We struggled mightily with our big summer vacation this year. First we were planning to go to Boston and up into Maine. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get reservations for the puffin visiting boat tour I had my heart set on. Ok fine, you know where else we can see puffins? Iceland. We were a goodly way into thinking this was going to be the trip for us when we realized that everyone else had gotten their accommodation booked well ahead of us and there just weren’t many options left. We waffled for a bit, but Sean eventually talked us into Hawaii.

I wasn’t entirely convinced since there are so many places to visit and we had already been to Hawaii, twice. Once in 2008 we went for an excellent trip with Sean’s family to see the Big Island, Maui, and Oahu. Then in 2018, Sean talked us into taking Maya and Ian to the Aulani resort, which is on Oahu. Sean is hardcore Disney, and this is a Disney resort. Plus, Maya was way into Moana at the time, and the kids were young enough to believe they were really meeting the characters. Eventually, I relented and we started trip planning as quickly as we could.

There wasn’t a ton of time to plan, so we wound up using Costco Travel to book the hotels and inter-island flights. I didn’t examine our options the way Sean did, but he seemed satisfied with the process and the outcome.

We were sweating it leading up to the trip. Lolli and Pop had sent us home early from our Alabama visit in hopes of us avoiding whatever illness they had picked up, but it seemed like everyone had varying degrees of not-quite-right as our departure time approached.

We were almost entirely packed by the Sunday before our Monday morning flight, but had been slowly gathering gear for a couple weeks. We had plans for snorkeling, hiking, swimming, and photography, all things that require some specialized gear. And all that gear wound up consuming a LOT of space. In fact, because we wanted to take our trekking poles, we wound up buying a bigger suitcase. As we zipped up our bags, we worried about trunk space in the average rental car. It was going to be tight.

Day 1 – Flight, Monkeypod, Waikiki Beach

We scored a direct flight on Hawaiian Air from Austin to Honolulu. We managed to get out the door on time, and the airport was a normal level of busy, so we had no trouble catching the flight. We were amused to notice that instead of gate 13, there was a gate marked with an infinity symbol. Apparently it’s an interactive art installation called “Interimaginary Departures” and it’s been there since 2021. We’ve just not noticed before now. Next time we have spare airport time, we’ll have to examine it in more detail.

The flight was long but uneventful. We landed a little after 1p local time, but didn’t secure our bags till well after 2p. A nice lady arranged via Costco Travel plied all of us with beautiful, fresh flower leis and showed us to the shuttle bus that would eventually deposit us and our massive luggage at the hotel. Since we were the very last stop on the route, we didn’t get checked in till around 3p.

We were determined to plow through the jet lag, so we immediately headed out to wander along the street by Waikiki Beach on our way to Monkeypod for happy hour. We were all looking a little careworn and scruffy, but they still plunked us right at a prime table. We had a lovely view of the ocean, had ready access to the bar, and were delighted to find we were near a very talented live musician.

Sean and I of course had the famous Monkeypod Mai Tais, complete with a lovely dollop of lilikoi foam. The kids had mocktails, and we all split some snacks as well. We watched the waves coming in on the ocean, sipped our drinks, and listened to the gentle guitar and effortlessly yearning voice of our musician as he belted out his own rendition of radio classics through the ages. We were all sort of in low power mode, listening to the man sing, when I hear “Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down …” I couldn’t help laughing out loud and poking the kids. We came all the way to an oceanside bar in Oahu … to get Rick-rolled.

Suitably happy-houred, we headed back to the hotel to change into bathing suits and go play in the waves at the nearby beach. Maya was sad that thanks to a wave-break wall shielding a large portion of Waikiki beach, she wouldn’t be getting pummeled with waves. So she was extra thrilled to find that the wall ended just about where we accessed the beach from our hotel. That kid loves to let the waves crash against her, often diving headlong into them. Even Ian was diving into them with her.

After a post-beach shower, I could very happily have gone to sleep. The kids insisted they were hungry though and needed dinner. We got ourselves seated at Maui Brewing Co maybe a little after 8p. Keep in mind that to our internal clocks, this felt like 1:00 in the morning, and we’d been going all day. Dinner was fine, but by the end poor Ian had more or less fallen asleep sitting upright at the table. And even Maya confessed to being tired.

Day 2 – Daimond Head, Ko Hana, Stand-up Paddleboarding, Shark’s Cove

We didn’t rent a car for the full time we were on Oahu because so much of the stuff we wanted to see was in town and because parking at our hotel was really expensive. So for this, our North Shore day, Sean left the hotel room early to fetch a rental car from a place called Sixt. My job was to corral our children and all of our stuff for the day out of the hotel room and down to the street so he could scoop us up without having to find anywhere to park.

After loading up the car, we headed straight for Rainbow Drive-In for breakfast. At the advice of someone in line, Sean wound up ordering the Portuguese sausage fried rice and eggs and holy wow was it good. The rest of us did ok, but I think this is the kind of place where you have to order a few things a few different ways to dial in your preferences. Maya was supremely irritated that there were signs everywhere forbidding her from feeding the avian left that clearly flocked to the place in search of a handout. Ian had a myna bird straight up try to steal the waffle from his plate. Later on that myna bird plopped himself on the bench between Maya and Ian, patiently waiting for scraps.

After breakfast, we headed out for our scheduled access to Diamond Head. I don’t remember us having to schedule everything ahead of time back in 2008. We’re wondering if this is a holdover from the pandemic, or if it’s meant as an antidote to overcrowding, or maybe both. I had the QR code for the reservation pulled up on my phone, having made it a couple weeks earlier. Sean handed it over to the guy checking reservations as we drove in, and he said something like, “this is all good, but you have the wrong day.” Every ounce of the paranoia at my middle-aged brain not performing as expected – a paranoia that has been steadily increasing over the past months – washed over me in a wave of disappointment, self-doubt, and a smidge of self-loathing. I could totally believe that I had screwed that up. He didn’t let me suffer for more than a beat though before he grinned and said he was just kidding. We were good to go.

It had been raining to varying degrees all morning and we were a little worried for our hike (the reservation was for a two hour block, but you had to arrive for your pre-paid parking in the first 30 minutes of that block). Luckily, we didn’t wait in the parking lot for more than a few minutes before it had cleared up enough to start the hike.

It was a little muddy and slippery and there was some kerfuffle over which kid should be in the lead. And there were a LOT of people. Overall though, it was a very pleasant, if sweaty hike. The views of Waikiki and Honolulu from the top of the crater were spectacular. Also around the top you could see various World War II era bunkers and peer down at the Diamond Head Lighthouse.

Sean and I wanted to try a rum tasting at the Ko Hana rum distillery on our way to the North Shore. We let the kids hang out in the car and play on screens, since they were too young to enter. The day was overcast, and they were delighted with the extra screen time.

We shared an aged flight and a classic flight. The aged flight offered tastes of their Koho aged rum, their Koa which is aged in Koa wood, their Kila cask strength, and their Kokoleka cacao and honey rum, which we had picked up as well during our 2018 trip to Oahu, when the distillery was still known as Manulele Distillers. These were all delicious to be sure. My classic flight offered something we hadn’t really experienced before. The Koho and Kokoleka were the same as with the aged flight, but we also tried two different versions of the Kea (white) rum.

Many varieties of sugarcane are grown for Ko Hana’s rum production (the Ko in their name means “sugarcane” in Hawaiian), and these two white rums were distilled from different varieties of sugar cane to produce two different “expressions” of their Kea / white rum. Our tasting guide, on hearing that we strongly preferred one to the other, also let us know that the one we liked better had been pot-stilled instead of column-stilled. (She also, on hearing us natter on and on about the flavors and different distilling processes, let us try a bit of a special high-proof release of their white rum that was absolutely fabulous, so much so that we purchased a bottle.)

We had lunch at Giovanni’s Shrimp Truck. The trailer park it was in was cuh-razy crowded and it took a while to even get our shrimp ordered. In the mean time, Ian needed the rest room, and those can be tricky to come by. Luckily, the trailer park must have worked something out with a nearby shop owner to allow patrons of the various restaurants to use their facilities.

Eventually, we got back from our trek to the bathroom, secured ourselves a picnic table (no easy feat) and laid waste to some excellent piles of garlicky, buttery shrimp served alongside plain white rice. It was messy, it was crowded, it was loud. And it was so, so good. Plus, even with the throngs of people, we still managed to be visited by a handful of meandering chickens, much to the kids’ delight. (I think it was here that we even saw a duck family waddling through.) I swear I don’t recall the chickens being quite so … populous last time we were here.

We had a little time to kill before our next scheduled outing, so we thought we’d try to sneak in a little snorkeling. After being confronted with three completely full beach parking lots, we gave up and arrived early for our family stand-up paddle board lesson. It worked out fine though because 1 – it wasn’t super duper clear where we were to meet our instructor for our lesson and 2 – she was prepared to start early anyway if we liked.

We spent a bit of time on the beach learning how to get up on our boards and how to stand. Then, one by one, she let us try it out. Everyone managed to stand up and paddle at least a little bit, except me. It’s frustrating because I really only got one try at it, and when it comes to physical stuff, I am just not a natural. But, I’m determined (stubborn?), and I would have gotten it if I’d been able to try a bit longer. Alas, most of our lesson time was actually consumed by a scenic paddle up the ‘Anahulu River. We all sat comfortably on our paddle boards. Honestly, if you aren’t trying to stand up, they don’t feel tippy at all. If you can paddle a kayak, you can do this.

We got to see sea turtles lounging on the banks of the river. The folks who could comfortably stand up on their boards kept pointing them out swimming through the water as well. I guess from our seated angle, they weren’t as visible. The kids saw lots of crabs scuttling about, as well as a couple of feral cats. Poor Ian apparently saw a huge, hairy spider, which he described at length. As we paddled back out into the bay, Maya had jetted way, way ahead of us and so it was an anxious paddle till we could get back and lay eyes on her and confirm all was well.

After our lesson / tour was over, we decided to give snorkeling another shot. We had gotten some parking advice from our paddle board instructor, and so we’d have a backup plan if the parking lots were full. We made our way to Shark’s Cove. Fear not, its name doesn’t come from the many sharks that make their home here, but instead for a rock formation that is said to resemble a shark.

The area where we snorkeled was sort of like a giant tide pool. It was largely protected by walls of rock, so you didn’t get jerked around by waves. The fish who had wandered in at high tide couldn’t really get out during low tide. Also, they were used to humans, so, as it was described to us, it was like snorkeling in an aquarium.

I personally struggled a little at first because Ian was sick of salt water and didn’t want to do it. He wanted to hang out on shore. Because I’m Mom, I’m the one he comes to a lot of the time with these grievances because I will take care of him, hang out with him, entertain him. Sean helpfully pointed out to me that he was nine years old and could play on shore by himself. And so, with some hesitation, I finally calmed down and let myself enjoy the water.

The light wasn’t great because it was well after 5 by this point, but the water was jam packed with marine life. Schools of big-eyed silver fish would sort of zip back and forth in unison in front of you. Bright yellow fish, weird dark fish with orange protuberances, deeply patterned tang-shaped fish – you really could just stay still and watch the action happening around you. I finally caught on that people sort of float in salt water, and so, even though I don’t really swim, I could comfortably float around and gaze at the creatures and not worry too much. Sean and both the kids are good swimmers, so I could honestly just relax.

We stayed in that water till just shy of sunset. We collected Ian and showered off and got into our dry clothes (a sentence which is easy to type and much less so to execute). Then, on the way to the car, we were treated to an epic multi-hued sunset as well.

We closed out our day the way started it – at Rainbow Drive-In. Sean and I shared a loco moco, Maya had a mahi plate, and Ian had a hot dog and fries.

Day 3 – Chinatown, Bishop Museum, International Market Place

Today we mostly traveled by Uber, Lyft, or our own two feet. We started our day at Kamehameha Bakery. The selection was pretty overwhelming, and there was nowhere to sit, but we managed to enjoy our haul while hanging out in the parking lot. I tried out their specialty: poi doughnuts. Now, I’m gonna be honest. Poi is not something I personally get excited about. It is considered sacred in Hawaiian culture, but to my tongue at least it’s not all that flavorful. Poi doughnuts are a whole ‘nother thing though. The texture is a dream – so moist! And the doughnuts had just the right amount of sweet from the glaze.

The rest of the various pastries were good too, and all of us seemed to enjoy our breakfast. As we were getting ready to head to our next destination, a nice lady in the parking lot stopped us wanting to know how we had found out about this place. She seemed astonished to see tourists there. Maybe she just didn’t want the secret getting out.

We headed to Chinatown next to see about a walking tour that we had read could be arranged through the Hawaii Heritage Center. Everything on their website said walk-ins were welcome, but we seemed to have caught them off guard. My advice would be to call regardless, just to be sure everything’s set.

We learned much more than we would have had we just been wandering around. Our guide taught us a little about Chinese funeral customs, the Chinese zodiac, and the original arrival of Chinese folks in Hawaii as laborers for the sugarcane fields. We visited (among other places) both the Mauna Kea Market and the Oahu Market. We got to try a variety of small treats – for example, Ian learned that he very much loves fresh lychee. Maya learned that she likes dried shrimp chow fun. We ate so much that we wound up skipping lunch.

After seeing a dragon mural in the street, our guide explained to us that before the dragon comes to dance at a festival, you must first wake up it up. I read a little bit about it later and there’s a whole unique ritual around waking the dragon before it can dance involving spoken words and brushing the dragon with real or imagined water. The eyes are often left covered until it is properly awakened, and then the covering is removed and the dancers begin.

Maya had learned a little about Chinese language and culture in her fourth grade year (Ian is learning about it this school year), and so she was particularly engaged. She kept her eye out for moon gates and could pick out which of the lion statues guarding Chinatown was the female and which was the male based on what they were holding.

From there we took a walk to see the exterior of the Iolani Palace. This is the only official royal residence in the United States. We thought the kids would only have stamina for one museum type experience, especially after the cultural walking tour this morning, so we confined our visiting to the palace and the iconic King Kamehameha statue in front of the Ali-iolani Hale government building.

Instead, we took the kids to the Bishop Museum, which is a natural and cultural history museum. The Hawaiian Hall and Pacific Hall were excellent – there was a giant whale dangling from the ceiling and so many interesting artifacts to examine. It wasn’t all roses though. We were surprised to find that their planetarium show doesn’t run on Wednesdays (this is clear on their website, if you check the right place ahead of time, so I’ll take the hit on that one – the sample itinerary I looked at described it as a “daily planetarium show” so hopefully I can be forgiven).

We were saddened to discover that their lava experience wasn’t operational … and later that their deep sea tank was undergoing renovations. I really enjoyed what we saw and was delighted that the kids are finally reading signs and placards at museums, even if they tell us it’s just to keep from getting bored. Alas though, if we had known about all the things that weren’t available to us, it probably wouldn’t have been worth the price of admission.

From there, we headed to the International Market Place to do a little shopping and admire the huge open-air spaces in the mall. The kids (and adults) lingered outside the cat cafe for a little while – we were already missing our kitties. We found lychee-flavored Ramune sodas at a Japanese market. We sampled soooo many cookies at the Honolulu Cookie Company.

Anchoring the mall is the Banyan Court, which features a huge banyan tree around which the marketplace was constructed. This tree once held Donn Beach’s original treehouse. Apparently back in the day, he lived in and worked out of this treehouse, sharing tiki culture with all comers. There is a treehouse sort of thing there still, paying homage to Mr. Beach.

After finding some rocking chairs and relaxing a bit, we all walked more or less across the street for dinner at Muragame Udon. The line was predictably out the door when we arrived, but it moved along pretty quickly. We ordered our main noodles and then were sent through a sort of cafeteria style line to collect broth and trimmings. Sean and Ian had some tempura as well. Maya tried out a spam musubi, which she discovered she loved. I took a crack at a different sort of noodle bowl – it was called nikutama and it featured a soft boiled egg and sweet, shaved beef. It was a delight.

We headed back and let the kids play at the pool after dinner. Both our hotel room and the pool area had a lovely view of Diamond Head, so Sean and I relaxed on some lawn chairs and let the kids play and play.

Day 4 – Koko Crater, East Coast, Manoa Chocolate, Kailua Beach

Sean again fetched a rental car for today’s adventures (they rented him a BMW 5-series, which I think made him a slightly nervous – we had lots of messy plans for the day). We had intended to start our day at the main location of Leonard’s Bakery for malasadas, but decided the crowd wasn’t going to work for our schedule and tried out one of their parking lot “malasadamobiles” instead. It worked out well enough. The parking lot surroundings weren’t necessarily the most scenic but we had a gentle egret stalking our every move, so that was kind of fun.

Today was our big Koko Crater hike. This hike isn’t particularly long, but there’s a catch. Rather than a series of switchbacks taking you the slow way up the crater, you instead are instead hiking on old tramway tracks in a straight line up the crater wall. (These tracks, now unused, belonged to an incline tram that was used during World War II to haul supplies to a lookout post at the top of the crater.) It was like hiking up stairs for 0.8 miles, 1048 according to online sources. We didn’t count them. Also, the trail is mostly in full sun, and wow were we feeling it. It was brutal both uphill and down, but the views were amazing. My synopsis: I’m glad I did it once, but I don’t need to do it again.

Ian absolutely tore up the trail. He’d jet ahead of us and then sit and wait for us to catch up. Sometimes Maya would jet along with him, sometimes she would hang with us. This was particularly nerve-wracking because there’s a section of track partway up that is a bridge, so it has no ground under it. There’s nothing particularly hard about it as long as you’re careful, but I would hardly accuse our children of being careful.

Later on, as we neared the top of the trail, we heard a couple of guys coming back down the trail good-naturedly discussing the kid at the top of the trail who thought the trail was sooooo easy. I distinctly heard, “that little shit; someday he’ll be old too.” I asked them if it was a boy with long blond hair. Yup. The little shit in question was Ian. Go figure.

The view at the top was spectacular, and we took our time sitting to have a snack, taking photos, and generally resting. The way back down was certainly easier, but not easy. Poor Maya, who is almost obsessively apprehensive about bees and wasps and the like, kept seeing these tiny little wasps. We’d tell her to calm down, just keep walking, those wasps don’t have any interest in her. Welp, sure enough, as she was climbing down a trail to bypass the open tracks of the bridge, one of those wasps had been flying around her legs. It stung her as she was deeply bending her legs to navigate the rocks. She weathered it well and even seemed proud of how well she coped, but I hate that all her terrible fears are now confirmed.

When we read about it, this was described as an hour-long hike. These two middle-aged, sedentary office types spent about three hours all told, including snacks at the top and plenty of lingering for photos and rests. By this point, our idea of a schedule was kind of shot, so we rejiggered. We went first for a post-hike shave ice at a place called Kokonuts. This kids had scoops of ice cream hiding in theirs. Sean had some condensed milk added to his. The flavors were bright and the ice cooled us down, which I think we all needed.

We drove then to Ono Steak and Shrimp, a place Sean was particularly looking forward to trying out, and were dismayed to find that it was closed, in need of gas-line repairs. Instead, we backtracked a little and wound up at Ono Seafood. (In Hawaiian, ono means “good” or “delicious” or is a name for a wahoo fish.) They had poke! In fact, they even had some made with salmon, which Ian prefers over the more traditional tuna. For the second time that day, we ate in a parking lot. (Third probably, if you count the shave ice.)

After lunch, we drove for a while along the scenic coastline, stopping at various lookouts, trying to see if the Halona blowhole was blowing. Either the tide wasn’t quite right for that to happen or we weren’t looking the right direction. Regardless, the views were stunning and it was a nice way to further our resting.

For the kids (read: Sean), we stopped at Manoa Chocolate for a tasting. Bernadette, our tasting guide at KoHana Rum had told us to look for Kai at Manoa. As luck would have it, Kai was our tasting guide at the chocolate factory. As he tells us, he and Bernadette have been sending each other business for years. You could do worse than rum and chocolate, to be sure.

Along with samplings of their various chocolates, we sprung for each of to have a spritz made with pressed cacao juice and water. We also had tea brewed from cocoa nibs as our palate cleanser between chocolate bites. It was a delightful experience. After purchasing way too much chocolate, we wound up going to Kailua Beach so the kids could play in the ocean for a while. I had pulled or stressed on of my hamstrings during that morning’s hike, so I mostly sprawled out on a towel under a shade tree and rested and watched chickens while Sean and the kids played.

After cleaning sand out of every crevice imaginable, we made our way back to Honolulu. At the suggestion of one of our Uber drivers yesterday, we stopped at Helena’s for dinner. Apparently this place has been around since 1946! They serve traditional Hawaiian food, largely a la carte. Like many places, they close quite early, and we snuck in not long before closing. We asked first if it was ok, and they were supremely welcoming. We picked several different things to try. We discovered that lomi lomi salmon has too much other stuff in it for Ian to enjoy the salmon, but kalua pig is excellent. Maya learned that she is fond of chicken long rice … and kalua pig. They are known for their haupia, and I can understand why.

The kids and I hauled all our stuff back up to the room while Sean returned the rental car. We ended our evening with Mai Tais and mocktails at the Royal Hawaiian. The Mai Tai Bar was packed, but they still found us a nice table. The comparison to our more spare surroundings at Helena’s was almost jarring, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. Sadly, once we were back at the hotel, we had to get cleaned up and pack. The Woodses were in for an early morning.

Day 5 – Off to Kauai!

We woke up WAY too early to catch to our 5:15a shuttle bus to the airport. Even with multiple stops to collect more people, we were through security more than two hours before our flight departed, bone tired and with limited breakfast options. I think we wound up with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts that morning. Our flight boarded and departed with no issues.