The new year got off to a great start with the first family vacation we’ve had in years – probably since 2005. We knew these couple of weeks at the beginning of January would be ideal for vacation. I’m done all my classes, my brother doesn’t start his second semester until later in January and all my dad had to do was to take a couple of days off. We knew we were going, but where are we going to go??
I’m a pretty big geek and I subscribe to a bunch of RSS feeds and in early December, one for cheap airfare to Hawaii popped up. Hawaii was one of the locations my parents had considered so I sent the link to my parents and the rest was history. Within 24 hrs we had booked our flights to Maui! Soon everything fell into place and we managed to score some pretty good deals.
We left home early on Jan 1 in hopes of avoiding lines going through the border at Peace Arch. We had nothing to worry about and it was the fastest border crossing yet. It would have been faster if it wasn’t for the car in front of us who was stopped for at least 10 mins and then had to pull over for a search. There were so many cars stopped so I thought for sure we would have to stop. We breezed through and we were on our way. We stopped briefly at an outlet and I wasted no time. I found the converse store and bought myself a pair of converse for $21 USD – such a steal!
We were flying out of Seattle airport because it was cheaper and given the events of the previous week it was probably a good thing with all the crazy security measures in place for any flights flying into the US from an international location. We had booked a hotel near the Seattle airport as part of their Sleep, Park and Fly program. For one price, we stayed the night, parked our car for the duration of our vacation and had a free shuttle to and from the airport – its a really good deal.
The next morning we set out for the airport. We were flying with Hawaiian airlines and man were they disorganized. They had to issue us bordering passes at least 4 times because they kept screwing them up. First we were seated in different areas, so we requested to be moved together. They did that (#1). Then, just as we were about to go through security my brother noticed that his boarding pass had the wrong name (Chad something or other – I started calling my brother with his alternate name for awhile). We went back and they changed it (#2). Just as we were about to board, my brother noticed that he wasn’t sitting with us. We went to the counter to figure out what was going on. The seat that was suppose to be given to my brother was apparently taken, so they moved us back to our original seats (#3), but then after some further investigation, realized that it was only a computer glitch and the other guy had been issued the right seat (not the one for my brother next to me). They called the other guy up to check and all was fine (#4). Then as we were getting on the plane, my dad and my brother had the same seat! This time they just left it I think, but wow, talk about complicated. At least we were all sitting together.
While we were waiting to board, I definitely noticed a heavier presence of the TSA. They were walking around, making sure to be seen. At one point, they approached a man sitting near our boarding gate and asked him some questions about where he was going and where he was from. The one I heard most clearly was, “what is your stance on the United States?” Either the guy wasn’t cooperating, had bad English or he gave a bad answer, but they took him and his luggage away. Later, as I was walking to get something to eat, I saw the same guy in handcuffs being led away while another agent started going through his bag. The TSA had another guy in handcuffs too. Pretty freaky! I wonder why they were taken away, and what happened to them. It was obvious that they were targeting young males traveling alone with an ethnic background.
Otherwise the flight went well. I watched a couple movies on my iPod. We got lunch too – spinach and ricotta lasagna which, surprisingly was pretty good. Finally, after 6 hours on the plane, we arrived in Maui. Our first stop? Costco to load up on water and other snacks for the duration of our visit. Out hotel had a kitchen in it so we were planning on doing a lot of our own cooking. Groceries are expensive! The numbers are the same as in Victoria, but of course its in USD. I guess shipping food out to the islands is pretty pricey and that has to be passed onto the end consumer.
First glimpse of the island from the air
The hotel we were staying at was about 45 minutes from the airport and more or less involved us going across the island. Thankfully we were able to rent a car – everything is so far from one another! After the rain and cold of Seattle, it was nice to be in the warm air of Maui with the sun shining. I was happy to see palm trees and other weird (to me) green things not found up here. I was surprised to see that a lot of the island was brown, almost as if were burnt, but it didn’t have anything growing. I later found out that the island has two volcanoes on it, one dormant and one with the possibility of still erupting. The soil was red too which was really cool.
Driving around the island
Finally we arrived at our hotel. We had a great view of the ocean. We dropped off our stuff and then headed to another grocery store. That night we stayed in, cooked dinner and tried to figure out what we were going to do the next couple of days.
The view from our room
Stay tuned for more later!
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