Blog

1. From San Diego to Maui

Hawaii 2021

Pre-trip 

Because the COVID pandemic is not quite over yet in May 2021, visitors to Hawaii need to quarantine for 10 days. However, if you test negative for the disease within 72 hours of your trip, you are exempt from quarantining. Our trip is going to last for 10 days so of course we don’t want to stay in our room for that period of time and then leave again without having been outside. So all three of us - Marie, Kate and I - got tested. And, woohoo, all three negative! If only one of us either tested positive or test results were inconclusive we wouldn’t go (imagine one of us being quarantined: “Hi honey, we saw dolphins and turtles today, but we brought you some dinner!”). We uploaded our tests to the Hawaii travel website and were exempted from quarantine. We received QR codes on our phones we could use at the airports. Maui, here we come. 

Day 1

We got up at 6am, did our morning thing, and at around 7:30am we were dropped off at San Diego Airport by our friend Jill who was also house sitting for us. We had already checked in the day before and we only needed to check in our two bags. At the self check-in an Alaskan Airlines representative asked if we had our wristbands. My first thought was “Oh no, I forgot to do something and now it’s all messed up”. Turns out you can get those when you show your QR code. After dropping off our luggage we received our wristbands. A relief.

Our plane left - that is, with us in it - on time at 9:55am. I forgot how long it takes to get to Hawaii as the pilot announced it to be 5 hours and 40 minutes over the PA. After seeing clouds forever with some blue in between them we started to descend and spotted land. Kate was at the window and I was sitting next to her. I was guessing maybe that it was the Big Island (which we visited last time), but the plane started to turn and go for the landing. It was Maui. The pilot had mentioned that there was a strong east wind which worried Kate and me a bit - we both get motion sickness easily - but the landing was actually relatively smooth. We were good. The flight attendant announced that we may have to get tested at the airport, unless we had our vaccination cards with us. Marie and I did, but Kate had just turned 12, so she wasn’t vaccinated yet, but I did bring a printout of her negative test. 

We had to wait on the tarmac for quite a while but finally we were de-boarding the plane. It was 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), which felt nice after the much cooler cabin temperature. The luggage carousels were fenced off and everybody was directed towards an area where you had to show your vaccination cards. Marie and I received our get-outta-jail-free-cards but when they asked how old Kate is and she said 12 we were redirected to the testing area. I showed her negative test printout but that didn’t help. Marie had to swab her nose and at least that part was fortunate so it wasn’t that painful for Kate (as opposed to the tests we got three days before). Kate also received her get-outta-here ticket and we headed to the car rentals. 

That went pretty smoothly and when we hit the road, Marie announced that the vacation had officially started. I google mapped our directions and it said it was 40 minutes to Kāʻanapali Beach. During our drive we saw several other islands in the distance (the tiny Molokini Crater, Kaho’olawe, Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi). 

Lanai

At our resort we parked our car and checked in. We had to show our QR codes again, received our wristband keycards (ingenious), and headed to our suite on the 9th floor. We were supposed to have a full ocean view, and walking down the hallway westward was a good indicator we were going to have one. And behold:

We sure did. The entrance door led to the living room in the middle; to the right was the bathroom with a beautiful free standing tub and separate shower. And of course also a giant glass sliding door looking out over the ocean and the island. To the left was the bedroom, with floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors facing west and north. Not too shabby.

We put on our bathing suits and headed to the pool area. There are three pools outside and one pool that’s inside a cute little restaurant, where you can sit in the water and look out over the ocean. We jumped around a bit in the outside pools after which we went to the ocean. The water was just as warm as the pools and I prefer the ocean anyway. The waves were not very large. The white sand on the beach felt nice and soft. On the horizon the islands of Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi were clearly visible, with a hazy and far-away O’ahu in between them. Marie and Kate tried to drown me and I let them after a bit of resistance.

We went back to our room and enjoyed the beautiful sunset from there at 7pm. The sky turned from blue to warm colors pretty quickly, with sun rays bouncing off the underside of the clouds. We all went to bed at around 8:00 (11:00 San Diego time) after this long day.

Read about Day 2 here.