The Trip Home

Traveling home.  Boo.  This trip was such a good time and no one really wanted to leave.  But alas, we had school, work, and an amazing dog to get home to.  So with heavy hearts we (I) packed our bags and we headed to the airport.

Since we had turned in our rental car, we took a cab from Aulani to the resort.  It took about 30 minutes, and they had a line of them outside the resort.  We just called down and told bell services we needed a cab and help with the bags. A kind bellman came up, grabbed our bags, and loaded them into the waiting taxi.  

At the airport, Rob took the jump seat on the first available flight and I stayed with the kids and took the next flight.  We used some hotel points and stayed the night in LA.  The next morning we were at the airport super early in the morning, like maybe 5am?  Its all a blur now, but I remember we had trouble getting home to Cincinnati and ended up taking flights home through Denver of all places.  By the time we made it back to CVG we were all exhausted.

Final Thoughts

The goal of this trip was to relax, show the kids the best of Hawaii, and celebrate our 10 year anniversary.  We exceeded those goals for sure!  Some things I think we did spot on, and some things we could have done better.

Getting to Hawaii is always an odyssey if you are coming from the east coast.  We opted to press on and do it all in 1 day.  Was this the best decision? I'm not sure.  Would we do it that way again? Maybe.  We were really tired, but we would have been really tired if we had stayed in LA and broken the trip up into 2 days.

The Outrigger was definitely the right choice for a Waikiki Beach hotel.  I would stay there again in a heartbeat!  Our only misstep during the Waikiki Beach portion of the trip was not leaving early enough the first day we tried to climb Diamond Head.  The Dole Plantation was a one time thing, but it was a great activity for kids who had a lot of energy.  I do wish we had worn warmer clothes though.

When it comes to Aulani, if you have kids and can swing the cost, do it!  I wish I hadn't wasted so much time worrying about the size of the room, it was fine!  The villa with the kitchen would have been nice, but we were fine without it.  

The only thing I would really do differently about this trip is the time of year we went.  We love to escape the cold of Kentucky during winter, but it wasn't really warm enough for us to swim in January in Hawaii.  For the amount of money you spend to travel to Hawaii, I think April is probably the best time to go.  

​And that's it!  The end of our trip to Hawaii.