Retirement has its advantages in that we had time to plan
and book our trip ourselves which saved us a lot of loot. It also helps to have a brother who can get
you a great deal on a cruise from Vancouver to Alaska. I had so much fun planning and booking the
trip. Did get Ian to double check dates
and times with me so that I didn’t make mistakes. All worked really well. We booked for 15 kg
of luggage everywhere – and we made it! On last leg my bag was 16.4 (due to
Ian’s books). We are taking less next
time. Although the only things we didn’t
wear was thermals in Alaska and we would always take them just in case.
Our cruise was booked first so that we had dates to work
with. We had also decided that we did
not want to spend hours and hours in planes.
www.bootsnall.com was a great
site to check our flights, flight plans, hours in flight and costs. We didn’t use this for all our flights,
however my brother did and it worked very well.
Most of our accommodation was secured through booking.com
and we didn’t end up with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at all. Not once. We also signed up for Australian Youth Hostel
Association and then booked Hostels in England as we would be travelling in the
English school holidays.
13 July 2014 – Day
One
Caught the train out of Morisset for Mascot Station. We had bumped into a guy who told us not to
go to Central and get the expensive airport train. Just go to Mascot Station and catch the bus
to the airport – worked really great for $2.50 each!
Met my sister, Neroli who had flown in from Adelaide at
about 12 noon. We were very early for
our 6 pm flight to Honolulu, however thought we wouldn’t leave Neroli to
entertain herself for all that time. It
worked out well, as we used and sorted our Travel Sim Phone etc.
Jetstar dropped us into Honolulu early on the Sunday
morning. We popped into Waikiki Beach
for a look around after booking into the Waikiki Wave Hotel. Phew!!
Could not move on the beach – so walked around the town and familiarized
ourselves with eating places and supermarkets.
We swam at the beach about three times in the protected walled in area
as it has no stones and rocks there. No
warnings about the rocks and Neroli got her foot punctured by a starfish. Not terrible, but not nice either.
We had lots of fun in Waikiki – took a really good tour of
the island – Discover Hawaii Tours which picked us up at 6 am for a trip to
Pearl Harbour – emotional and impressive exhibits of that most dreadful
bombing. From 10 am we started up the
West coast, ate pineapple ice cream at the Dole Plantation. Viewed lots of mountains and beaches and ate
a lovely fresh lunch which they preordered for us on a cattle Ranch. Called
into a coffee plantation just in time for a much needed coffee – tasted lots of
varieties. Needed the boost as after
viewing beautiful scenery we were dropped at the hotel at 6 pm. Good value tour.
Lots of fun in Waikiki the hopon, hopoff bus for $2 was
great. Saw most of the city and could go
shopping if we wanted too. The three of
us are NOT shoppers.
