I won't go into great detail on yesterday morning, we got up, had breakfast, got off the ship and had really no issues getting to the airport and then onto the flight to Kona Airport.
I'll have more on Kona airport upon our return, because I want to spend a bit more time there, but is is quite remarkable. It appears as if about 90% of the airport is outdoors!! As we deplaned, we passed a bunch of people sitting in the sun, enjoying a tasty beverage, waiting for their plane. Never seen anything like it.
After catching the Hertz shuttle to pick up our rental car, a Camaro convertible, we experience the problem we knew we were going to have twice: No freaking room for our luggage in this car. I could have booked an SUV or something bigger but there was a ridiculous difference in price, and let's face it, who doesn't want a convertible when driving in Hawai'i?
So, we pile all of our small stuff into the "trunk", and the big suitcases into the back seat, and the smaller wine suitcase on Tracey's lap in the front seat! Not particularly safe; we will try to find a better configuration to go back to the airport next weekend.
1:00 PM - We arrive at our resort, which looks beautiful from the outside. We are 3 hours earlier than check-in time but they have no problem getting us checked in and set up in our room. They also arrange for this little beauty, which was delivered yesterday, to be brought to our room:
I freaking love wine.com. Great wine delivered to our resort, and I could specify the exact date for it to get here, and they guaranteed it would be here on that day (and it was).
We get to our suite and....wow. Just wow. I took a video because I thought it was easier to show you rather than tell you, but it's too big to upload to this blog. Let's just put it this way: If it's not the best resort we've ever stayed at, it's in the top 3. Honestly, if we have ever stayed anywhere better, I can't recall it. Huge 2 bedroom townhouse, great kitchen, and this:
That's the master bathroom. Tracey is going to spend so much time in that tub I may have to dub her "Tub Bear" by the end of the week.
And the shower in gorgeous; but I must say that the shower in the second bathroom is just about as good!
And we know how these places usually have a small dishwasher? Nope. Not only is it a full size unit, IT IS THE EXACT SAME DISHWASHER WE HAVE AT HOME!!
The kitchen has nothing but top-quality appliances. Here are my only two quibbles:
1. No BBQ
2. Laundry is a small-ish combo unit
If that's all we can complain about, it's going to be a great week! There are tons of community BBQ's in the common areas, we would have no problem using them, but since there is no way to tell that the last person didn't BBQ shrimp, we never take chances with those. And as for the laundry, who really cares? It works fine, we just have to do a few extra loads. No big whoop.
4:00 PM: Off to Kona, about 35 minutes away, to shop. First up, we hit a Farmers Market for fresh produce. It's a decent market, but nowhere near as amazing as the one from Hilo that we visited during the cruise. Then we go to Wal-Mart for our groceries and a few non-food items, and that was a horrible mistake. I'm not sure if this is common among US Wal-Marts of if this one is just a shitty one, but there is no fresh meat here. In fact, hardly any fresh food at all. So after we get our stuff here, we end up having to go to Safeway anyway to get everything else we needed.
We still need to find some decent wine glasses. Unfortunately one of the glasses we brought with us didn't make it here....my fault, I didn't bubble wrap it quite good enough. The one that I wrapped well was fine. I'll do better.
6:15 PM - We get back to the resort and decide to catch up on a wrestling event from last week that we couldn't watch on the ship. Amazingly we heard no spoilers at all, so we are going in fresh. I fire up the computer and rest it on the ledge of the bath, and we both climb in for a soak. Yes, it is plenty huge for both of us to eat, enjoy some wine, and some rasslin'.
When it's bedtime, we settle into different rooms. Since we are both sick, fighting back colds, we decide it's better to sleep apart at least until we are feeling better.
1:05 AM - Why am I having a dream about being at a basketball game? I don't like basketball, and don't go to games.
Wait a minute. That squeaking sound of shoes on a basketball court....that's an actual noise that I am hearing. I get out of bed to try to find the source of the noise, and it turns out it's the smoke detector in my room....the batteries have run out. Good grief, that's not great timing. I was SOUND asleep.
Anyway, I call the front desk and they send security out to fix it immediately. I was able to get back to sleep but I don't think I ever got back to where I was before the squeaking woke me up.
Tomorrow we have no plans (we actually have no plans for the entire week!!!!) except to relax and hopefully watch football. We have no idea what games are going to be on...one thing about traveling during NFL season, we sure miss our Sunday Ticket package!!
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