Friday, Getting There
We were atit again, flying out in the wee hours of night to catch a cruise ship. Headedfor Hawaii! This was a little different, because we were flying in the daybefore the cruise started, in case we had a flight delay. I had booked us intoa hotel in the Waikiki section of Honolulu. Their website said they had ashuttle from the airport, a complimentary breakfast and a pool. I should havekept looking.
We went tobed on Thursday, about 6 pm, and on Friday, 4/21, I got up at 1:15 AM to getready. I woke John at 2:30. Everything was packed and in the car; all we neededto do was eat and take off. Easy Peasy. ExceptI forgot to water the houseplants and grab my refrigerated medicine, I was soeager to get going. Well, the best laid plans of mice, men and people going oncruises.
We got tothe parking lot about 4:15, but there was nobody there to check us in. Wewaited with 3 other groups of people. Apparently, there was only 1 personworking, doing both jobs, the clerical checking in and the shuttle driving.
We finallygot to the airport about 4:45, and there were long lines at TSA, despite theirsigns claiming it would only take 18 minutes to get through them. It took us morethan that to get to the first TSA agent, plus another 20 minutes or more to getthrough the machines. John and I got separated between that first agent and themachines, so I went ahead to the gate to wait for John. Well, I did pause at alittle store and picked up a couple pops and candy bars, because who knew if wewould be offered anything on the plane?
He got thereon time, with his shoes. Things went fairly smoothly, then. We were onSouthwest, and they don't have assigned seats, just your assigned boardinggroup. We were Group 8, the next to the last boarding group, but we managed tofind 2 seats together. We discovered our seats wouldn't recline, which made ithard to doze. And there was no wifi on this plane, so there was noentertainment. Shortly after take-off, the crew passed out pretzels and drinks.
After 3hours, we paused in Austin TX to let off some passengers. John and I changedseats to some that would recline. Then the plane filled up, and we were off toSan Diego. The gate we needed in San Diego was pretty close to the gate we camein at. We ate burgers and fries and found some seats to wait in. John noticedour flight was delayed by about half an hour. I called our hotel to let themknow we might get in late. They said don't worry about it; the desk was manneduntil midnight. (!) They also said not to worry about their shuttle from theairport, that a taxi would be cheaper, anyway. Then why advertise that they hada shuttle?
We finallygot on the plane for Honolulu in mid-afternoon, and the flight was uneventful.John was antsy, but couldn't sleep. We landed in early evening, got our luggageand found a taxi to the hotel. It was not what I expected. It had a circulardrive, but the drive was full of vehicles, and the taxi could barely pull infar enough to unload us. The lobby was hard to find, because of all the littlebusinesses between it and the drive, most of them not open at 6 pm. There wasno evening restaurant, just a small cafe that served breakfast and lunch, andit wasn't complimentary. We would have had to walk somewhere to find supper,but we were too tired. We went straight to our room and to bed about 7 pm.
There's a6 hour difference between Hawaii and Orlando, so we had been up and goingpretty much for 24 hours.
