oahu
OK. I must begin the Oahu post with a tale of deception. We chose to stay at Paradise Bay Resort because it was close to Kualoa Ranch and had this for a view:
Sign me up!
We booked a “Studio Suite.” I knew it’d be a step down from the ritzy ass place we stayed in Kauai, but… this was not a step. It was a cliff.
Ah, what a lovely Studio Suite that we booked!
Oh, wow! It’s like your freshman year dorm, but in Hawaii and with roaches!
The resort grounds were cool, but our room was in the basement of a motel-looking block of rooms next to the parking lot. It somehow reeked of both bleach AND mildew. We got there pretty late, said “yuck,” and promptly passed out. The next day, we looked at the website. It was most definitely not a studio suite room. Deep in a side menu, we found some extended stay rentals that were “NOT representative of the resort rooms at Paradise Bay Resort.” AHA! They overbooked and shoved us in some stinky moldy apartment! We gathered our evidence, marched down to the front desk, said “J’ACCUSE!!”, and they said, “Yeah, you right.” We got our money back for the remaining nights, and rebooked at the Sheraton Waikiki.
It absolutely blew the budget, and I’ll be paying that one off the credit card for a while, but it was well worth it to enjoy our remaining time in Hawaii.
So, with no further Sherlock Holmes ado: Oahu!
I’m not going to lie to you: 99.8% of the reason I wanted to go to this island was to go to Hurley’s golf course from LOST. They filmed Jurassic Park and 10000 other movies at Kualoa Ranch, but I was in it for the Dharma Initiative. Dinosaurs were a bonus, though.
We did an hour long “ATV Raptor Adventure”. We zipped around dusty roads and made new cow friends.
We did another excursion at Kualoa called the “Secret Beach Tour.” They ferried us across a bay to a veeeeery nice beach that had water toys and real jellyfish that would actually sting you! Neato!
We spent our last few days in Hawaii doing stuff you’re supposed to do in Hawaii.
Drinking Smoothies.
Pearl Harbor.
Wearing a floral dress at a luau.
Our final verdict: we were Kauai fans. Oahu had its charm (and I really needed to have my Hurley moment or what was the point of going to Hawaii), but Kauai definitely had our hearts. Also, our stomachs… no meals stuck out for us during this leg. Can’t deny there were some kickin’ sunsets in Waikiki, though!
Next up was the final stop on our not-honeymoon: Vegas.
where: oahu, hawaii
when: August- weather was perf
how: sheraton waikiki, kualoa ranch, ka moana luau
