Hawaii

Sometime in January this year I had to call Hilton regarding a separate reservation and they offered a vacation package to Hawaii at a significant discount to listen to their sale's pitch on their timeshares.  I'd normally hang up the phone if called about something like that, but I called them on something unrelated and the customer representative had been quite helpful.  I was also online and able to do some quick research on their property in Hawaii.  4 nights at Hilton Waikoloa, 2 luau tickets, a free car rental, and $200 towards your next Hilton stay for approximately $600?  Great deal, SOLD!

We booked our dates in June, after I started my new job.  November and December are great months to go to Hawaii.  It is freezing in CO by then and a cheap season to go.  We upgraded to condo at the Hilton King's Land down the street from the Hilton Waikoloa hotel.  They are a couple of years old, 2 bed/2 bath, full kitchen, their own pools and on the golf course.  My parents, who have never been to Hawaii, decided to join us and spend the first couple of days in Honolulu on a tour of Pearl Harbor (70th anniversary).  We also upgraded to a minivan and got car seats (they are much worse than the ones we have, but based on limited driving we planned to do on the island, I wasn't looking forward to lugging our own car seats around).  We got all our 4 tickets on United on miles.  Incredibly the tickets were only 40K miles each vs. the $800 they were going for online.  We figured that including meals, upgrades and the original $600, we spent around $2K!!  Not back for a vacation in Hawaii.

The last time Bill and I were in Hawaii was for our honeymoon in Maui.  Neither one of us had been to the Big Island.  It was great, specially the 80-degree weather since it was -8F when we left Denver Tuesday morning.

We enjoyed the beach, all the amenities at the Hilton Waikoloa, drove the Hilo and did some sightseeing along the way.  Bill went SCUBA diving.  We enjoyed the lagoon area where we took out kayaks, peddle boats and went snorkling.  There are many different fish in the lagoon, but the highlight are the sea turtles.  Audrey loves the beach.  She can play for hours on the sand.  As waves approached, she would run towards the water and Mason would run back to the beach.  Can you guess if she is like me or Bill in that regard?

The kids woke up between 4:30 and 5:30 AM each morning, but we were all in bed early every night too.  The meal times were all messed up, but we just went with the flow of things (Hawaiian style).  The sales pitch was not bad, in fact done very professionally and not pushy.  They had some great promotions with up front points, but after running our vacation numbers, viewing the resell market and looking at other accommodations in the same area, we decided not to buy.  Although I would say if I were retired or had more time to travel in low seasons, the Hilton vacation timeshares has good repuation and value, and you can get great deals from sellers strapped for cash right now. 

The only glitch is that our flight back to SFO on Saturday night was cancelled. They had a mechanical problem.  By the time we got rebooked for the next day (direct flight from Honolulu to Denver), got a taxi back to the hotel and check-in (1 hour line), it was around 1:30 AM.  But Hawaii is not the worst place to get stranded in.  Mason slept through the whole thing and woke up at 5:30 AM asking "Where am I?  Am I on the airplane?". 

We enjoyed the pool and beach (picture below from the beach in front of King Kamehameha Hotel) took a nice nap before our 7 PM flight to Honolulu and back in Denver by 8:30 AM Monday morning.  Kids went back to school (they had slept well on the flight) and we got right back to work.

Now, I need to catch up and get Christmas shopping done and Christmas cards out.  :-)

Can't wait for our next trip to Hawaii!!

More pictures to come...