Real Life Update - Trip to Hawaii
I've been MIA on the boards because we took a trip to Hawaii! The week before and after vacation are always super long ones at work, but I'm hoping to get back into regular trip updates. I'll do a mini trip report in one post below, then back to Disney content!
We flew out of Chicago for this trip. After we found out good friends from Texas were going to be in Chicago at the same time, we decided to leave a day early so we could meet up with them for a day of fun in Chicago. That family has four kids, so there were six kids between us. We had a blast! We met up for breakfast at Yolk, went to Navy Pier (where we rode the giant Centennial Wheel - eek!), and let the kids play for a couple of hours at Maggie Daley Park. We ate an early dinner at Yardbird which had great food and was very accommodating to all the kids. It was so nice to catch up with friends!
After dinner we met up with my parents at the hotel where we all were staying that night (the Hawaii trip was with my whole family). We had an 8:45am flight the next morning, so we left early to get to the airport. After one layover we landed in Kona (Big Island) around 3pm local time, which was 8pm for us. The girls did great on the long flights. We met up with my siblings who had already arrived and got settled into the timeshare where we were staying. We went grocery shopping that night, since we had a kitchen at the timeshare. I was shocked by the prices at the grocery store - the cheapest loaf of bread was $7!
I was up at 5:15am local time the next day, which wasn't too bad considering we were adjusting to a 5-hour time difference and that was 10:15am for our bodies. Our plans this day were to enjoy a beach. We went to Mauna Kea Beach which ended up being our favorite of the week. It was a beautiful white sand public beach, and we found a place to set up in the shade of some trees. The water was clear and perfect, and we had a sea turtle swim right up to us! I was a little nervous because he kept swimming toward DD9 (and you're supposed to keep distance, they are endangered species), but it was super cool to be swimming with a turtle.
That evening my siblings went to watch the sunset and see stars at Mauna Loa while my parents and our family went to dinner at Tropics Ale House. We also caught a local band in a shopping center after dinner.
Our next day was our Hilo day, we planned to drive to the other side of the island to check out attractions around Hilo. We started at Akaka Falls which ended up being one of my favorite things that day. It was a short hike (but with lots of stairs), about a half mile round trip, to see the Falls. They were impressive! You can't see it, but I'm wearing my Disney "Ohana means family" t-shirt.
After that we stopped by Honomu Goat Dairy, where there was free "goat therapy" and you could feed the goats for $1. We picked up some goat cheese and caramel treats. We stopped by the Liliuokalani Park and Gardens and then ate lunch at Ola Brew. We split up from my siblings after lunch - I think they did some hiking and swam in water near a waterfall. We went to the Pana'ewa Rainforest Zoo & Gardens next, which is a free zoo. It was beautiful and we got to see a lot of interesting animals including tons of peacocks and peahens wandering around, a sloth who slothing (eating upside down), active monkeys and a white bengal tiger that we were able to get very close to.
Next we went to Rainbow Falls, which wasn't quite as impressive as Akaka Falls, but still really neat to see, with almost no hiking required.
Next we went to Boiling Pots Falls and met back up with my siblings. We drove back to the other side of the island (we were staying near Waikoloa) and ate Father's Day dinner at Foster's Kitchen. It was really good and we had a lake view while we ate outdoors.
We wanted to check out a Kona beach the next day. We rented an umbrella this time and went to Kamakahonu Beach. I should have done more research, as this was a small beach that was in a little cut-out area and there weren't waves coming in like on other beaches. It was still nice to swim and relax, and was actually good for the girls because of the lack of waves.
We ate lunch at Kai's with a beautiful ocean view. The food was amazing, this was our favorite restaurant all week (and we came back later in the week). After lunch we got Ululani's Shave Ice, which we agreed was the best shave ice all week. I don't like snow cones, but loved this treat - pro tip is to get it with ice cream underneath (I got coconut) and to add the "sno cap" or condensed milk on top.
When we got back to our timeshare, we swam and I hung out in the hot tub for awhile. We grilled out that night.
Our next day was a long day at Volcanoes National Park. It was amazing! I had been once before, while pregnant with DD7, so I didn't get to hike or experience as much that time. We started at the visitor's center and hiked the Halema'uma'u Steam Bluff and Sulfur Banks trail (1.4 miles). It was a little stinky at times but really neat to see all the steam rising out of the ground.
We then went to the Kilauea Overlook.
The crater behind us was a lava lake when we were last at the park in 2016, and we viewed it from about a mile away that time. There was an eruption here in 2018 and the crater collapsed further at that time. We could see where the road fell into the crater. A ranger told us the most recent eruption was about 1.5-2 miles from here. It was amazing to see the changes in only 8 years!
It was about noon, and we were all hungry, so we went to the Kipukapuaulu Picnic Area to eat the lunches we had packed. We didn't realize we had to leave VNP to get there, and it was super quiet with only one other family there when we arrived. There was only one picnic table in the shade and two in the sun. It was a peaceful spot for a picnic.
As we were driving back, we stopped to look at some tree molds that were created from lava.
Up next we split up again. My siblings planned to hike the entire Kilauea Iki Train (~3.2 miles up and down a caldera) while the rest of us were planning to only do a portion of the trail. My parents dropped us at the Thurston Lava Tube while they looked for parking. It is super cool to walk through a lava tube!
The girls wanted to do that short hike again, so my parents took them to do that when we met up, while Pat and I hiked part of the Kilauea Iki Trail. I really wanted to go down into the giant caldera, the site of a giant eruption (with fountains reaching almost 2,000 feet) in 1959. I had no idea how challenging this hike was going to be. It probably took us about 20 minutes going down and about 30 minutes coming back up. But it was so worth it!
We met back up with my parents and the girls after this. We hiked a small portion of the Devastation trailhead, then went to the Kealakoma Overlook. Our next stop was the Pu'uloa Petroglphys. While it said this hike was 1.5 miles round trip, it felt much longer! It was a tough hike over uneven lava rock. Only a few of us made it to the very end to see the petroglyphs, including DD9. They were super cool, with 23,000 petroglyphs at that site. We met up with my siblings while on this trail.
We ended our day at the Holei Sea Arch, which only me, my siblings and DD9 chose to hike to. It was less than a half mile round-trip but most of our party was exhausted by this point. I was really glad we got to see it! The arch is carved out behind us, might be hard to see in this picture.
The next morning we went searching for sea turtles at Honoka'ope Bay but did not see any. My family had already experienced too much sun, so we didn't stay long or bring bathing suits. That afternoon we all went to Mountain Thunder Coffee Plantation (which I was accused of "Disney-fying" by continuing to call it Thunder Mountain). We had been there on our last trip and their coffee is amazing. They have a free short tour and then we paid a small fee to wander their grounds and see some lava tubes, coffee trees and other plants they were growing.
After the coffee tour we went to Pu'uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park, which is a super cool "museum" on a beach.
We saw spinner dolphins while on this beach! I had never seen anything like that in the wild before, dolphins jumping out of the water and spinning around. It looked like they were feeding near the beach and then they headed back out to the ocean.
We ate dinner at Krua Thai (amazing!) and then had Scandinavian Shave Ice. It was not nearly as good as Ululani's but we still enjoyed it.
The next day, half of us went to Hapuna Beach. It's a state park so we had to pay for parking and entry, unlike some of the free beaches we had gone to. We found a little shade and set up. There were more spinner dolphins in the distance here. I read my book while (Swan Song, Elin Hilderbrand's last Nantucket novel). There were a lot of roosters in the area, including one guy who kept coming up to our beach blanket, probably begging for food.
Afterwards, my parents and our family went to Island Hopper Taproom. They had taster sizes of beers so Pat and I shared a couple. Then it was back to the pool and hot tub to relax awhile.
For our final day, my parents and our family were flying out around 7:30pm, one sister flying out at 9:30pm, and the other sibling flying out early in the morning. We had to be out of our timeshare by noon (which was the latest check-out they could give us) and we were going to have to drop our rental cars by 4pm. We went back to Kona to eat at Kai's again.
The food and views were just perfect. We did not want to leave Hawaii at this point! After lunch we went to Kaloko-Honokoha National Historical Park to look for sea turtles again. We were on a mission! I had looked at our last trip from 2016 and found pictures that showed we saw turtles at that park, so we thought we would try. My sister went ahead of us and confirmed she saw a few. We had to take our shoes off and wade through water to get to them, but sure enough, we saw 4-5 hanging out. It wasn't ideal to get sand all over our shoes right before flying, but it was a great way to wrap up our trip.
We had one more goal before we left - we wanted more Ululani's! We were short on time but got our shave ice and then headed to the airport. It was a wonderful trip!
This was our amazing view:
