Hello Everyone, I have done everyone a favour (including myself) and removed the Hawaii Five-0 theme song from this page. If you really want to hear it click here

If you have read this go straight to the four legs of the trip using the flowers above.

Mahola for joining Myrna and I on our Hawaiian Adventure - Code name Hawaii Five-0. The reason for the name is simple. I was looking for a special place to celebrate Myrna's 50th birthday and what better place. Trivia: If you remember the Hawaii Five-0 show, the reason the police force was named 50 was to 'honour' Hawaii as the 50th state.

I have to say that we have both been very excited about our trip. Originally we had considered many other destinations such as Vegas and Arizona but when I mentioned the word Hawaii to Myrna on March 14th, I knew no other destination would do for a two week vacation. I tried to use Airmiles and Aeroplan but the flight times were horrible. Whenever I travel, I try to fly direct to anywhere I can. I love flying but hate waiting around in airports. Unfortunately there are no direct flights to Hawaii from Montreal, so the one hop to LAX is fine. It splits the trip into two 6 hour flights with two 3 hour changes. With a 70 minute connection in LAX, we leave at 9am EDT and arrive in Honolulu at 4pm HST. Coming back is another story that I will describe in the fourth leg of the trip. We are flying United as the layovers in Vancouver using Air Canada were 6 hours or longer.

The next thing I did is buy a guide book. I chose the Hawaii for Dummies book. It seemed pretty up to date, and I find the 'dummies' format easy to read. I found out later that some of the reviews of certain places were a bit old in the book. On TripAdvisor.com, there was a horror story about one place that the Dummies book recommended. It was a B&B that had not been reviewed since 2001 and had turned into a dump although some later reviews were ok. I take reviews from Trip Advisor with a grain of salt but sometimes there is just too much evidence against a place. I think Trip Advisor is certainly keeping the accommodation industry on their toes. I don't think I would book a place that I hadn't been without going to TA for a little 'inside' info. Sometimes, the candid photography tells the whole story. That being said, we decided that since this is a special trip, we are not going to cut corners. Let's just say that I now know my MasterCard number by heart and that I am waiting for MC to call anytime and ask me what's going on?

The next planning step was to decide how many islands to visit and how long on each. We only have 12 full days there so even our 3 chosen islands seemed a lot. After that was decided, I booked the inter island flights. Somehow I expected flying in a little prop planes because I had been hearing about $19 fares.  Well gone are those days I guess, because Hawaiian Airlines seems to only fly 737's on these routes that take at the most 35 minutes (but only if you fly direct). All destinations are reachable from each of the four airports we are using but if you are not careful in booking you could end up taking 4 hours instead of 30 minutes by having to layover for an hour or two. Time is precious on this vacation. So after booking the flights. our trip consists of 3 days on Oahu, 7 days on the big Island (Hawaii) and the final 3 days on Maui. This also means 3 different car rentals which basically means 3 weeks of car rental fees. On Maui for example since we have the car for 3 days and 3 hours, the weekly rate is cheaper than the 3 day and 3 hour rate. It doesn't help that we are renting convertibles on all three legs. Why convertibles? I won't need the trunk space, since I decided that golf was not part of this vacation. There, I said it, it's official. I had a great golf holiday in California so I had my fix for the winter. Not really, but I have to convince myself. I know I will cry as I drive by instead of driving on courses like Kapalua on Maui and Waialae in Honolulu. OK, I am over it.

After knowing how we are getting around the islands, the hard part was to, choosing where to stay. We started with the easier one, Waikiki Beach. That was our first reservation and since we will be tired from the flight and adjusting to Hawaiian time (6 hour difference), we are staying in a hotel right on the beach for the full three days on Oahu. when you see the next page you will see that picking the hotel was not that easy.

I will try to update our progress and post pictures on this site whenever I will have internet access. This will probably be easy in the first three or four places we are staying at. On Maui however (April 24 to 28) we are spending the first 2 nights in a very remote location far away from the internet, so there might not be an update for a few days. We will see.

On the above map, you can either click on the location or the dates in the middle of the page. This will take you to each slice of our vacation. I hope you enjoy your visits, I am sure we will ours. Glad you could virtually join us. One good thing is it won't cost you a thing. Enjoy....
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