Waikiki, HI

Tue 13/12/11: Moana Surfrider Hotel (Room 788)

Mark and I headed out early for our last morning walk around Poi-pu. It was an overcast morning and the weather looked more set in than previous days so it was probably a good day for us to be leaving. It rains on and off throughout most days but the showers, although heavy, never last too long. There were lots of large sea turtles visible along the coast line this morning. We headed back up to the shopping village, Kukui ula, near our hotel and noticed yet another absurd feature to slot in on the shelf along with the obsession for automatic toilets, paper dispensers and taps: they had the sprinkler system on in the garden. For an area with this much rain someone, somewhere, is not thinking.

Mark had a quick ocean swim once back at the hotel and we noticed that the monk seal was still on the beach. It was doing impressions of ‘ From here to Eternity’ with the waves crashing over him/ her. I thought Mark should go and roll it back into the safety of the surf and deeper water. Strangely, Mark didn’t agree.

We’d had 4 nights and 3 full days on Kauai which, at first, I thought would be enough. I actually would have liked another day or two though. I’d like to have taken a trip up to look up around the north shore and another day to spend at the beach/pool and to maybe do some snorkelling.

I would advise people who were thinking of coming to Kauai to allow for 5 days if possible. Sure, you can see most of the island on a day trip with a1 hour helicopter flight but you don’t get to experience the island fully in just one day.

I would recommend to stay at the Sheraton too as, although not most luxurious, it had the best beach and was more private than most hotels in the area. The Hyatt was lovely with a great pool and grounds but no beach really to speak of and it is in another price category altogether.

The taxi picked us up at 9.45 for the trip out to Lihue airport. We seem to have found the only Starbucks in the world to not to have Wi-fi though. We’re good at these kinds of ‘firsts’.

The flight was short and sweet (35 min) and the 70s theme continued for us into Honolulu. Our taxi was playing Australian Crawl’s ‘Down Under’ which was closely followed up by KC and the Sunshine Band’s ‘Get Down Tonight’.

We were able to get into our room (788) straight away which was convenient. We dropped our bags and then headed straight out to catch the bus up to the Ala Moana shopping centre for a few hours of retail fixation before heading back to have a teppan-yaki dinner at ‘Tanaka of Tokyo’ in the Kings Centre across from our hotel. This is a fantastic restaurant that we came to a few years ago and we were the only Caucasians in the place…surely a good sign in such a venue! No BLT tonight for our Tom!