Hopefully we'll have enough time to blog about our events each day. But no guarantees.
So believe it or not, we were on time this morning. I was rather amazed. Even though this is a vacation we've been planning for 13 months; getting up at 6am for me is NEVER easy. Particularly because I had a hard time falling asleep. So we finished packing last night,and double and triple checked my multitude of lists. Stellanne cooperated; and woke up at 6:30 for a 7am departure.
And that's where things started to go south. So we got to the park and jet and I almost rethought leaving our car there. The operator was rather rude; the building seriously looked like you'd find dead bodies in it; and then there was the wait for the van....in the FREAKING cold. Oh wait; it gets better, the guy asks for the keys and he must have accidentally hit the lock button. I was standing outside, but my Mom, Lisa and the baby stayed in the car to keep warm. And then I made the mistake of trying to open up the door. Which set off the alarm; to which I didn't have the keys, and the worker was NO WHERE to be found. Eventually I found the keys hanging up and turned off the alarm and unlocked the car. Eventually the van arrived; and we were off. And I thought hey...things are going well; vacation has STARTED@!!!!!
And it continued like that until Stellanne woke up from her 1 hour nap, at hour 2 of a 5.5 hour flight. :( Stellanne almost died...no not because our flight had issues; but because I almost killed her. She would not sleep. And staying still was not in her vocabulary. And she only has SO much of an attention span. Lisa and I played tag team in a terrible no good verision of shake/swing your child as much as legally possible.
We were so happy when we landed.
We got our convertible; and luckily had enough room in the trunk to fit our masses of luggage.
And then the COOLEST thing happend. On our way to our condo; we saw a whale. He was a happy splashing whale and splashed his tail NUMEROUS times. We're lucky that I didn't crash our car. Mom says that it's supposed to be a lucky symbol.
We checked in to our condo; but our room wasn't ready so we went across the street to Boss Frogs and went to buy Luau tickets; the Road to Hana CD and snorkle gear. And we got a killer deal. I had scoped out all of the Luaus and decided that the Royal Lahaina (pronounced La-Hay-Na) Luau was the Luau for us. They have a kids meal, kids are free, fire dancers, hula, and an awesome menu for a reasonable price ($59.95 per adult). So while I knew that most of the snorkel rental places offered timeshare presentations; and had made my mind up not to waste our time at a presentation; we ended up deciding to go to one. We paid only $115 for 3 adult and 1 child Luau show; the Road to Hana CD; and week long snorkle gear. PLUS we get 10% off anything retail and most activites at discount.
So we have to spend 2 hours listening to a spiel; but in the end; we are saving a TON of money!!!
Tomorrow we are doing the presentation first thing and then heading off to the aquarium.
BTW; our condo is also amazing. It's a one bedroom condo that is huge. And the second bed is a murphy bed; so it's not like someone has to sleep on a bar all night long. We even have an amazing view of the ocean; something I thought there was no way we were going to get.
Check out our photos from today on Flikr.