Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip to Maui (2014)--Day 1
5/5/2014
On our way!
The big day was upon us! Bruce picked us up at 6:30 and we're off for the Duluth airport. They recently redid the airport and it was much nicer than the old one--of course, there were still only four gates. Not exactly LAX!
Before, once you passed security there were no options to buy drinks. If you bought something outside security, you had to surrender it before accessing your departure gate. Now they have a gift shop inside the gate area, so you can purchase beverages and carry them onto the plane. Sure, at $3.12 for a 12-oz bottle of Ocean Spray orange juice it's a rip-off, but what else would one expect?
The lady assisting us in checking in our checked bag noticed that we had a five hour layover in Minneapolis and offered us $400 (to be used for a future flight) if we would agree to take a later DLH-MSP flight, since our flight was overbooked. This, however, would have put us in a situation where we would have only 40 minutes to make our connecting flight to Los Angeles. We were originally scheduled on this flight, but I had called and switched us to an earlier flight. These small puddle-jumper planes they fly from Duluth to Minneapolis tend to arrive at a concourse on the opposite side of the airport from where longer flights depart from. The Minneapolis airport isn't small--in fact, it's sprawling, so we would have difficulty in making the connection, to say the least. So, we declined her offer.
We dealt with a 5+ hour layover in Minneapolis, and then after flying to Los Angeles, met another 100 minute layover.
Some of our views as we cross the Rocky Mountains.
The overhead space on this 757 was slightly irregular--that is to say, it's just a bit smaller than on previous 757's we flown on. On those planes, you could fit our bags into overheads (usually going wheels down and in) without turning the bags sideways. No such luck on this plane, and the result was that you could only fit two such bags in each overhead compartment instead of three. This can be an issue on this kind of plane with a 3-3 seating configuration which limits the number of overhead bins available.
I don't know about other airlines, but the in-flight safety video they show on Delta is a hoot! I think Delta figured out that most people pay little to no attention to these videos because, basically, they're filled with a lot of dry, boring information. Sure, this is information which could save your life in the event of a crisis, but most people assume that nothing could possibly happen on their flight. Right?
Katherine Lee made quite the name for herself in the past while she was featured on this video. Called Deltalina because of her resemblance to Angelina Jolie, her "Smoking is not allowed on any Delta flight" with the finger-wag at 1:50 makes Patty and I laugh whenever see this.
We arrived in Los Angeles--we're flying to Kahului on the same plane, same flight number, so we sat and waited. They announced that overhead storage would be extremely tight and they offered to check bags (for free!). A few but not many people took advantage of this offer. We declined. Eventually, we boarded and had no problem finding overhead bin space, being one of the first people to board from Zone 3 (in Delta's world, Zone 3 is basically the peasant class in the passenger kingdom).
The flight from L.A. to Kahului was long, very long, at 5 1/2 hours. It seemed longer because we were nearing the end of the day and also because we're itching to get to Maui! It also featured some of the worst turbulence we've ever experienced on a flight--they had to keep putting the Fasten Seat Belts sign on and verbally instructing passengers to return to their seats. I managed about an hour of sleep, waking up 40 minutes before landing in Kahului.
No matter how many times I experience the feeling of walking through those sliding glass doors and feeling that warm tropical breeze his me, I never tire of it! It was very muggy tonight, and this was confirmed by the Alamo rep who told us there had been virtually no wind the past couple of days, but at least it had been sunny.
After getting our checked bag (our decision to buy a copper colored bag was smart, as that thing really sticks out in a crowd of bags rotating by on the baggage carousel), we walked over and get right on the Alamo-rent-a-car shuttle bus. Our midsize car is described as a "Toyota Corolla or similar" and we were hoping for a Corolla since it's what I drive at home. No such luck, but the Chevy Cruze we picked turned out to be very nice, easy to handle, good gas mileage. Having an mp3 player on-board so we can listen to our Hawaii mp3 CD's didn't hurt, either!
As we cruised down the Dairy Road through Kahului on our way to Lahaina, I put KPOA on the FM radio, and we found ourselves grinning from ear to ear. We're back on our favorite island!
Greeting us at Lahaina Shores was Kaulana--I don't recall seeing her before. It turned out that Carmen had retired to spend more time with her ohana (family). Bill, Allison and Ann were all still working here, however. Securing our keys and parking pass, we headed up to the room. This would be the only official role the front desk would play in our stay as we booked directly through Chase N Rainbows. If we had any problems with equipment or the room, we would need to contact Chase N Rainbows.
After getting some stuff unpacked and hanging out on the lanai for a short time, we hit the sack. We've both been awake for roughly 24 hours--a very long first day!
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