Hawaii 2022 Wrap Up

Summary: Final thoughts on Hawaii 2022

Well it’s that time again to wrap up blog writing until our next trip. Before we get to that though, there are a few thoughts we have on traveling to Hawaii (or anywhere that far from us really):

1. Flight times. Why can’t flights both leave and arrive during normal hours? It is really not convenient to arrive at a destination (when you don’t live there) at 10pm or later. Any issues with getting your car rental or ‘checking in’ to your lodging do not get easily resolved during non business hours. Lesson for future 1: arrive before 7pm if at all possible. Search all airlines. Prioritize arrival time not price.
2. Consecutive travel time. It’s really not reasonable or a great way to start a trip to travel 22 hours from beginning to end without sleeping. Itinerary: 8.15am, leave Niagara on the Lake for YYZ, flight time 12pm. Pick up Marie in Burlington, 9.10am. Drop car off at Park’n’Fly, 10am. Check in / get through security 10.30am. Segment 1 of flight YYZ->YVR 12pm-5.15pm (adjusted time 2.15pm). Wait in Plaza Premium lounge until time to get to our 6.15pm flight (YVR->KOA) via US customs and security. Next flight 6.15pm – 12.30am (adjusted time 9.30pm). Get out of airport terminal and wait for shuttle. Wait for shuttle. Wait for shuttle. John takes full shuttle without luggage to get car. Get an Uber. Get to car rental 1 minute after shuttle & wait for service 10pm. Get car and wait to get out of Alamo 11pm. Drive KOA-> Vista Waikoloa Condo, arrive 11.30pm. Attempt to get into condo 11.30pm-12am. Finally in. Total ‘travel time’ = 21.75 hours. Also note that most of this time was wearing a mask. Not fun. This leads me to Lesson 2: Split up long flights with a hotel overnight somewhere, which may be needed to execute lesson 1 anyway. We did this on the way back and it was much more manageable.
3. Airline communication. Is it just me or have pilots (/’captains’) totally stopped updating passengers on what is happening a) with the flight b) at the destination? We had a Westjet flight home, YVR->YYZ that circled 4 times and not one announcement about why or when we would be landing. Really none of the pilots on the other 4 flights we took on this trip were very informative either though. No lesson here. Just an observation.

4 circles, the last halfway across Lake Ontario!

4. Luggage. Going forward, when traveling to somewhere that has shopping, I am packing like Jack Reacher, which leads me to Lesson 3: Bring the absolute minimum and buy anything else needed, then throw away or wash when dirty. We did laundry a couple times and had no real need for packed clothing for days 5 through 7. Also, just give up on any kind of ‘formal night’. It’s not worth bringing that stuff (not applicable to this trip).

Luggage sucks. Packing sucks. Carrying it around sucks. Unpacking it to get it through the security check sucks. Trying to stuff it under seats or in overhead storage sucks. Waiting for checked luggage is horrible, no matter what part of your trip is involved. Multiple connecting flights across countries is worse. We made it to Hawaii without having to check a bag, but once we started to purchase ‘essentials’, checking at least one bag was required on the last 3 legs. The final pickup of luggage in YYZ was delayed multiple times for a total of 45 minutes: a) there were no baggage people and b) the conveyer got stuck (I know!). This leads me to Lesson 4: Do not buy anything that doesn’t fit in your carry ons (note: if you follow lesson 3, you should have room for purchased stuff). Do NOT rely on your ‘extra’ bag that you can check. Do not buy an extra bag. Just don’t do it. Lesson 5: You don’t need to buy something from everywhere you go and every gift shop for every activity you do.

Priority on checked luggage helps, but it’s still potentially a long wait for bags

Here’s partly why we had to check bags (and this doesn’t include stuff we brought back for our pet sitters!):

All from places we visited / toured. We can skip Joes Nuts and honey next time 🙂

More must haves… I may have liberated a Kona brewing glass from slavery

With those lessons learned now documented, we are now free to provide an opinion on the non-travel portions of the trip:

Janet’s Comments:

The trip was great. It was fun to meet up with Erin and Blake for the second week and ‘nice’ to have Nasty… er … Marie with us (haha). Hawaii is amazing and like nowhere else we have been. Lava fields are unique. Many of the other activities we did can’t be done anywhere else (some can, granted). We tried to experience everything we could fit into two weeks, even if we had done them before, because Marie hadn’t. We did a great job. We tried to balance this with a little bit of down / unscheduled time as well to relax for a ‘bit’. Relaxing on vacation isn’t really our style though. Mission accomplished. That being said, given how far it is and how much we did see and do, I don’t feel an urgent need to get back there in the near future. I can see us trying out a few more ‘new’ places before we return.

John’s Comments:

What she said, plus: driving there (especially on Big Island) is quite easy due to limited car volumes, speeds and road options. It’s really difficult to get lost and you don’t feel like your rental is at risk like it does in some places like L.A. I agree that we have hit up pretty much everything on the Big Island and Maui for now. The remaining islands have a lot of overlap with the types of activities offered on Maui. Some stuff you can always see again (like the night lava) but agreed we will change it up a bit for the next long trip. How long it takes Pele to wake up and make significant changes to the landscape will likely govern when we return to some degree.

Marie’s comments:

Loved every minute except maybe the getting there in 21.75hrs.