{"id":48009,"date":"2024-12-30T14:58:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T20:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=48009"},"modified":"2025-01-09T20:49:31","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T02:49:31","slug":"kauai-day-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/?page_id=48009","title":{"rendered":"Kauai Day 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Oahu Day 4<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\nBreakfast on the balcony. Banana power. Look at that cool gradient on that skyline!<\/p>\n

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\nSeriously, how many different colors can you spot in that sky? Crazy cool.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s travel day today, and we had reserved two taxis to take us to the airport this morning at 8am. It’s nice that we are still jetlagged from Austin, so it wasn’t too hard getting up early.<\/p>\n

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\n7 passengers with luggage means we need to split up into two vehicles. Both of the drivers were Chinese women. The driver in my car talked about how business has been down due to the pricey dollar compared to the yen. I guess the Japanese make up a huge portion of tourists here in Hawaii. She said business was good before covid, when covid first opened up and now it’s slow. So slow in fact that usually the hotels fill up 100% during the winter break, but right now they are maybe 70% capacity. We did notice that the hotels don’t seem super crowded. That’s good for us, but sucks that people in tourism industry are suffering.<\/p>\n

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\nPL was eager to help on the boarding passes and luggage tags.<\/p>\n

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\nPretty cool luggage tag. No sticker backing to peel off. Neither sides are really sticky on their own but put those two dots together and they adhere very strongly.<\/p>\n

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\nOff we go with the luggage.<\/p>\n

\"\"Clear for me, RL and the kids.<\/p>\n

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\nGrandparents in the regular line.<\/p>\n

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\nTSA pre for me and the kids.<\/p>\n

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\nWell, that was an easy and fast security line with not much of a line.<\/p>\n

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\nFirst, some coffee.<\/p>\n

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\nThen some food for lunch. It’s early, but due to jet lag, we still get hungry really early. Cool little self pay station where it scans itself.<\/p>\n

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\nThis being Hawaii, RL got all the kids lip balms in a pineapple shaped container.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s early, places are just now starting to open up at the airport. But time to get some more food because by the time we get into our next hotel, it’ll be a little past lunch time and everyone will be hangry by then.<\/p>\n

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\nEverybody loves fried chicken.<\/p>\n

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\nI love fried chicken.<\/p>\n

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\nTime to board.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s been a while since I’ve seen a seat tray this small. The sits are also super bare minimum. I like it. I guess you don’t need to do much when you only make short distance runs between the islands.<\/p>\n

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\nHere we go, onto Kauai.<\/p>\n

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\nBye Oahu, til next time.<\/p>\n

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\nFound his Cuebot in his travel duffel bag. He had forgotten it in there back when we got it in NYC?<\/p>\n

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\nAll asleep on this short flight. That’s CL in the foreground with her sweater over her head.<\/p>\n

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\nAnd we are here in Kauai after maybe 40minutes. Easy. It’s a small airport, I think only 10 gates.<\/p>\n

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\nThat was easy to leave. I’m going to get the rental car.<\/p>\n

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\nWhile everyone else gets luggage at the carousel.<\/p>\n

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\nIt’s funny that they love putting on lip balm like it’s some sort of toy.<\/p>\n

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\nThey told me to pick any Pacifica that I want. It actually took me a while to pick just the right one….I know, I’m picky. One had too many scratches on it. One had too low of tire pressure. One needed an oil change.<\/p>\n

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\nThis one will do. Another white Pacifica, just like the previous rental.<\/p>\n

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\nWe brought along the inflatable carseats again. It’s funny that when we get the checked luggage, one of the first thing we do is stand on the sidewalk and blow up carseats with our mouths.<\/p>\n

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\nAlso blue sky over here. Immediately, it feels much more rural here. It’s like being in the country.<\/p>\n

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\nMuch fewer roads, and much fewer cars.<\/p>\n

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\nFeels like Taiwan, feels like Costa Rica.<\/p>\n

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\nAlbizias tree, I had to look up what they were. Cool looking trees. Apparently an invasive tree that’s fast growing and gets random broken branches. Looks cool though.<\/p>\n

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\nFeels so much different than Oahu.<\/p>\n

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\nVery few miles on this car as well. Our first one in Honolulu had less than 1000 miles when I picked it up. Now that I think about it, it still had less than 1000 miles when I dropped it off I think.<\/p>\n

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\nReminds me of King’s Road in Ireland.<\/p>\n

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\nGetting less rainforest. It’s amazing how quickly the climate and scenery changes here.<\/p>\n

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\nWe are here, took about 30 minutes.<\/p>\n

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\nYup, that’s 5 people squeezed into a 4 seat mustang.<\/p>\n

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\nVery nice.<\/p>\n

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\nWhile I was checking in, everyone else talked to these resident macaws at the hotel. They say things back to you apparently.<\/p>\n

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\nClaims to be feeling car sick.<\/p>\n

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\nRuns around and laughs like he’s not carsick. You tell me.<\/p>\n

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\nThe kids loved the birds. I was still too busy checking in at this point.<\/p>\n

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\nWent to park the car at the lot. The parking lot is kind of a far walk from the lobby to be honest.<\/p>\n

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\nNice touch, they handed out tubes to the kids during the check in process.<\/p>\n

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\nLarge spread out compound. I guess you can do this when the weather is mostly nice.<\/p>\n

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\nBeautiful manicured grounds. I’m certainly impressed.<\/p>\n

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\nThey didn’t have connecting rooms, so we got two rooms next to each other. This is what $1,400 per night per room gets you at probably one of the top three resorts on the island. It’s pricey, and very price for a pretty regular room. There are parts of the hotel that looks tired and could use a renovation….For some reason, I thought that I’d get more for the money. A little disappointed.<\/p>\n

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\nThe grounds are beautiful, but I feel like the room didn’t continue the excellence.<\/p>\n

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\nNothing planned for today except to sit around, chill, and swim.<\/p>\n

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\nThey have a slide here as well and the kids really enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

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\nTime for a large snack, or second lunch. The kids didn’t eat that much of their first lunch.<\/p>\n

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\nThis works. Drink a beer while I wait for my food. I’m having a good time.<\/p>\n

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\nYum, poke for me. I love how poke is just ubiquitous here.<\/p>\n

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\nGotta drink a local(well, state local) beer while I’m here.<\/p>\n

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\nSome food so they have more energy to burn at the pool. Look at how uncrowded it is over here.<\/p>\n

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\nCheck out the beach here and going for a short exploration walk around the resort. The waves are pretty big here, definitely not good for kids swimming.<\/p>\n

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\nSome volcanic stone shoreline. There are also some tide pools here.<\/p>\n

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\nLooking back towards the resort. It’s pretty nice out here.<\/p>\n

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\nSo many wild chickens here on the Hawaiian islands. Heihei in Moana makes more sense now.<\/p>\n

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\nIn the middle of this perfectly manicured is one very dead tree that appears to have been dead for a while. It looks like an agave that bloomed? Odd.<\/p>\n

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\nVery picturesque resort in the pool area for sure.<\/p>\n

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\nHung out by the pool most of the afternoon, time for dinner. Another complaint against the resort. In order to make a reservation at one of the restaurants on site, you book through OpenTable like you would any restaurant. No priority is given to guests on site and calling the concierge did not help. So now we are left with the options of showing up right when they open and hope to snag a walk in table, or if that fails, scramble for another restaurant to eat at. Lame. I just want someone to tell me either yes or no whether I can get a table for 7 so that I can go ahead and make plans for plan B ahead of time.<\/p>\n

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\nThey had a great time swimming though. The temperature is still pretty warm here, about 80 degrees during the warmest part of the day.<\/p>\n

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\nWhile the kids showed, we saw that someone left us a secret Merry Christmas message on the mirror along with baby footprints. Probably from the guests right before us I guess. Neat.<\/p>\n

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\nThe seafood restaurant on site at the resort. No reservations, but showing up right at open enabled us to get a table. It also helps that I guess the resorts are not all filled here due to world economic reasons. I have also noticed that it’s a lot less crowded at this resort than at the Hilton. I guess the high price does buy you significant less crowd, which is nice.<\/p>\n

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\nGirls were excited to wear their new dresses. Cute.<\/p>\n

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\nFood was great all around.<\/p>\n

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\nAt the end of dinner, they bought out some little chocolate desserts, but it had nuts in them. So I asked for a some ice cream since PL is allergic to nuts. They bought out some ice cream and said it was on the house, at which point, I felt obliged to tip an extra $20 for the meal. Hawaii is expensive and eating with 7 people is expensive. Every meal we eat is probably $500+. Sigh.<\/p>\n

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\nBut look at how pretty it is over here!<\/p>\n

To be continued at Kauai Day 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Oahu Day 4. Breakfast on the balcony. Banana power. Look at that cool gradient on that skyline! Seriously, how many different colors can you spot in that sky? Crazy cool. It’s travel day today, and we had reserved … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":47459,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-48009","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48948,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/48009\/revisions\/48948"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/47459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gottobepresenttowin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}