Leaving San Francisco and arriving in Honolulu - 1st July

Leaving San Francisco heading to Hawaii - Aloha!!

1st July

Prepare yourself for our most expensive day this adventure so far!!!

And just look at what we have to show for our $$$$$$$!!!!!

 

 

Sticker task complete, love this sticker!

 

That’s us packed up!  Colin doing the final check of the bathroom and Amy helping by just keeping out of the way watching TV ha ha!!

 

 

Bye bye San Francisco

 

So after talking to the receptionist the other night we have opted for the Lincoln car to take us to the airport as it is nearly the same price as a taxi and the airport shuttle bus,  but the only difference in about $5-$10 is the LUXURY!!!

 

Now this is a nice change, we all have a nice leather seat, lots of leg room and super comfort heading to the airport and the chauffer has humfed our suitcases into the boot rather than us humfing them up bus steps or metro trains

 

Let’s get in Yorkie, Millie and Amy!!

 

Oh yeah loads of leg room, nice leather seats and we are going direct to the door of the Delta departure lounge just the three of us, this is a real novelty!!!

 

Woop woop look at our reflection!!!!

 

And look our chauffeur is humfing the cases out of the boot too, our muscles are having a break that is for sure!!

 

 

 

Good journey had by all

 

Colin is enjoying checking in with the Delta machines and especially enjoying paying for the $25 each for our bags!!

 

 

Colin trying out the local San Francisco beer with his salad!!

 

Amy with her burger that was too chewy for her and I had fish and chips that had massive bones in, fish was good though other than fishing for bones!

 

 

There was a large crowd outside of the bar restaurant, there was a queue for the tables but those onlookers are watching the USA World Cup game.  It was the first time we had put our name down for a table and had to say what time our flight was and then when we sat down the waitress asked us what time our flight was, good system!

 

By the time we had finished our lunch we were boarding, perfect timing!

 

Woop woop Honolulu here we come!!!

 

San Francisco airport must be on the peninsula as the water is close by on our side of the aeroplane and apologies our window is a bit scratchy and dirty and not sure why but Colin didn’t want to go out and clean it!!  We do have a 5 hour flight, plenty time for housework Col!!  With the time difference when we arrive in Hawaii we will have added 3 hours onto our day!

 

A plane coming into land and the view over Bay Bridge, hurry up plane so we can take off!!

 

Flying over South San Francisco

 

Here is our first glimpse of Hawaii, looks beautiful with the different blue sea colours!

 

Coming back into land

 

Nice looking golf course Col through a not very nice window!

 

The jetty’s remind me of whale tail fins!

 

Wow the sea looks so shallow we could just jump out and go for a paddle now!  As Amy says we have our swimmers in our bags only one problem is that they are just slightly out of reach in the hold at the moment!!

 

We are now at the furthest point away from the UK, some 7,239 miles away from London!!

 

 

We get off at the gate and we need to walk outside to get to the terminal building for our baggage but what beautiful gardens to walk past!

 

Aloha!!!

 

So we head through the terminal building to reclaim our baggage ever expecting a Lai to put round our necks or music to be playing reminding us of arriving in Bermuda but no NOTHING!!  The Lai’s are now for sale, gosh cutbacks have made it to Honolulu too and there is no music playing probably another cutback!!  So after collecting our suitcases that all arrived perfectly (phew!) we are now looking for the public bus when an airport representative asks me what I am looking for so I say public bus and he informs us that suitcases are prohibited on public buses, wow I love this rule ok our one and only alternative they offer from the airport is the Airport Shuttle $81 for return for the 3 of us, the bus was only supposed to cost $2 each, mmmm not sure about the budget but what else can we do I think they have the monopoly!!!  So we wait 20 minutes for a shuttle to come as these shuttles in the photo weren’t working, goodness knows why as there were 4 workers standing around us!

 

Beautiful view from the airport though!

 

Here we are our shuttle bus!  The driver shows us a few sights along the way but worryingly he starts off with the hospital that is pink on the hill!!  Does he think we will need to know where that is or something???  Hopefully not, fingers crossed!  No chance of any photo’s as he is driving fast, it came out a blur!!

 

Here we are at our apartment block Waikiki Banyon, how exciting!!!

 

The entrance to the tower blocks which are part apartments and part hotel!  We are in an apartment!

 

We are in tower 2, the bags are excited look they are first to the lifts ha ha!

 

Push the button Amy, floor 22, eeeek!

 

Now this just looks as if we, I mean Colin is breaking in with his trusty accomplices supervising!!  The keys to the apartment are in the little key lock safe below the handle!

 

Keys are out, let’s get in!!!!

 

Open plan, living room, dining area and kitchen

 

 

Kitchen area

 

Bedroom through sliding doors!  Yorkie and Amy have decided that is their bed!!

 

 

Sink and into the bathroom

 

And there is Waikiki Beach through the skyscrapers, wow!!

 

The view down from the balcony, swimming pool, BBQ area, tennis courts and play area!

 

The sun is setting!

 

The lone surfer out there!

 

We headed out for tea and went towards Waikiki Beach but look at the size of these fish compared to my foot in the entrance area, absolutely massive!!!

 

 

It gets dark so quickly here, the sun has just set and the moon is out!

 

 

Ooops I missed the N at the end of Banyan!

 

 

We walked a couple of minutes and then this was our view, wow!!!

 

Perfect place for tea and then head home for bed, it has been a long day!

 

Night night moon xxx

 

The apartment block at the back right is our block all 38 floors (I stand corrected as Amy noticed today that there is no floor 13 so the tower block will only be 37 stories high!).  The pool is on the sixth floor shared between the two towers

 

 

The pool

Tomorrow we are going to see what the day brings, no plans this week just chilling, having home cooked food, beach time, pool time and nothing much else so we can all recharge our batteries!!  XXX

So here we have our most expensive day so far this whole adventure so let's do a stocktake of where our $$$ went;

Lincoln car from San Fran to airport

Suitcase charge at the airport

Lunch at the airport

Shuttle Bus to Waikiki Banyan

Burger King for tea

And that is it, the whole of our budget and much more gone on travel to and from airports!!  Feel like we have been ripped off with no other alternative!!!