We traveled to Honolulu in November of 2011. The flight was direct from Newark NJ. I must say the flight there was brutal. The flight was full and the people rude. One woman, who's husband and older child were across the row from us, kept coming over. She would bend over to talk to her husband while holding her screaming younger child in her arms with her butt in my wifes face. The people in front of us must have poured a ton of perfume and cologne on and was olfactory devastation. The Flight Attendants never smiled and were quite rude. The only positive was the decent selection of channels to watch at our seats, although I ended up watching the same shows over and over. The flight into the islands was beautiful, however, and was also a positive (so there were 2).
We arrived with out incident and disembarked. Our travel agent set us up with MC&A dba Diamond Head for our transport to our hotel. The greeting off the plane was very nice. They called out our names, yes I know that doesnt sound like much but was exciting for us. We were pleasantly greeted with Leis. They in a timely manner loaded us into to a nicely air conditioned van and away we went. The trip to the hotel was narrated by a knowledgeable driver with interjections by an annoying rider. IE the driver said we get very little rain here and the passenger replies "so do you get a lot of rain here". After the numerous drops at other hotels (which was interesting in and of itself), we arrived at the , our destination(http://www.miramarwaikiki.com/).
We were very pleased when finally arriving at our hotel. We were, as stated, nearly last on drop off. Upon arrival (just around the corner essentially from the beach (2 blocks) we walked in to our temporary home away from home. The lobby was in the midst of remodeling but still was very comfortable. The front desk people were extremely polite. The check in was smooth and quick they gave us our room number and away we went.
We were on the 17th floor and we had asked for oceanview (they had only partial ocean) we entered the room and were met with, in our opinion a decent size room with a nice balcony partial city, partial ocean view room. It was definately all we had asked for. (It was an older looking but well kept up room). We unpacked (the wine included :) and proceeded down to the front desk to see about dinner.
The front desk associates recommended Dukes (which was a 2 minute walk), away we went. Well we got there and the wait was like an hour (which was a theme the whole time we stayed there we never ended up going). They said there is the Hula Grill(http://www.hulagrillwaikiki.com/) upstairs so we gave that a shot. The restaurant was very nice and the staff pleasant. My wife and I got waited on quickly and the food came in a short time. I ordered the Crab Cakes as an appetizer for 10.95 they were excellent a lot of crab abd the aioli sauce was great. For my main meal I ordered the Pupu platter, very good and I enjoyed the sweet chili sauce that came with it. My wife had the Pork potstickers she liked it but said the Ponzu sauce was to strong. The entire bill was around 60 dollars and the food and service good. Well it was time for bed. We went back to the hotel (the weather was fanatastic) being from NY wearing shorts in November is very different. We had a glass of wine on the balcony and went to bed.
Upon awakening we went to the lobby and saw the excursion booth. The woman there was very knowledgeable and helpful. We signed up for our week of activities then were off to catch the bus for our trip to the Stadium Flea Market. Our planner had recommended a van service, but we chose the cheaper bus (big mistake). We thought it would be maybe half hour, well an hour later we were begging to be done. Distances and times to get there are definately different in Hawaii. Also the bus' air conditioning definately worked (we froze in Hawaii).
Finally we arrived at the Aloha Stadium Swapmeet. It was HUGE. We were, at that point, very hungry and scrambled to find some food. We finally found some of the "food trucks", word of advice take your time. The one we chose was frozen food thawed ie meatballs. After we ate we found (not faraway) a guy serving up fresh meats and hot sandwiches. So having finally wet our appetites we started on the journey through the hundreds of vendors. If you dont like shopping or haggling, dont bother coming. My wife and I enjoy the experience. There were literally vendors througout the periphery of Aloha Stadium. It was, in my opinion a great time. We were able to knock off souvenirs for many of our family members. Also many fresh fruit vendors were available. Now I am not a big fruit person (ask my wife lol I am not a healthy eater) but the fruit was incredible. Also make sure you bring sunscreen, it takes hours to get through it all. To me, an avid football fan, being at Aloha Stadium where many Pro Bowls were played was sweet. Allowed or not I walked out on the field and it was surreal. My wife was not so brave :)
We then took the advice of our very good hotel excursion expert and called for a transport company to pick us up. It was worth the extra few dollars. We said good bye to the market and off we went for our hotel.
To Be Continued
