Reservation Resolved For Honolulu!

I am happy to say we finally secured a reservation for granddaughter Sierra’s 21st Birthday Celebration through VRBO! Most of the family is invited and it is up to them to secure their travel there, then the fun will begin! I am so relieved to have a place to stay reserved.  I was getting concerned after not hearing back with a confirmation. I called the number shown at VRBO and the person I talked to said they have been so busy they have not had time to respond. She assured me the next day they would respond and in fact they did!  We will be staying at the Royal Kuhio Penthouse #3507!  It’s just a 5 minute walk to the beach, lots of clubs and restaurants (they will all love that!), and convenient to public transportation (which is pretty nice on Oahu).  There is room for 12 to sleep with absolutely no privacy!  LOL!  As Sierra said, “Grandma, it’s Hawaii, who needs privacy?”  Such a sweetheart and we are looking forward to making some great family memories, even if it is a year from now.  Planning is part of the fun!

Frustration…

We have talked about taking our Granddaughter to Hawaii for her 21st Birthday.  It sounds like lots of fun and we invited the rest of the family if they can come. Now, a YEAR ahead I am told out timeshare is fully booked and I should have made the reservation before now. I definitely need to check on the EXACT date to book ahead, a date I am not aware of off hand. I’ve never been concerned since we have always been able to secure a time we wanted easily.  Feeling annoyed and frustrated. I guess we will change the Maui location to something on Oahu as things seem more readily available there.  Darn…

Thinking About Our Timeshares

We are pretty happy we made the leap and sold our Diamond Timeshare. We were not terribly satisfied with the customer service anyway. Now we have a “Mexico” timeshare with many options plus we can always exchange, buy extra weeks at a reasonable price, or bank the points ahead with Villa. This will lend to our over all plan of going to Hawaii on “even” years and Mexico on “odd” years. Banking our time enables us to bring friends or family along when possible.  So we are feeling good about it. Then with Maui there are always extra weeks available IF the calendar is free. We have always been able to work out enjoyable, long term visits of 3-4 weeks with Kamaole Beach Club - Our favorite place to vacation on Maui!

Ka’anapali Beach Club-Day 5 Leaving

We got all packed and ready to go and then at check out we were told we had to pay full price for our room, that we had no reservation! Again? When we checked in the woman told me that but said she was calling Diamond Resorts and it would all be worked out. I asked her to let me know if there was a problem to resolve, she told me it would be fine, and of course I heard nothing. Clearly it is not resolved. Since we paid the 2014 dues last Nov or Dec why would we have closed our account? They had us call Diamond on their phone, but it is still not resolved. We had to leave for the airport so we just had to pay the exorbitant room rate and hope we can figure it out later. Maybe I need to stay home because I don’t feel a lot of compassion for the incompetence we have experienced on a couple of fronts this trip. Our trip to the car return and airport shuttle ride there were uneventful. We ate our sandwich and drank our drink before passing through security. The passing of security went very well, even fast. The flight was almost full and uneventful. No turbulence from the 2 hurricanes heading to Hawaii, the pilot said they were south of us, they couldn’t even see them. We were checking into the Quality Inn in Oakland at 12:02am. Good night!

Ka’anapali Beach Club-Day 4

Today Steven and Saira flew out for the mainland. Their flight was at 2pm. They were packed and ready so we went into Lahaina and dropped them off by the banyan tree for some last minute fun. We had a few things we wanted to look for as well. It was a quick trip to the airport after that. We dropped them off and they texted that they were on the plane just after 1:30pm so I suppose their flight left on time. On the way back we went into Lahaina again as there was one more thing I wanted to look for. That done we were back at the timeshare and ate lunch, then packed up some of our things for our flight out tomorrow. We are now getting weather warnings that the troublesome weather will begin to arrive on Thursday, we will be home by then! S&S made it to San Jose enough to drive home so I hope to hear they are safely home soon…. 

Ka’anapali Beach Club-Day 3

We heard there is a category 4 hurricane heading toward the islands, you can read about Hurricane Iselle here. Looks like we’ll be home before it really arrives in Hawaii.

Steven and Saira were up and out early, picking up the paddle board from the bellman and taking it out for some fun. We were heading out to the beach when they were heading back in to eat something. They went to McDonalds to get something “cheap” but of course that is not the case in Hawaii. Steven has yet to get over sticker shock in Hawaii. We continued on to the gazebo we rented for today, going all out for comfort. I blame it on the fact that John must be taking good care of his foot and it IS helping because when I put on a new bandage today it is looking considerably better. I expect the doctor to be surprised how well it looks when he sees him the day after we are home. Seriously, John burns so easily it helps to have this nice, clean area with no sand etc. to penetrate his bandage and keep him in the shade most of the time. Before S&S returned the board John took a little run out on it. The water was a bit rougher but he really enjoyed it. Before S&S were back from returning the board they began giving out free hotdogs, chips, popcorn, and juice. We just ordered some Kalua pork sliders but we managed to force down a hotdog! Nice touch, I didn’t think anything was really “free” in Hawaii. We enjoyed the pool and headed up to shower and get ready for the 'Ulalena performance tonight at 5pm. We all really enjoyed that, no photos allowed but I am sure I can find some on the internet that will be appropriate to remember the evening. We came back tired but the kids headed out to the beach or something to enjoy their last night here in Maui.  

John in the Gazebo

John wanted to go out on the paddle board

Go John (and Steven)!!!

Kalua Pork Sliders…YUM!

(Hawaiian buns, Kalua Pork, Maui onions, pepper jack cheese)

‘Ulalena

Ka’anapali Beach Club-Day 2

What a lovely and relaxing day for us. First we attended a welcome orientation that was really quite boring. If you have never been to Maui it would have been somewhat interesting. The reason to go to this little orientation was to get the free buffet breakfast voucher, which we did. We rented cabanas and we were nicely situated between the beach and the pool. It was very enjoyable. Steven and Saira walked to Boss Frog’s and rented one paddle (surf?) board and snorkeling gear. They enjoyed snorkeling right off the beach, we watched! A lot of people were snorkeling and this one threesome came in from spear fishing with a nice sized fish. I am not sure what kind of fish it is, maybe someone said Ono. By the time S&S came in, Steven was thrilled to see shrimp and artichoke pizza waiting for them. All that swimming works up and appetite. They went back in a couple of times and got some great photos with his new camera. They saw a really scary looking eel too.  The bellman will store the surf board overnight and they will no doubt be out there early in the morning to attempt to paddle on the board, it was too choppy by this afternoon to try it. I will say the water is much calmer and protected here than at Kamaole Beach Park I but it is not as sandy and does not go out on a gentle slope like Kamaole either. They didn’t seem to mind. It is early but we are tired and looking forward to bedtime!

There goes Steven!

Happy Fisherman!

Lunch (Shrimp/artichoke pizza)

Relaxing in the Cabanas