Holiday to Hawaii in Aug 2013: Day 9 – Big Island to Maui

Started the day with a discounted breakfast on site. Standard price is $29.95 – it’s discounted to $19.95 if you arrive between 6:30 and 7, and then we had two $10 credit vouchers. Breakfast was pretty good, and we had an excellent server called Sally.

Just managed to add our next Dollar reservation to my newly created Dollar Express account, and now I can use the Express line and avoid the lengthy queue! Top class – made my day that has.

Now packing up and we will be heading back to the airport at 11am for the short jump to Maui. Should be great as long as make it back to the airport! We are aiming to avoid putting any more gas in, and we need to arrive empty if we are to make the most of the gas we paid for up front (we didn’t get the option of filling up ourselves). We have 50km available, and it’s only 30km but sometimes the distance left on your tank can drop off quickly. Fingers crossed.

The resort here on Big Island is really good – we weren’t sure when we first arrived and we booked into the Ocean Tower, but the Lagoon Tower is so much nicer, and it was great to get back here from our travels down south the other day.

Managed to reach the airport without any problems – we were running on vapour by the time we free-wheeled in to rental returns. Anyway we made it. The airport was a little disorganized – no clear directions to Security, but we got through. We grabbed a sandwich in the café (which was tasty) and Vick watched some of the Murray game.

The flight was short and sweet to Maui, and we applied the same tactics as we had done previously in respect to picking up our car. I shot off to get in the queue for the car, and Vick lugged the bags – need to take this approach back home in normal life I think!

Although this time there was no queue at all. Anyway I had gone to the trouble of setting up a Dollar Express account so I could use this speedy rental process, and that would have helped enormously if there had been a queue.

Got my Mustang so was happy with that – when I sat in, unlatched the top, pressed the button to drop the top it felt like coming home. Within 5 mins we were on our way and we fairly quickly reached the Grand Wailea on the West coast. It was very hot and humid so we were both drenched with sweat by this stage. We were greeted with Lei around our necks from a very friendly woman called Rose, but reception became a little more frosty at check in.

Anyway got our room in the Napau Tower, which was pleasant but we don’t have much of a view. Checked out the tea and cookies in the Club House and then sussed out the rest of the hotel. Quickly came up with a plan to take advantage of all the freebies during the evening: free cocktails and hors d’oeurves between 5pm and 6:30pm in the Club House, and then a free drink down at the Humu bar. Humu is our short name – it’s full name is something daft like Humulumupodgepoo.

The evening was enjoyable but Vick was well knackered so with all the alcohol didn’t stay awake very long after we got back to our room. Planning a chill out day tomorrow, then we have snorkeling on Sunday and a traditional Hawaiian Luau in the evening. On Monday we plan to do the Road to Hana, and the Piilani Highway.

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