Oahu...Day 11 of 18 .Arrival on Oahu

Friday,  May 18, 2012

Arrived here around 11 am and picked up a Mustang convertible at Thrifty  booked through DCR for alot of money... about 400 for 7 days.

The convertible is not only fun, but makes it much easier for driving in this traffic.  

 Since we’re too early  to check into our condo at the Ilikai, I figured it was a good time to stop at La Mariana Sailing Club for lunch.  I hadn’t known of this place before reading it on TA.  It certainly is a tricky place to find but we were very close and a pedestrian helped us find it.  It's early so we're one of the few people here.

After lunch we stopped at the Aloha Tower and walked around this area.

Now came the tricky part… deciding where to park.  It certainly is a mess and expensive...which I expected.      All the less expensive options I had read about really weren’t viable here and now.  So we just parked the car at a meter and got into our Condo, Number  820 booked through Waikiki Oceanfront Condos.  After we got settled in we tried to get into the fund raiser next to the HHV.   There would be a lot of good Hawaiian entertainers so I thought it would be a fun first night in Waikiki.  However, It seemed a bit unorganized  and we had to wait in a really long line so we just went across the street to get pizza.

Afterwards we did go back and watched some of the show standing on the outside.  It was ok and we were not being intrusive.   Before hitting the bed we had to move the car and we had decided on the parking garage across the street from the Modern…..very easy for us to get to and we could go in/out on our own.  We would be on the move alot so I really didn't want to deal  with valet.   It was less than we thought it would be due to the time…nice surprise.

Tonight we were wakened up with the Hilton Fireworks..  they were so close to us… it was a fun surprise.

Ok now for the whole truth... I tried to prepare John for Oahu.  I really hated to go here after the laid back atmosphere of Maui and Kauai, but it just plain worked out better.  I remember  how I cried when I saw Waikiki Beach during my first trip back in the 70's.   By the time the trip was over which included all 4 major islands I loved the state and all 4 islands, but frankly it's a shock at first.   So I knew how he felt and tried to explain that we would be out of Waikiki alot and he'd have fun.  Whew.....Pearl Harbor tomorrow and I know he'll love it.