"Sigh!!" or "Seven Days Just Ain't Enough"

What a wonderful place we visited... our week in Maui was purely magical, as usual, save the cries and whines from the keiki, who also made it different in a good way. Discovering Maui through the eyes of our children was an experience in itself, and now we can add them to the many memories we have of this island paradise.

Shall we start at the beginning?

Saturday, September 1, 2007
We're packed, changed, fed, and we have a plan to handle the five pieces we have to check, the stroller, and the two monsters, I mean, kids. We're off to the airport just a few minutes behind schedule, 0715 hours.

We get to the airport, and let's just cut through some of the minute details you don't need to bother with and get to the meat of the story - yes, there is a story already. So let's get to it. We arrive to Orange County airport, I get in line to check the bags while Jim parks the car (I'm sure there's a story there too, but that would be for his blog, if he had one), and after a short but long wait, Jim comes back, takes over the checking and I go to the security line, that as you probably know if you are a fellow traveler, can be excrutiating. Not five minutes go by before Jim tells me our flight has left... LEFT... LEFT. I see my dreams of Piña Coladas with umbrellas, bikinis, sun and surf evaporate before my very own eyes. I go through the mental checklist, ready to blame myself for the time confusion, but NO! I know I didn't get it wrong. We're scheduled for 0900, and it's only 0750 hours.

Turns out Alhoa Airlines moved us to the 0800 flight, because they thought we were already checked in (say what?!?), and they're being nice by putting us on a non-stop flight (wish I'd known...) "Sorry, sir! We may be able to get you out tomorrow (say what?!?)" "No, no, no!" Mr. Helpful Supervisor steps in and works on getting us on our flight, which is now full... and Destiny steps in to get us in first class, which is not full, and therefore even our lap child gets a seat. Now, let me tell you, if you've never flown first class, you should try it. We've been spoiled for life... of course part of it is because it was free... and it's the perfect place for me. They're all about feeding you every time you blink, and I'm all about eating just as often. A match made in heaven, and now flying over the clouds in leathery comfort. They even have footrests!! Ahhh...

We're not done with the story though...

Five hours or so and a Mai Tai later, we arrived in Honolulu and were greeted by the humid heat and distinctive smell of the islands - yes, they do smell differently. We had an hour lay-over before our next flight. Larissa and I went on a potty run, and while in the bathroom trying to prevent her from falling in the toilet and the toilet from flushing automatically (whole other blog subject...), I hear our flight being called - Aloha flight #blank to Maui now boarding on gate 50. We run out, and Jim is calling us to hurry and get on the plane...

Once in Maui (yay! We made it!), Jim went to get the car, I went to get the bags with the keikis. I looked, and looked, and looked for them... but the bags were nowhere to be found. How could they have lost five pieces of luggage, all belonging to us? Weren't they on our plane? That's how I found out the plane wasn't our plane. Thankfully, it did go to Maui. We got on an earlier inter-island flight departing from the same gate as flight 484, so now we had to wait for another hour for our luggage to arrive. No worries. We're in Maui's tiny teeny little airport... and I can smell the ocean if I inhale deeply. The Mai Tai must be working still.

Jim comes back with the car... which after seeing that there were no mid-size SUVs on the lot got upgraded to a full-size. So, despite the setbacks, we started our vacation in style - from first class courtesy of Aloha Airlines, to a Trail Blazer courtesy of Alamo car rental.

Once we got in the car and onto Lahaina and Kaanapali, we checked in at the Westin Villas, which turned out to be amazing, and head on to the Hula Grill in Whaler's Village for Aloha Hour, a Piña Colada plus umbrella, food, the company of Gina, James and their keikis, and a beautiful Hawaiian sunset... life was good...