Hello again everyone! Well, we got back from our cruise, and I think my internal clock is finally back to Eastern Standard Time! Whew! It’s hard to imagine how many time zones you cross when you go that far away. When you fly to Honolulu, it’s so complicated! If you leave at noon, you fly for thirteen hours, but when you get to Hawaii, it’s like you’ve only been flying for seven hours (hah! Did I say “only”?). So if you leave in the afternoon, you arrive in the evening of the same day. However, you feel like it’s 12 hours later! We were beat when we got there, even though it was just early afternoon. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

First, the flight. What an ordeal! We left around 7 am in the morning. With all the security you have to do nowadays, we got there before 6 am to make sure everything went okay. We got our bags checked through, and spent some time sipping Starbuck’s and nibbling cinnamon rolls and listening to canned airport music. I couldn’t stop reading the guidebook to Bob, I was so excited! He listened, adding his usual “uh huh” now and then. I think he was running out of patience though!

The flight was long, but Bob and I figured out a way to make it go by a whole lot faster. We bought one of those portable DVD players and took a whole bunch of movies with us! We even got those headphones that let two people listen to the same thing at the same time.

It was still a very long flight, but it wasn’t as boring for us as it was for some people. Like the people with kids! I never knew just how cranky a three-year-old could get in thirteen hours, but I found out. Someone had a toddler a few seats behind us. I felt so bad for him – he was so bored! Of course I had to go back and say hi. Like Bob says, I have to be everyone’s mom! The little boy’s name was Stevie, and I told him some stories, which helped for a little while. Eventually he went to sleep, but boy was he unhappy before that! And of course he woke up and still wasn’t happy since he was still bored. Some people looked so annoyed, but I just felt bad for the boy.

Stevie and his mom stayed with us the whole way, though we mostly changed over the whole plane at our layover in Chicago. Of course the Florida to Illinois part was the short part of the flight. It took AGES to get to Hawaii! Oh, Bob and I brought some sandwiches and snacks with us. You never know what you’re going to get to eat on a plane, or if you’re going to get to eat at all!

Finally, we arrived in Hawaii. If you have never been, let me tell you that Hawaii is gorgeous! Even around the airport, everything seems like it’s green or blooming! Oh, and they have this wonderful Japanese garden! I had to stop there, and then Bob didn’t think he would get me out of the airport (smile). Oh, and the sky is so blue, and the clouds even look different there than they do at home. They’re just like these little blobs of cotton.

There was a hotel courtesy shuttle between the airport and the hotel, which was GREAT since we didn’t have to worry about cabs or renting a car for just one day. We stayed at the ResortQuest at the Executive Centre Hotel, which was super close to the place where the Tahitian Princess was docked. It was an okay hotel, not the best ever. It is 41 stories high and in the middle of downtown. Oh, but one fantastic thing about it was that it was so close to the Aloha Tower Marketplace! Talk about shopping! After we got settled, I spent the rest of the evening in that place. I could’ve spent days! There are SO many shops you wouldn’t believe it. I bought something for all the kids and got them mailed off right away so we didn’t have to lug a bunch of souvenirs around. I found the most beautiful black pearl necklace, though later I realized I should’ve waited, since black pearls are EVERYWHERE in the South Pacific! We HAD to eat at Don Ho’s Island Grill, which is right inside the tower. It’s such a cute place and really captures the way Hawaii used to be, like it looks in the old movies. I really felt like I was in the tropics at that point!

This was a super long trip so I’m going to stop here and post more tomorrow. Stay tuned!