers. The sun rises over Diamond Head to the west, gradually peeking over to illuminate the water. Back at the hotel, I roused Alan for an 8am breakfast and we headed down to the Moana main restaurant where we got a sweet table right at the front overlooking the sea. YeeHaw! Off to a great start. Alan enjoyed the sumptuous “Queen’s Breakfast Table,” which featured a full American and Japanese breakfast bar (miso soup, fish, pickles, cumgee), in addition to anything you wanted custom made off the main menu. The fresh pineapple and blueberry orange pancakes were the highlights. Oddly enough, the maple syrup says it comes from California……
After breakfast, we found a hair salon and Alan had a haircut straight off while I made an appointment for later in the day. We were both shaggy dogs! An ocean swim was next in order in the bright Honolulu sun. The bottom in Waikiki is a combination of sand and coral and the drop off at high tide is fairly significant. You can imagine it is a great place to learn to surf and even experienced surfers seemed to be enjoying the bay.
We had to switch hotels that afternoon so decided to postpone lunch and check out of the Moana Surfrider and truck our luggage two doors down to the Royal Hawaiian. There, we were too early for check in but Alan gave it a try anyways and totally lucked out. I should say our stays in these luxury hotels were only permitted by Alan “Mr Points” Cattier’s sheer genius at gaming the system. In this case, the master maneuvered us into a beachfront room on the 14th floor with a lanai overlooking the ocean. Sweet!!
Such luck called for lunch at the Mai Tai Club on premise where we continued to enjoy the local seafood through some tuna sashimi and a seafood salad with lobster, scallops, shrimp, and crab. Delish. At this point, I headed off for my hair appointment where I gave the stylist pretty much carte blanche. The result? Much shorter and blonder — a good change.
Dinner Thursday night was probably the biggest disappointment of the trip. Suffice it to say the fish was good but the atmosphere loud. We left by 8pm and headed back to the Royal (as they say around here) and were in bed by 8:40pm. Well, that is 1:40am on the east coast.
Next morning I was up even earlier at 5:30am and took a longer power walk down the whole Waikiki strip, ending down at the former W hotel which is where we’ve stayed in the past. A good walk in the burgeoning light. Lots of exercisers and a surprising number of homeless.
Back at the room, I motivated Alan out of bed for a 7am breakfast where we both had the buffet at the Royal. Highlights were beautiful whole salmon and fresh fruit. Alan also had a lovely shrimp, scallion, and onion omelet. Kona coffee of course!
Since we got an early start, we were able to snag two chaise lounges in the pool area where we spent our morning, alternately reading and hopping into the pool and hot tub. Fun people watching and napping time. But by 1pm, I was hungry so we headed over to the Sheraton next door to the Rum Fire Club where we lunched with stunning views of Diamond Head. Breaking the trend, I had a hamburger which was delicious and Alan had more tuna poke. It’s funny, we had raw tuna multiple times per day and each time it was different. And delicious! So fresh.
One of the nice things about our stay was that there were three Starwood properties right next door to each other, so you could move between the three as you liked and still charge to the room. Made for great bathing suit wandering. Each property was unique. The Royal was the quietest but I enjoyed the quiet energy of the Moana and it's dining area had superior views. The Sheraton was much bigger and more bustling but had a great multi-pool swimming area with a water slide.
Late afternoon brought another ocean swim with the sun sinking in the sky. At this time of day, the tide is out and you can walk quite far out into the bay. Folks were taking advantage of the shallow water to play catch and football. Pretty classic.
Back at our ocean view lanai, we enjoyed the “Sunset Package” of Mai Tai’s and the PuPu Platter. Sunset is early here this time of year — about 6pm. But it was beautiful. Lots of sailboats out enjoying the view.
Dinner that night was at Azure, the Royal’s flagship restaurant, which is famous for its fresh seafood. Alan can attest to its excellence (he had fresh opah) but I was forced to go back to the room to power hydrate and rest. Too much sun and fun for Carole.
Last morning in Waikiki, we headed back to the Moana Surfrider for breakfast where we got our same most excellent table!
And, now, onto the next adventure — a remote rental chalet on an organic fruit farm on Maui. The road there is described as “rarely traveled.” More to come... :-)
