We were at it again, flying out in the wee hours of night to catch a cruise ship. Headed for Hawaii! This was a little different, because we were flying in the day before the cruise started, in case we had a flight delay. I had booked us into a hotel in the Waikiki section of Honolulu. Their website said they had a shuttle from the airport, a complimentary breakfast and a pool. I should have kept looking.
We went to bed on Thursday, about 6 pm, and on Friday, 4/21, I got up at 1:15 AM to get ready. I woke John at 2:30. Everything was packed and in the car; all we needed to do was eat and take off. Easy Peasy. Except I forgot to water the houseplants and grab my refrigerated medicine, I was so eager to get going. Well, the best laid plans of mice, men and people going on cruises.
We got to the parking lot about 4:15, but there was nobody there to check us in. We waited with 3 other groups of people. Apparently, there was only 1 person working, doing both jobs, the clerical checking in and the shuttle driving.
We finally got to the airport about 4:45, and there were long lines at TSA, despite their signs claiming it would only take 18 minutes to get through them. It took us more than that to get to the first TSA agent, plus another 20 minutes or more to get through the machines. John and I got separated between that first agent and the machines, so I went ahead to the gate to wait for John. Well, I did pause at a little store and picked up a couple pops and candy bars, because who knew if we would be offered anything on the plane?
He got there on time, with his shoes. Things went fairly smoothly, then. We were on Southwest, and they don't have assigned seats, just your assigned boarding group. We were Group 8, the next to the last boarding group, but we managed to find 2 seats together. We discovered our seats wouldn't recline, which made it hard to doze. And there was no wifi on this plane, so there was no entertainment. Shortly after take-off, the crew passed out pretzels and drinks.
After 3 hours, we paused in Austin TX to let off some passengers. John and I changed seats to some that would recline. Then the plane filled up, and we were off to San Diego. The gate we needed in San Diego was pretty close to the gate we came in at. We ate burgers and fries and found some seats to wait in. John noticed our flight was delayed by about half an hour. I called our hotel to let them know we might get in late. They said don't worry about it; the desk was manned until midnight. (!) They also said not to worry about their shuttle from the airport, that a taxi would be cheaper, anyway. Then why advertise that they had a shuttle?
We finally got on the plane for Honolulu in mid-afternoon, and the flight was uneventful. John was antsy, but couldn't sleep. We landed in early evening, got our luggage and found a taxi to the hotel. It was not what I expected. It had a circular drive, but the drive was full of vehicles, and the taxi could barely pull in far enough to unload us. The lobby was hard to find, because of all the little businesses between it and the drive, most of them not open at 6 pm. There was no evening restaurant, just a small cafe that served breakfast and lunch, and it wasn't complimentary. We would have had to walk somewhere to find supper, but we were too tired. We went straight to our room and to bed about 7 pm.
There's a 6 hour difference between Hawaii and Orlando, so we had been up and going pretty much for 24 hours.
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