We checked out of the oceanfront suite this morning and left our bags at the Bell desk. They said our oceanfront room would be ready in the afternoon so we headed out for the day.
When we came back this evening we picked up our key at the front desk and headed upstairs. Opened the door and…. water everywhere. The bathroom sink had flooded everything. Looks like someone had dumped coffee grounds or something in there because there was black stuff all throughout the pool on the floor and the sink was overflowed with black water. We called downstairs and they said they would find us a new room quickly and send maintenance and housekeeping up right away.
We went to the front desk and the replacement room they gave us was three floors lower. I really loved our view on six so I had really been hoping to get something close. I asked reallllly nicely if might be possible to get higher than third. The poor desk clerk had to call the bell desk to cancel our bag delivery to our room on 3 (and previously to the first room on 6) and do some shuffling but he managed to get us fifth floor – directly under the room we left this morning! Perfect!! It is a gorgeous corner room, with two balconies and a view of Diamond Head as well as the ocean. We never checked into the third floor, but I think it was also a corner suite. And the sixth floor room that flooded was a corner with two balconies, one oceanfront and the other sort of facing beach and sort of facing the building next door.
Every person we spoke with was apologetic about the mess in the sixth floor room and they all seemed genuinely embarrassed. While it really wasn’t that big a deal because these things can happen to anyone, it was nice to know they all cared so much. Ambrose at the front desk was awesome, and then Kyle the Front Desk Supervisor called to apologize on behalf of himself and all the staff involved. What a great crew at the Outrigger Reef!
So we managed to have four rooms in one day, have our bags almost delivered twice before the third time was the charm, and dragged our carry-on and backpacks from floor to floor. But in the end, the thing I’ll remember most was how exceptional all the staff were that dealt with the problem. Front Desk members, housekeeping and maintenance, all great.
But, enough about the evening, let’s start at the beginning of the day.
We checked out a little later than we wanted to and had to ask housekeeping to come back when they arrived at 9am. We dropped our luggage off at the bell desk and loaded all of the rest of our stuff into the rental car. Grabbed a couple towels from the pool and headed east.
Today’s plan was Windward side, with possibly North Shores and a lookout enroute to the windward side.
As soon as we pulled out of the lot our tire light came on again. We went back to Dollar and explained the situation. The attendant we were dealing with thought it might be a nail causing a slow leak so he did a quick switch and we were on our way.
We headed up into the mountains on Pali Highway and turned off onto Old Pali. Wow. The trees have grown so far over portions of this road it’s almost dark. It was so lush, and the trees were huge, the philodendrons had leaves more than a foot wide. It was absolutely gorgeous.
From there we caught Kamehameha Highway to Kualoa Beach for a quick swim. Unfortunately it was a bit rocky so nobody was going in the water. But, luckily for us we brought flip flops so we were able to go far out and the bottom wasn’t a problem.
After the swim we went over to the ancient fishpond, but we couldn’t get a great view.
We continued up the coast to the Polynesian Cultural Centre. But it was closed. D’oh! It was careless on my part. Originally PCC was supposed to be during the week, but because of all the rain we reorganized our schedule and I moved PCC to Sunday without even thinking. Mormons created the Polynesian Cultural Centre to share the culture of Polynesia and still run it today, so no alcohol is served on the site and the centre is closed Sundays. I didn’t even think of it when I moved our plans around – and it’s more than an hour to get there!
We decided to continue around on Kamehameha and visit the North Shore beaches to see if there was any good surfing. I don’t know exactly where we were, but at one point we turned a corner and in a valley in front of us was a wind farm! Just came up out of nowhere. It was an amazing sight. They are BIG. There was at least 7 or 8 turbines, with the lush mountains behind them. It was an awe-inspiring sight. Unfortunately the camera was in the back seat and we were going 45mph so the shot was gone before we could even think about it. It’s just one example of how Hawaii is trying to find greener ways of doing things. For energy, you see a lot of solar panels, on houses, and controlling highway signs. But the wind farm was amazing. I had no idea they had one. I don’t know if there are others on Oahu, or on other islands.
We continued into Hale’iwa and grabbed some pizza and wings for dinner before returning to Waikiki.
One cool thing we did pass on the road, but didn’t really get to “see” was where Lost and Jurassic Park were filmed, and the resort from Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Tomorrow we may try to get to the Polynesian Cultural Centre again, but we haven’t decided.
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