Honolulu Layover

Trip Start Aug 25, 2011

Trip End Sep 06, 2011

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Where I stayed

Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach Honolulu

Flag of United States Honolulu, Hawaii
Friday, August 26, 2011

With an 8-hour-42-minute layover in Honolulu to kill, Mom and I decided to head to Waikiki for a few hours instead of sitting around the airport the whole time. We boarded TheBus Route 20 at 3:56 p.m. for what turned out to be an incredibly slow 80-minute trip to cover only 10 miles to Waikiki. We crawled in heavy traffic leaving the airport area, and then creeped along through downtown, Chinatown, and the Ala Moana Center before reaching Waikiki – and then had to travel from the west side to east side to finally reach our stop and the Ocean Resort Hotel Waikiki, our base for a few hours.

The hotel is under major renovation right now as it is being upgraded into a Hyatt Place property. We checked into Room 608 at 5:30 p.m., relaxed for about 30 minutes, and then walked along Waikiki Beach to the Outrigger hotel. We had to wait only a few minutes to score an outdoor beachfront table at Dick's Canoe restaurant, where we enjoyed frozen tropical cocktails and a filling dinner of Hawaiian opah and mahi-mahi as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean.

We walked the half-mile back to our hotel, where we chilled out for a bit and I took a shower. Then we departed the hotel at 9 p.m. This time we took a taxi to HNL. It took only 24 minutes but cost an insane $40.50 on the meter. Ouch.

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