Last Minute Kauai (literally)
Posted by Max Dunn Tue, 17 Apr 2007 19:05:00 GMT
(Suzanne) If you know me, I’m the one that has to research everything for months before making any kind of big purchase. Trips, on the other hand, can be a different story. Don’t get me wrong, I still love doing research for certain destinations, but there is some sort of thrill that I get out of being spontaneous—this trip being one of them!
I was chatting with a friend (rSteve) the other night and he was asking me if I was going to be around this week (Spring Break). I told him that I wasn’t sure but that if we went anywhere we couldn’t leave until Monday because Max had a sailing race on Sunday. I told him that I felt like going to the airport on Monday, looking at the boards and just picking a destination. His response? “Hahahahahaha…..lol.” Well, we were close.
I had been talking to my brother Pat since last Thursday trying to find options of where to go for Spring Break. “Coddy” works for United Airlines and has buddy passes that anyone can use. I told Max that we should take advantage of them and find a place to go that has a lot of flights and is wide open so we wouldn’t have to worry about not getting on. My choices? Any place warm. Max? Any place with surf. Maxie? Seattle for coffee. Claire? New York City for shopping. Our choices to fit all of our criteria and available flights were somewhat limited, especially since part of our criteria was the availability of seats in first class.
New York City and anywhere in the northeast was out due to storms. Cabo was wide open as was Seattle. Kauai and Kona were the only Hawaii options with Kauai being the better one only if we left on Sunday. By then I figured that Cabo and Seattle were our only options since Max was sailing. Until…......
Sunday morning after church I layed on the Luv Sac waiting for Max to leave for sailing and pondering our next vacation move. I was resigned to do anything, even stay home if we couldn’t make a decision. Just then Max came in and said that sailing was canceled due to high winds. That was the only sign I needed to know that we were supposed to go to Kauai. Which means…
At around 11am, we had about 2.5 hours to call my brother to check the loads going to Kauai, find a hotel to stay at, get a rental car, pack and clean the house for the cleaners. It was stressful yet invigorating!
We got to SFO with plenty of time to spare (minus a few things that we forgot) and, because we look like such a mafia family, were tagged for extra security. This entailed pulling us aside into our own special line (I thought we were priviledged at first), going through all of our bags on top of the x-ray machine, and as a bonus, Max and I got to go into this special machine that shoots streams of air over your entire body (and you can’t get out until the green light goes on and the doors open).
We finally reached the gate and once open, we checked in and voila!!! We got 1st class! We called Pat and told him and the kids were so excited! Maxie especially—he was looking forward to the 1st class food and virgin mai tais! Flight was perfect and we landed in Lihue around 6:45p, rented our car and headed south to Poipu Beach.
Poipu Beach is about 16 miles south of Lihue on the island of Kauai. We’re staying at the Grand Hyatt this time because of the bigger beds and the pool with the water slide. Once we got there, we checked in and put the kids to bed (they were wiped out).
Monday was our first real day here. We knew the Hyatt was going to be nice but didn’t really get to see it until now. But first I need to talk about the breakfasts. Included with our room are “free” breakfasts everyday for 2. It’s a huge and wonderful buffet. They start you off with a smoothie shot and then you just feast on whatever you want! Quincy made the greatest omelets. Maxie definitely got more than his money’s worth on shrimp, smoked salmon, bagels, bacon and pastries.
After breakfast, the kids were dying to get into the pool so we decided to swim first
