Zawadi's Pacific Adventure 14-31 Aug 2014 (14/16 Getting There)

[Zawadi]

Today's the day! We're about to embark on a 17 night marathon that includes: a 7 night cruise around the Hawaiian Islands, 4 nights in Honolulu and 3 nights in Disneyland California.

Yesterday, DW took an extra day off work to complete the packing of three cases. Why three? Well, the BA flight from LHR to LAX allowed 32kg per bag but Hawaiian only allowed 23kg. Therefore, we were being safe instead of sorry.

So up nice an early to take our cat, Nala, to her hotel. She was as pleased as ever, not! After a final check around the house, we waited for the car to arrive and take us to London's Heathrow Airport. We had a speedy check in, to Business Class and headed up to the lounge. What! Club class? Yes, we treated ourselves a year ago when the flight schedule was announced and BA had a sale. We wouldn't pay full price. Some nice food and a few glasses of wine made the time to boarding fly by. The reason that we took the BA flight to Los Angeles was that we wanted to see what an A380 was like.

Boarding was fast, with the A380 having an air bridge straight to the upper deck. The aircraft is huge. One advantage of being in the forward club cabin on the upper deck is that the lavatories are spacious.

We settled in and waited. And waited. And waited. The weather had closed in and the tower had suspended all departures. We stayed at the gate for nearly ninety minutes and started to think that the flight crew would run out of hours. If that happened the we would be in deep trouble as the entire holiday depended on us getting to Los Angeles today. Our fears subsided as the weather lifted and we pushed back.

We were on our way!

The food was good, as was the bar service. The movie selection wasn't bad. "Frozen", well we are Disneyholics and I watched "Avatar", which I hadn't seen for a while.

The 11 hours soon passed and we landed at LAX. The A380 needed an escort as it taxied to the gate due to its enormous wingspan. We were soon off and cleared immigration in record time. Orlando Airport could learnt a lesson or three!

Our priority bags were soon reclaimed and we ventured out into the heat of the evening to locate the shuttle to the Hilton LAX. We deliberately avoided single day option from London to Honolulu, instead staying overnight at an LAX airport hotel. Well it was chaos outside, a free for all for both traffic and boarding the hotel shuttle buses all of which stopped at a single island with no dedicated stopping points. A Hilton minibus turned up and we got to the hotel. Check in was quick, using the Hilton Honours line. After finding our room, we checked in for the 10:00 Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu. We turned the lights out at 23:00. However, the -8 hour time shift meant that we didn't get much sleep until having to return to LAX at 08:00 for the flight to Honolulu.

First class check was quick. Instead of the desk taking our cases, we had to take them to the TSA screening point. The land side of the airport is nothing more than security and check in. Not a single (food) outlet. We headed for security, which was very quiet. Off came the shoes and belts, before going through one of those underwear revealing body scanners for the first time. We knew that the Hawaiian lounge was very basic, so we grabbed some breakfast before heading there. A couple of Hawaiian cabin crew were behind me in the line for breakfast. They knew exactly what was on the menu and what they wanted. A brief chat with them revealed that this was a regular stop prior to their 09:00 flight to Honolulu.

Time for the flight, another 5 hours or so with nice food and booze. Remember that our bodies still think that it's late afternoon.

As we were on final approach to Honolulu, I spotted the USS Arizona memorial at Pearl Harbor. Wow! I wished that I had a camera to hand but unfortunately not.

We got through the gate and walked, and walked and walked to the bag reclaim area. Next to the carousel was a man holding a sign with "Aloha" and our name on it! DW had booked a limo to take us to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. It was an experience, even though I personally don't really get the fascination with limos. During the journey, our driver pointed out some of points of interest which included where we would board NCL's Pride of America the following morning and the construction of some condos. whose asking price started at over one million dollars

We checked in, again using the shorter Hilton Honours line, and were given a resort view room in the Rainbow Tower. This tower uses the elevator system where you select the floor that you want and the system tells you which car to board.

We were now 11 hours behind the time back home. We'd transferred from the day shift to the night shift! We took it easy, both walking along the beach and venturing to the Ala Moana Mall, which was a brisk 20 minute walk away. We had dinner at "Frescos", a below average for the price, Italian restaurant in the village complex before calling it a night to try and get over some of the jet lag.

Saturday morning was a slow affair with not being able to board the ship until noon. We looked out from the balcony and spotted the Pride of America's funnel and the realisation that the holiday was really about to start. We purchased some breakfast muffins, from a bakery/ice cream outlet in the village, before checking out at 11:00 and getting a taxi to the port.

Embarkation was easy. First we were adorned with leis then entertained with some Hawaiian dancing until noon when Hawaiian Pu Horns were sounded to announce that we could board the ship.

The afternoon was spent finding our way around the ship, and started the C-food diet (when you see it you eat it). It was late afternoon when our aft facing cabin was available and inside we found some Latitude (NCL's loyalty program) rewards: Behind the scenes tour of the ship, 2 free bags for laundry, latitude reception party, foredeck party when departing Kauai on the last night of the cruise and two meals at one of the signature restaurants.

The mooring lines were released at 19:00 and we were on our way to Maui sailing past Waikiki, seeing the Rainbow Tower, and Diamond Head.

[faline]

You're off to a great start!! Can't wait to read more about your trip.

We did a cruise of the Hawaiian Islands a number of year ago. Since then, we have returned to the islands several times staying on Oahu and Maui. You've already elicited some lovely memories with the locations you've mentioned.

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

What a great start to a super adventure!

[tinkwest]

Glad your original flight didn't ruin all the other connections/plans. Sounds like you've had a great time so far. Enjoyed your report.

[Katzateer]

Sounds exciting! Can't wait to hear about the rest of your trip!!

[Janmac]

Interesting as always but yikes! I've been out of commission for days with two hours western travel. I can't imagine 11 hours.

Thanks for the report! Looking forward to more.

Jan

[NJGIRL]

We are planning on doing a similar trip in a couple of years so I can't wait for the rest of the report.

[badkitty]

Great report! Awesome. Sounds like a lot of fun!