Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

09.25.08: In Auckland, we woke up at the crack of dawn for our 11am Hawaii flight for a number of reasons. First, the hotel said our taxi could take up to an hour plus to get to the airport during morning rush hour traffic. Second, we had the rental car seat to return. From there, we needed to hop on an airport shuttle. And then, we had to retrieve the surfboard and we were advised to check-in early because boards are only allowed pending space available. Well, the taxi took no more than twenty minutes; the shuttle was probably no more than five; and I’m sure we were the first one’s to check-in for our flight. After all that, our flight was delayed by two and a half hours! At least there was one good, shocking thing. Air New Zealand doesn’t charge oversized baggage fees for surfboards. Yep! US carriers can typically charge $125. So, I didn’t believe it until it happened. With our half day spent waiting for our flight to take off, we ate both breakfast and lunch before we were given refreshment vouchers, drank our way through the vouchers, and did some last minute shopping at the Auckland airport, spending way more than our budget allowed.

The plane ride was about nine hours and felt even longer than that. With as much flying as we’ve done, I thought I’d be able to endure it better. But, that’s one of the longest legs we’ve done in the past several months, and it felt like it. Kailani flew like a champ. She was pretty happy the first part of the flight, took a really long nap in the middle, and woke up in the groggy and quiet state where she sat on my lap and watched on-board videos until we landed.

When we finally landed in Honolulu, it was September 25th at midnight. (If our plane wasn’t late, it would have been one day earlier due to a short hop over the International Date Line and a three hour time difference.) Because we checked-in so early, our luggage was the last to come out. I was amazed when we passed through immigration and customs with only a couple questions and were allowed to enter onto US soil again. Not that there should be any reason to believe otherwise, it’s just felt like we’ve been gone so long. I was sure glad we decided to book at The Ohana airport hotel when the free shuttle was right there to pick us up and the ride was only three minutes long. Although the hotel was recently remodeled, it was definitely nothing to rave about. But, it was close and good enough to crash for the night. Once in our room, it took us some time to settle down, but we were finally able to get some sleep.