natebenma
Beach Club Dee
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2008
and
What do you get when you add 13 nights, 6+ flights, 4 resorts, 3 islands, 2 teens?
28
Coincidentally, that is anniversary Mark and I were celebrating on this trip of a lifetime.
Just in case I have some new readers who don't know us-
I am Dee, mostly stay-at-home mother, part-time museum educator at a 300 year old farm, active school volunteer and manager of the Beach & Yacht Club FAQ here on the DIS Resort Board.
I married my high school sweetheart, Mark, 28 years ago. He is the manager of a software development team.
We have two sons, Nate (age 16) and Ben (age 13)
Our family loves to travel. We have shared (many) trips to Disneyworld, of course. We enjoy Universal/Islands of Adventure. We love the tropics (Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Bahamas).
Here are a few blasts from the past!
2008
2009
2010
2011
2013
But we had never been to Hawaii.
Although there were several reasons we chose to plan this trip at this point in our lives, one of the primary ones was the realization that the clock is ticking on the number of family vacations that we will be able to take together. Nate will be going to college in 2 years, Ben is a few years behind that, and with summer jobs and other activities, I dont know when we would be able to find another chunk of time to do this.
We considered a few options for our summer vacation. We have never been out west, so touring the National Parks was definitely a contender. A standalone trip to Disneyland was also considered, maybe mixing it up with some other activities in California, but when we looked at prices for DL/CA compared to what a trip to Florida would be, it didnt make sense.
The thing that has always scared us from booking a trip to Hawaii is the amount of time it takes to get there from the east coast. Once we decided to add a few days in Disneyland to break up the travel time and to help adjust with jet lag, we were ready to tackle this!
We had a few different iterations of our schedule as we were planning this trip, mainly due to the reality that I really didnt know anything about the different Hawaiian Islands and what they have to offer. The boys- they wanted volcanoes! This almost didnt happen because of my inexperience with just how BIG The Big Island is, but in the end, we found a perfect solution.
This is how our final itinerary looked:
Saturday July 12- 6 am (EST) to 9:30 am (PST) flight from Boston to Los Angeles
Saturday July 12-Wednesday July 16- Disneyland, Grand Californian resort
Wednesday July 16- 9:00 am (PST) to 11:40 am (HST) flight from Los Angeles to Honolulu Oahu
Wednesday July 16- Sunday July 20- Hilton Hawaiian Village, Waikiki Oahu
(Pearl Harbor, Hike Diamond Head, Snorkel Hanauma Bay)
Sunday July 20- 12:05 pm to 12:44pm flight from Oahu to Maui
Sunday July 20-Thursday July 24 Honua Kai, Maui
(Lahaina, surfing, Trilogy Snorkel Excursions to Molokini Crater, more snorkeling, sunsets)
Thursday July 24- 2:40 pm to 3:12 pm flight from Maui to Big Island
Thursday July 24-Friday July 25- Hilton Waikoloa Village
(Volcanoes by Land & Air Tour with Paradise Helicopters and Hawaii Forest & Trail)
Friday July 25- 11:15 pm (HST) to 7:00 am (PST) flight from Big Island to San Francisco
Saturday July 26- 8:30 am (PST) to 5:15 (EST) flight from San Francisco to Boston
In my Hijinks trip report, I posted preview pictures of our fabulous trip.
Grand Californian
Disneyland
California Adventure
Oahu
Maui
Maui, Activities
Big Island
Volcanoes by Land and Air
I introduced my family, but I forgot to also introduce my other traveling companions, the ones who are with me even when I am solo:
My cameras!
On this trip, 1 had 3 point & shoot cameras (a Panasonic Lumix and two Fuji XPs) that can be used underwater and 1 big girl camera, a Canon EoS Rebel DSLR. One of the cameras ended up on life support. And I am sad to report that even though I dragged the Canon across the country, to Disneyland and 3 Hawaiian Islands, I took it out exactly once. In Maui, when Ben and I went out to the beach to watch the sunset. Once again, I didnt have the motivation to haul it around on long days, and it certainly wasnt the camera I wanted to have on the beach.
Oh, and I will also admit to a little jealousy! Ben will occasionally take pictures with one of my cameras, especially when we are snorkeling and a lot at Pearl Harbor and the Army Museum, but he wasn't into it as much as he has been in the past. Mark and Nate rarely take pictures, but when they do they use their phones and their pictures are incredible!
I hope you will follow along with our adventures. I promise you MANY more pictures, some helpful travel info and a few interesting stories.
First up: California Here We Come!