Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Kauai installment #1...


So to avoid completely boring you about one subject and because I feel like maybe I have other things to talk about, I figured I'd give you the Kauai run down in sections. And then I'll move on to other stuff if I feel the need.
Kauai installment #1: Getting there:
Our plane was supposed to leave at 8:30 am from San Francisco International Airport. Since SF is close, but not that close to our house, we decided to stay the night near the airport Friday night to avoid having to get up in the middle of the night. Also, the hotel would keep our car for the entire week and shuttle us to and from the airport...all for $150 bucks. Cool deal, huh? Anyways so we get up at 5:30am, get on the shuttle at 6:30 and get over to the airport. We check in and find out that our plane will be delayed by one hour. The plane got in late the night before and required a crew rest. POOP. Oh well, right? Right. Just for to put this in your head for now: we have a connecting flight in Honolulu to Kauai.
The flight over went amazingly well. It's a 5 hour flight from SF to Honolulu. Megan was asleep before we even took off and stayed asleep for maybe 45 minutes or so. Jake was of course really good. I knew I didn't have to worry about him. The only problem we ran into was once lunch was served, Megan was in a playful mood and I just could not eat. I was making a mess and there was just too much junk and so I decided not to eat. Finally, after my sandwich was completely smashed flat, Megan decided to take a nap. She slept for the remainder of the flight. Thank goodness!
We landed in Honolulu at 11:30. Our flight to Kauai was at 12:05. When we got off the plane we were instructed to go to the inter-island terminal via the Wiki-Wiki Bus. Just step off the curb onto the bus, it will take you to the terminal, when you get there, just look at the monitor to find out what gate your flight is at. OK. So we go out to the curb....there is probably 500 hundred of us standing out there. I'm not kidding you, there were about 5 Wiki-Wiki busses that just passed us all by and did not pick any of us up. So obviously we missed our flight. Grrrr. We get to the inter-island terminal, expecting there to be someone from Hawaiian airlines to tell us where to go, or tell us to hurry they're waiting for us or.... something. Nothing. We ask someone and they say "oh Kauai flights leave out of gate 60" We go down to gate 60, there's no one there. There's a sign saying the desk is closed and go back to the Maui desk. Well there's about 100 people standing at the Maui desk. A Hawaiian airlines person comes by and asks if we have our boarding passes. "Yes we do, but...." and then she cuts us off and says "then just go to the gate". What gate? there is no gate # on our pass! AND we've already missed our flight! We wait in line some more and discover there is about 20 of us who missed our flight due to the late plane and the stupid Wiki-Wiki bus. A while later another HA emloyee comes by and says "I don't know why you missed the flight, because everyone else made it on". Basically, they were blaming us. They put us all on stand by for another flight...we waited some more. Then all of a sudden someone comes and collects all 20 of us and says they're putting us on the next Aloha Air flight. So we walk all the way down to the other end of the terminal and wait some more. (Are you tired of reading this yet? That's how I felt too...only 10 times worse!) Wait it gets better! So we finally get on the plane. We start taxi-ing out to the runway and then the capitan comes on..."Sorry folks we're gonna have to go back to the gate....there's a Blue Angles air show and the FAA has shut down the airspace above the airport for an hour". FREAKING HECK! So we all de-plane and wait another hour. It's now 3:30 Hawaii time, 6:30 California time (and remember how I didn't eat lunch on the plane?) Long and short of it is...(ok maybe the long) we finally get to Kauai at 4:45. We were supposed to be there at 12:30. We were so tired and exhausted. We finally got to our condo around 6:00 Hawaii time. LONG, LONG day! Amazingly, the kids were SO good through all of this. Such troopers they are. Jake even made a friend which helped a ton. The 2 boys played while we waited to get back on the plane. And as soon as we got in the rental car they were both out like a light!
To be continued......
I PROMISE the rest of the week WAY makes up for this. It was such a crazy day though, I just had to get the memory down

3 comments:

camport said...

ok, I'm never flying to Hawaii!

Can't wait to hear the rest.

:)

Melissa said...

finally got a moment to read it all from beginning to end. I would always get stopped in the middle.

glad you made it :)

Kimberly White said...

Wow! What a crazy flying day! Glad the kids were good! You must have been HUNGRY! Kim