Short Kauai Trip Report
Oct 5th, 2006, 02:55 PM
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Short Kauai Trip Report
Went to Kauai Sep. 16 - Sep. 23
Sep. 16 - Unfortunately trip did not get off to a good start, we got to LAX to see very long lines even though we were there more than two hours ahead of time. Turns out our Hawaiian flight to HNL with change to LIH is cancelled. Hawaiian is scrambling to rebook everyone on other flights. After an hour and a half, we get rebooked onto American nonstop leaving at 5:45pm (our original HA flight was to leave at 10:45am). HA was good and sent us on a shuttle with lots of others to stay for the day at the Holiday Inn and also gave us each $15 voucher for lunch at hotel restaurant. We catch the American flight and get into Lihue about 8:30pm. We decide not to pick up the rental because we were so tired and have Marriott pick us up (Marriott Kauai in Lihue where we have timeshare). We finally crash. We are glad that Hawaiaan treated us well.
Sunday 17 - Day is nice, very warm, a little overcast in the morning. We go to Kukui Grove and shopping at Macy's (husband forgot shorts!) and Borders for books. Then drive to Safeway in Kapa'a for coffee, juice, bread, snacks and most important, beer and booze. Back at the Marriott spend the rest of the day at the pool. Dinner at Duke's that night, husband has their wonderful sashimi and I have the special sea bass Duke style, very good. We have never been over earlier than October and therefore sea bass has never been on offer. I gotta admit we really liked this time of year and plan to return next year. Oh yeah, for lunch we stopped at the Wailua Marina restaurant, sandwiches were good but sorry I did not get the poke appetizer.
Monday 18 - Another grayish day, but warm, drove to Koloa and poked around, lunch at Tomkat's and then drove over to Spouting Horn, been a long time since we were here. Back to hotel and beach time, sun is out and nice and hot. I am talking to another couple and mention would like to trade my week at Marriott in Big Island and sure wish they would put in some timeshare units. They tell me that is one of the main reasons Marriott bought the hotel and they already proposed converting some of the units to timeshare like they did in Maui and the local politicos shot them down. Rats! Looks like I am doomed to perpetual rooster jerky diet. Speaking of diet, we ate dinner at Portofino, my pasta with clam sauce was good and my husband enjoyed his dinner very much also.
Sep. 16 - Unfortunately trip did not get off to a good start, we got to LAX to see very long lines even though we were there more than two hours ahead of time. Turns out our Hawaiian flight to HNL with change to LIH is cancelled. Hawaiian is scrambling to rebook everyone on other flights. After an hour and a half, we get rebooked onto American nonstop leaving at 5:45pm (our original HA flight was to leave at 10:45am). HA was good and sent us on a shuttle with lots of others to stay for the day at the Holiday Inn and also gave us each $15 voucher for lunch at hotel restaurant. We catch the American flight and get into Lihue about 8:30pm. We decide not to pick up the rental because we were so tired and have Marriott pick us up (Marriott Kauai in Lihue where we have timeshare). We finally crash. We are glad that Hawaiaan treated us well.
Sunday 17 - Day is nice, very warm, a little overcast in the morning. We go to Kukui Grove and shopping at Macy's (husband forgot shorts!) and Borders for books. Then drive to Safeway in Kapa'a for coffee, juice, bread, snacks and most important, beer and booze. Back at the Marriott spend the rest of the day at the pool. Dinner at Duke's that night, husband has their wonderful sashimi and I have the special sea bass Duke style, very good. We have never been over earlier than October and therefore sea bass has never been on offer. I gotta admit we really liked this time of year and plan to return next year. Oh yeah, for lunch we stopped at the Wailua Marina restaurant, sandwiches were good but sorry I did not get the poke appetizer.
Monday 18 - Another grayish day, but warm, drove to Koloa and poked around, lunch at Tomkat's and then drove over to Spouting Horn, been a long time since we were here. Back to hotel and beach time, sun is out and nice and hot. I am talking to another couple and mention would like to trade my week at Marriott in Big Island and sure wish they would put in some timeshare units. They tell me that is one of the main reasons Marriott bought the hotel and they already proposed converting some of the units to timeshare like they did in Maui and the local politicos shot them down. Rats! Looks like I am doomed to perpetual rooster jerky diet. Speaking of diet, we ate dinner at Portofino, my pasta with clam sauce was good and my husband enjoyed his dinner very much also.
Oh my......
Oct 5th, 2006, 03:18 PM
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Continued:
Tuesday Sep. 19 - Today is helicopter day! We have done a helicopter ride once before on first trip to Kauai in 1991 when the Marriott was a Westin, but husband got a new digital camera from his son for Christmas and wants to play with it. We booked InterIsland because he wanted to fly with the doors off but we did not do the waterfall landing. Our flight was 12:40pm and they tell us to get there at 11:55pm. We get there and pay and watch the safety video. Then we walk across the road to wait for our copter. Nice red one lands and pilot and ground crew are doing checks. Then pilot takes off! I think maybe he is just doing a practice takeoff, but ground man tells us they just got called in on a rescue, there was a drowning or near drowning over near Na Pali coast. We have option to wait or reschedule so we wait. Within 30 minutes we are on another copter. This one is black. I get assigned the middle center seat which is OK since I am not taking pictures. But when I climb into the chopper, I am like "WHAT middle seat". Trust me, my 5 year old granddaughter would barely fit in this thing they call a seat. This should really only be a 4 person copter, but they have to accommodate 4 people plus pilot. My husband is flying with half his right cheek (not the one on his face) out the door. I am scrunched with my hands and feet as close together as possible. We got some good pictures, but if I ever wanted to do something like this again, not sure if I would go with the Hughes 500. Too cramped. We stop for late snack of grilled cheese sandwich at Camp House Grill and for dinner we go to Coconuts. I was not quite hungry enough for main course so I got an appetizer and caesar salad small. Gotta rave here, this appetizer is big enough for a whole meal unless you are a huge eater. It has two large slices of seared ahi tuna with wasabi and FIVE rolls with seaweed, rice and ahi that are lightly deep fried with some kind of crust - oh yum! The dish is called Both Ways Ahi or something like that.
Wednesday 20 - Beach and pool day. Was going to go to either Wahoo or Hukilau Lanai but husband was real tired so we just stopped at Duke's again, had steak this time cooked just right. Lunch at the Kalapaki Grill at Marriott. Some days you just have to veg, right?
Thursday 21 - North Shore Day. Today was the only day we had any amount of rain and most of that was when we got past Hanalei. We nixed our plan to revisit Limahuli Gardens for new pictures, same with Kileaua lighthouse. Husband insisted on stopping at Zelo's again (men always seem to want to go the the same places), his cheeseburger was good. I ordered the fried fish sandwich which was supposed to be a fresh local fish, species not identified on the menu. It did not taste fresh to me and was very tough and I ate it with a knife and fork. Next year we will maybe try the Dolphin or Hanalei Gourmet where we stopped for a drink last year, and had a nice looking menu. We were full from lunch and just had cheese and crackers for dinner.
Friday 22 - Today is beautiful, hot and clear as a bell, a gorgeous day for taking pictures. We head out early to drive to the Canyon and Kokee and I catch the last 30 minutes or so of AuntieMaria's radio show on KKCR. Canyon is gorgeous as always and we get lots of good pictures. Then on up to Kokee, first time in a long time we have got a perfectly clear view at Kalalau lookout. Stop at Kokee Lodge for a drink. Two changes I noticed. They have table service now and printed menus. Also I was planning on getting one of their wonderful T-shirts here, ,they used to have a great selection. Now all they have is a small rack that all have logo for Lodge at Kokee. Bummer. Back in Waimea we stop for lunch at Wranglers, shrimp Louie is very good. Dinner is at Casa de Amici, my favorite place. We get the 2003 Rombauer Zinfandel and I have veal with gorgonzala sauce, husband has some kind of Sicilian pasta dish with sausage which he loves. We split an order of Tiramisu for dessert. We love this place.
Saturday 23 - Time to fly home - boo hoo.
We noticed less roosters, maybe Kal's plan is working. Or it may have been the construction in the front of the hotel (was all torn up, no valet parking as they were repairing storm drain damage and parking was a block up the road).
Place in North Kapa'a that used to be the Shack is now a Polynesian Cafe like the one in Hanalei, but I could not tell from driving by if it was open or not.
That is it, hope this is helpful to someone.
Tuesday Sep. 19 - Today is helicopter day! We have done a helicopter ride once before on first trip to Kauai in 1991 when the Marriott was a Westin, but husband got a new digital camera from his son for Christmas and wants to play with it. We booked InterIsland because he wanted to fly with the doors off but we did not do the waterfall landing. Our flight was 12:40pm and they tell us to get there at 11:55pm. We get there and pay and watch the safety video. Then we walk across the road to wait for our copter. Nice red one lands and pilot and ground crew are doing checks. Then pilot takes off! I think maybe he is just doing a practice takeoff, but ground man tells us they just got called in on a rescue, there was a drowning or near drowning over near Na Pali coast. We have option to wait or reschedule so we wait. Within 30 minutes we are on another copter. This one is black. I get assigned the middle center seat which is OK since I am not taking pictures. But when I climb into the chopper, I am like "WHAT middle seat". Trust me, my 5 year old granddaughter would barely fit in this thing they call a seat. This should really only be a 4 person copter, but they have to accommodate 4 people plus pilot. My husband is flying with half his right cheek (not the one on his face) out the door. I am scrunched with my hands and feet as close together as possible. We got some good pictures, but if I ever wanted to do something like this again, not sure if I would go with the Hughes 500. Too cramped. We stop for late snack of grilled cheese sandwich at Camp House Grill and for dinner we go to Coconuts. I was not quite hungry enough for main course so I got an appetizer and caesar salad small. Gotta rave here, this appetizer is big enough for a whole meal unless you are a huge eater. It has two large slices of seared ahi tuna with wasabi and FIVE rolls with seaweed, rice and ahi that are lightly deep fried with some kind of crust - oh yum! The dish is called Both Ways Ahi or something like that.
Wednesday 20 - Beach and pool day. Was going to go to either Wahoo or Hukilau Lanai but husband was real tired so we just stopped at Duke's again, had steak this time cooked just right. Lunch at the Kalapaki Grill at Marriott. Some days you just have to veg, right?
Thursday 21 - North Shore Day. Today was the only day we had any amount of rain and most of that was when we got past Hanalei. We nixed our plan to revisit Limahuli Gardens for new pictures, same with Kileaua lighthouse. Husband insisted on stopping at Zelo's again (men always seem to want to go the the same places), his cheeseburger was good. I ordered the fried fish sandwich which was supposed to be a fresh local fish, species not identified on the menu. It did not taste fresh to me and was very tough and I ate it with a knife and fork. Next year we will maybe try the Dolphin or Hanalei Gourmet where we stopped for a drink last year, and had a nice looking menu. We were full from lunch and just had cheese and crackers for dinner.
Friday 22 - Today is beautiful, hot and clear as a bell, a gorgeous day for taking pictures. We head out early to drive to the Canyon and Kokee and I catch the last 30 minutes or so of AuntieMaria's radio show on KKCR. Canyon is gorgeous as always and we get lots of good pictures. Then on up to Kokee, first time in a long time we have got a perfectly clear view at Kalalau lookout. Stop at Kokee Lodge for a drink. Two changes I noticed. They have table service now and printed menus. Also I was planning on getting one of their wonderful T-shirts here, ,they used to have a great selection. Now all they have is a small rack that all have logo for Lodge at Kokee. Bummer. Back in Waimea we stop for lunch at Wranglers, shrimp Louie is very good. Dinner is at Casa de Amici, my favorite place. We get the 2003 Rombauer Zinfandel and I have veal with gorgonzala sauce, husband has some kind of Sicilian pasta dish with sausage which he loves. We split an order of Tiramisu for dessert. We love this place.
Saturday 23 - Time to fly home - boo hoo.
We noticed less roosters, maybe Kal's plan is working. Or it may have been the construction in the front of the hotel (was all torn up, no valet parking as they were repairing storm drain damage and parking was a block up the road).
Place in North Kapa'a that used to be the Shack is now a Polynesian Cafe like the one in Hanalei, but I could not tell from driving by if it was open or not.
That is it, hope this is helpful to someone.
/
Oct 6th, 2006, 01:09 PM
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Thanks guys,
Kal, 85 days huh? You can do it.
Just called Marriott today and booked 2007, leaving September 16. Next time we are there, will stop in at Islander bar and have a mai tai in your honor.
Kal, 85 days huh? You can do it.
Just called Marriott today and booked 2007, leaving September 16. Next time we are there, will stop in at Islander bar and have a mai tai in your honor.
Oct 6th, 2006, 09:37 PM
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Great report, Jamie. It must've been interesting to see the changes on Kaui since 1991. No more sugar cane fields lining the highways, to name just one. Did you think it had changed much?
I know just what you mean 'bout those back seats in helis-I was too squeezed into one with four in back seat!
I know just what you mean 'bout those back seats in helis-I was too squeezed into one with four in back seat!
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