Monday - January 25, 2016
That Monday was a pretty chill day! We slept in, went swimming, and ate breakfast at the Ulu Cafe. Our GoOahu ticket included a "premium experience" so we chose to use it at the Polynesian Cultural Center. We visited the PCC back in 2012 and did a group tour at that time, so we opted to just explore the center on our own. I forgot how big that place is and wish we had gotten there a little bit earlier. My favorite part of the visit was that Sean got chosen to go up on the stage and dance during the luau! Hehehe. The new "Hawaiian Journey" show was pretty neat. It took about an hour to drive back to our hotel, and we were already tired, so we didn't end up watching the "Ha-Breath of Life" show. We got to see it the last time we were there so we didn't feel like we were missing out on the experience,
Tuesday - January 26, 2016
This day was one of my favorite days of the trip! We had two tours to complete at the beautiful Kualoa Ranch. Kualoa Ranch is my favorite place to see on Oahu (aside from Aulani, of course. Hehe). The first tour we did was the Movie Sites tour and it started at 9:15 am. We did this tour the last time we were on Oahu. I'm glad we chose to do this one again since there were a few new elements AND we stopped at the famous Jurassic Park log! When our tour ended we grabbed lunch from the cafe and meandered around the gift shop. At 12 we went on a 1 hour ATV tour. My only regret was that we didn't choose the 2 hour ATV tour! Even though we were going at low speeds (I think the fastest we got was 15 mph?), I found it to be exhilarating. I thought it was pretty neat that we got to see a filming location of Jurassic World during the tour. I'm already counting down to our next Hawaii trip (110 more days) and I look forward to visiting the Kualoa Ranch again.
We went to the Byodo-In Temple. It's a very beautiful place. I felt so much peace and tranquility there. I had never seen so much koi fish in my life! We even bought some fish food from the gift shop to feed them. They were savages, haha! After visiting the temple, we did some shopping. We went to the Pearlridge mall, Target, and then we also went to Costco. Oh my gosh, the Costcos in Hawaii are the BEST! Now that's the place you want to go to shop for souvenir foods in bulk! They had everything from chocolate macadamia nuts, to ahi tuna, to Hurricane popcorn.
Wednesday - January 27, 2016
We woke up bright and early for our 8:15 Makahiki Character Breakfast at the buffet! The food was delicious and we got to take pictures with some of our favorite Disney characters. After breakfast we went down to the swap meet at the Aloha Stadium. We found some awesome finds. If you're looking for a wide variety of cheap souvenirs, that is the place to be! We ended up doing some more shopping at the Ala Moana and I ate at the famous Filipino fast food joint, Jollibee. In the evening we paid for a "premium experience" at Aulani, the stargazing activity. It was so cool! I was a little hesitant at first because it was expensive... I think it was $40 or $50 each? I'm glad we got to do it. We got to look through a powerful telescope and saw many stars and even a nebula. My inner nerd was very happy. Haha.
Thursday - January 28, 2016
We went back to the Kualoa Ranch and did the Jungle Expedition tour. I really enjoyed this tour! We got to see one of the enclosures used in Jurassic World. My heart as filled with so much joy - I was so giddy to be there! We also got to see some amazing views of Kualoa. Afterwards we went shopping at Costco again and just spent the rest of the day relaxing at our hotel.
Friday - January 29, 2016
We walked across the street to check out the little shops. It was neat that they had an ABC Store there, I wish we had checked it out earlier in our stay. We went shopping at the Ala Moana mall again and I treated myself to a beautiful Hawaiian inspired LeSportsac purse. We ate lunch at Zippy's and I think we just relaxed the rest of the day.
Saturday - January 30, 2016
We checked out of the beautiful Aulani. I don't think I ever felt as sad as I did on that day in a long time, LOL. I remember we did some last minute shopping at Pearlridge mall. I can't remember if we went anywhere else after that. Something really cool about Aulani is they have a lounge for guests that check in super early or if their flight doesn't leave until later. They usually only give you one card which only gives you ONE access in (So if you leave, you can't go back in), but the receptionist was nice and gave us a few extra key cards since our flight didn't leave until 9 pm. The lounge itself is pretty small, but it was a very convenient. There are men and women restrooms in the lounge. In addition: there were lockers, showers, and also a swimsuit dryer! The lockers had signs on them that they would be cleaned out every 30 minutes... I was a little nervous about leaving my stuff in there since I didn't really want to carry all of our valuables around the pool and beach, but I decided to take a chance anyway. I think we were out and about for almost 2 hours and our lockers still had our stuff in them. Weeeew! It was nice that we got to take advantage of the pools and the lazy river one last time.
We left the resort, filled up our gas tank, and headed to the airport. We used miles and flew coach to get to Hawaii, so we decided to splurge and buy first class tickets. I'm glad we did it, it made leaving Hawaii a little bit easier. Haha! I can't wait to see you soon, Oahu!
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