Honolulu

Alarm at 2:00 AM and by 3:15, we were on our way to Orlando. First class check-in was painless (even with our over-weight bags). It didn’t spare Mom from the body search at security.
We weren’t terribly impressed with our morning First Class flight. They did serve breakfast, but I’d forgotten about the rule, “Never order eggs on a plane”. We slept on and off and before we knew it we were in San Francisco. Even though it was only 3:00 East Coast time, the bar at the Buena Vista and an Irish Coffee. It was the beginning of our holiday!
The flight from SFO to Honolulu on a 777 was wonderful. The flight attendants were pouring wine, non-stop and the dinner of macadamia nut crusted chicken was worthy of a five-star restaurant.
We got into Honolulu at 2 PM Hawaii time (7 PM on our body clock). We’d been up for 17 hours! After fetching our luggage, we got a cab to Waikiki Beach and the Mauna Loa Surfrider Hotel. We got an orchid lei when we arrived and checked into our ocean view room in the Diamond Wing. Our 6th floor room had beautiful views of the ocean on our tiny balcony..

The Moana Surfrider is the oldest hotel on Waikiki Beach and has a plantation style design.
I’m not sure if we were jet-lagged or suffering from the effects of too much wine, but when we found our way to the beach side bar under the huge 75 foot banyan tree, ginger ale sounded a lot better than a Mai Tai.

We enjoyed our first Hawaiian sunset, sipping our ginger ale, then walked across the street to pick up some provisions for breakfast the next morning at the ever present ABC stores. After walking through the International Market, we stopped in the food court and shared some Korean b-bque before heading home for an early night. (Our “Heavenly” bedding was, in fact, heavenly—and could be yours for a mere $3900.)

Christmas in Honolulu-- The Lobby