The days leading up to this trip were particularly busy for us. While the kids were out of school for just over a week before the flight dates, they had been at home with us most of that time. We didn’t put them into any summer programs because they would only be able to go for a week before taking 3 weeks off. Since we were so busy with our work, they were getting particularly antsy.

In addition a relative of mine had passed away and I had to leave to attend the visiting hours the day before we left. While it was nice catching up with family and I was glad I got to be supportive, it meant I wouldn’t get home until well after 9pm when I had a 3am wake up call the next morning. I had some last minute packing to do as well, scheduling the Lyft to pick us up at 3:30am the next morning before going to bed… where I was unable to sleep at all.

I’m sure we’ve all be there. Stressed that we don’t have much time to sleep before that early wake up call, which makes us unable to sleep, which makes us even more stressed in an endless cycle. I’m usually not like that, but for whatever reason it was a sleepless night for me. I was hoping I’d make up for it on the plane.

Morning Alarm

While I was already awake, my alarm notified me it was time to get up and get started. I got dressed and went up to wake up the kids. I got everything gathered, confirmed the Lyft driver was on their way (they were) and triple checked everything.

The Lyft driver arrived right on the scheduled time, which was awesome. This is the second time we’ve scheduled a Lyft and we’ll definitely be doing that in the future. It really cuts down on the stress getting to the airport, especially as we’re in the suburbs and it can take awhile to get a ride even during the day. In the early morning it can take up to 30 minutes to get a ride and it’s usually out of their way. Needless to say they aren’t always the happiest to take our ride, so getting this scheduled is fantastic.

The ride into the airport was swift and uneventful. We were dropped off at the entrance near the United counter and quickly processed our checkin at the kiosk. Since I had paid the taxes and fees for the tickets I had purchased with points using my MileagesPlus Explorer card, we each got one free checked bag. We only had two full size bags to check and we each had one carryon backpack to take with us on the plane. We were through security by 4:15am. Not bad!

Breakfast at Stephanie’s

During our trip to Mexico we has stopped at a restaurant that accepted our Priority Pass lounge cards for a $28 credit for the member plus another credit for up to one guest. We’ve used this credit in several places and it’s a fantastic deal. During our Mexico trip we were a bit disappointed with the experience as we had a very short time period before boarding began and service was slow, even though we were the first ones in line when it opened at 4:30 and Had mentioned we were in a rush.

This time we had almost an hour before boarding so we decided to give it another try. This time service was much faster and we were able to scan both my card and my wife’s card to get $112 towards our bill. In the end we didn’t have to pay anything on the bill and just paid the gratuity.

We finished right about the time we got a text that our flight was about to begin boarding so we quickly made our way to the assigned gate and arrived just as they were calling our group number. Perfect timing!

Denver Segment

The itinerary to get to Kona had two stops. The first was in Denver, a relatively short 4 hour flight. I was hoping to catch up on an hour or two of sleep that I had missed the night before, but it was not to be. While the kids behaved for me while I was sitting between them, I just couldn’t relax enough to sleep. I’m not a great sleeper on a plane because I’m rather tall, but I can usually get a little shuteye. Today was just not my day.

We landed slightly ahead of time in Denver. Since we were seated in a preferred seating row it only took a couple minutes to get off the plane. I haven’t figured out how we ended up in those seats. My wife has status which would have allowed her to book that type of seat for herself and one other person, but all four of us were together in that section. I wasn’t about to complain, though since I thoroughly enjoyed not having my knees crushed against the seat in front of me as they would have been further back in the plane. I wouldn’t have been able to book those seats without a fee when I bought the tickets either. My guess is that the flight may have been originally booked on a 737 MAX plane that has been grounded for a few months. On the new plane they assigned us the new seats that happened to be in the rows with more legroom. In any case it worked out very well for us.

Getting off the plane so quickly gave us more time before our next flight segment to Maui. We had been up since very early in the morning and were ready for lunch, but it was 9am local time and every place was serving breakfast. There was a food court near our gates and we split up to go around to all the places we could to find something lunch-like. In the end, our youngest and I went to a sort of sports bar that had a “sunrise” burger (burger with an egg on top) that we ordered minus the egg as well as chicken and waffles. The chicken was really good. The waffle was a bit.. weird. The burger was forgettable, but at least we had something lunch-like to eat. Tomatico and my wife found a Mexican place and got something lunch-like there.

By the time we had settled the bill our flight to Maui was already boarding. We rushed to the gate a short walk away. We arrived after our boarding group had been called but the agent allowed us to “cut” in line ahead of the later boarding groups. The agents were good about making it clear to the other passengers why we were cutting. Sometimes things can get a little tense when there isn’t good communication. Since we didn’t have anything for the overhead compartment we had no reason to board too early anyways. By the time we made out way to the very back of the widebody plane, it was almost time to depart.

Maui Segment

Our seats were purposefully near the back of the plane. As the fuselage narrows, there isn’t room for 3 seats on the side of the plane so there are 4 rows of “twin” seats (a window and an aisle). We got two rows of those and they are great. Not only do we not have a middle seat but the aisle is a little bit wider there as well so it feels much more spacious. The small pleasures in life come in unexpected places!

Like our first flight to Denver, there weren’t any TV screens. It was a “bring your own device” flight where they offered movies you could stream if you connected to the plane’s WiFi and had downloaded the United app. One of our iPads is too old to support the app but we had enough devices to go around for this segment.

The plane we were on had nifty holders on the back of the seats to hold your phone at a reasonably comfortable position. The seats also have a power outlet (one per group of 2 or 3 seats, not one per seat). Unfortunately, like on seemingly every airplane the prongs would not stay in the outlet. A trick I had read about in travel blogs is to use an international travel adapter since the outlets usually support both US and international plugs and the international plugs are often less worn out and have more prongs to make a more stable connection. I have an adapter that has two built in USB charging ports, but of course I didn’t have it with me. I dug through my laptop bag and found I did have a simple adapter I had used on our trip to Paris. It converts European 2 prong (round) outlets to US outlets. I thought I’d give that a try to see if it would be any better and I could plug my US-prong USB charger into the international adapter plugged into the plane’s plug. While it wasn’t as solid as I would have liked it definitely worked better than the US prongs which wouldn’t stay in at all.

This allowed us to charge two devices (my USB charger has two ports) at a time which was enough to keep things charged enough to be able to watch the free streaming content. WIN!

We ended up taking off on time for this 7.5 hour segment. This time I was able to get almost two hours of much needed sleep. I needed a lot more, but this point it just wasn’t happening so I spent the rest of the flight watching a couple movies on the streaming content and making sure the charger didn’t get knocked out of the socket.

This flight arrived slightly early as well. As we circled the airport in Maui we his a bit of turbulence. While I am somewhat prone to motion sickness, it usually take a fair amount of it in a plane to make me feel it. For whatever reason the two or three “dips” we hit really got me spinning. I’m guessing it was the lack of food and sleep, but I was pretty pale by the time we landed.

We were in the back of the plane so I rested as best I could while we waited to deplane. After we got off we found where our final segment would be boarding and saw it was on time. That surprised me as it always seems that when we have connections we get hit with delays and both connections were on time for us today. We were feeling lucky I guess!

We had almost an hour before boarding and decided to try to find something to eat for our second lunch of the day. The food court was a madhouse, though we found a table in a nearby restaurant. We ordered and the food came out quickly. I soon found that I wasn’t as hungry as I thought which inspired me to take some motion sickness medicine we carry for the kids. While our flight to Kona was only a 30 minute flight, the last thing I wanted was to get sick.

We quickly paid and made our way to the gate for our next flight which was in the middle of boarding.

Kona Segment

To be honest, I was a bit nervous about how I would be able to handle any turbulence. To try to head things off I made sure I had the A/C on full blast, no matter how cold I was. I find that I’m less likely to feel any motion sickness when I’m cooler and I’d rather suffer being cold for the 30 minutes than the alternative.

In the end I had nothing to worry about. The flight was super smooth and a very quick 30 minutes gate to gate. Three segments in one day and they all departed on time and arrived early. That was unexpected but VERY welcome. We were finally in Hawaii!

The airport in Kona is quite small and mostly open air. We followed signs to baggage claim and were surprised to see our bags. We haven’t had luck with our bags showing up on time when traveling to tropical destinations which is why we all packed our bathing suits in our backpacks, just in case our bags didn’t make it on time.

The boys grabbed the bags off the belt and we crossed the street to board the waiting rental car shuttle. We were the last group to board as the shuttle was full and we headed off to the counter right away. The line at the rental counter was long, but moved steadily. We were in our car within 30 minutes of landing which is pretty fantastic .

Hotel Checkin

The hotel was about 35 minutes away, though it was only about 12 miles away. There was a lot of traffic and was mostly a single lane road. There aren’t many divided highways on the Big Island so things can get congested easily. We had to get used to it taking awhile to get to places there are only a few miles apart.

We eventually made it to our hotel where I dropped of the family and our luggage at the reception area before going to park the car. In the checkin area there was a separate desk for Marriott Elites to checkin which allowed us to cut in front of a couple groups, though the computer at the desk wasn’t working so they had to do the checkin at another desk. The agent was very enthusiastic and thanked us for our loyalty several times. She told us about the room and the view we’d have (ocean view) mentioning that we had been upgraded to a higher floor with presumably a better view.

She told us where the lounge was and gave us some information about the resort amenities. We were given wristbands that were special for Titanium level members which could essentially replace the keys. My wife an I each got one. It seemed like a neat idea, though in practice they were horribly uncomfortable so we never ended up wearing them.

After checkin we went up to our room which was nice enough. The view was definitely oversold to us. We could see the ocean, though we had to look our over other parts of the hotel and parking lot to see it. The view was mostly focused towards the mountains so I would personally have described this as a partial ocean view. It was annoying and we would have preferred a better view but in the end it wasn’t too big of a deal.

Exploring the Resort

After dropping off our bags and changing into some more appropriate attire we went exploring to see what was available in the resort. We found where the club lounge was where we could get afternoon appetizers as well as breakfast in the morning. We found a kids play area with oversized chess and checkerboards as well as an area where they projected a movie at night (usually a kid friendly title). There was an adults only pool with a waterfall and the nearby kids area had both a zero entry end that had actual sand and a water slide at the other end.

We also found a game room nexts to the adult pool. The game room had a pool table, foosball table, air hockey, ping pong, bean bag toss, giant connect-four, board games and a kids reading area. The boys were very excited about this space, even though the table games were quite worn, but still functional.

We played in the game room for a few minutes until it was time to check out what they had for dinner food in the club lounge. When we entered we were greeted by a staff member that took our name and room number and told us about what was available. There were complementary wine and beer options as well as cans of various soft drinks. There was different food every night but this night it was pasta night which Tomatico was super excited about. He and my wife had a full meal there which was great. My youngest and I didn’t find much we were interested in so we decided to split up and get a slice of pizza nearby in town.

Exploring Town

While the pizza place I found online looked great and it was only 6 miles away, it took us nearly 20 minutes to get there due to traffic. We found the place and got our slices to eat there. They were good and we had a relaxing meal together. After finishing we walked around the mall complex where the pizza place was located and noticed several other restaurants and a gelato shop. We just HAD to try that out… for research purposes of course.

It was excellent, though not as good as the places in Rome. They had quite a few local flavors. A lot of them were coffee based, though my youngest tried the strawberry flavor that was a mix of some other local flavors as well (I didn’t tell him that and he loved it).

After dessert we headed back to the hotel, which took another 20 minutes. On the way it was raining a little and we saw a brilliantly colored rainbow. I pulled off to the side of the road to take a picture. It was so close I could almost see the pot of gold!

Sunset

Back at the resort we caught up with my wife and Tomatico. They were at the pool and Tomatico was enjoying the slide. They found that you go down it a lot faster if you buy an inflatable ring. It wasn’t included in the resort fee but luckily it cost less than $10. According to Tomatico it was well worth it, though it wasn’t his money!

Our youngest joined in swimming and riding the slide. We got some great pictures of the sunset while they played. After about 45 minutes it was getting dark and it was getting late for us. Not only was there the time shift but we had started out VERY early that day and it was approaching a 24 hour day for us (more for me since i hadn’t slept the previous night). I was beat and ready for bed so we gathered up the boys and headed back up to our room.

I quickly got ready for bed and collapsed, falling asleep immediately. The rest of the family (I assumed) did the same. We had finally made it to Hawaii!