We began Day 5 of our Big Island stay with a quick morning trip to Wal-mart to pick up the CD with the underwater photos. The images came out nicely and have been uploaded here.

After a quick morning bite, we headed to a nearby historic park to view hundreds of acres of lava rock of all sizes.

We walked about for a short period as we were trying to kill time for our main event: Whale watching.

We headed out to the marina where we boarded Captain Dan McSweeney’s Whalewatch who guaranteed that we would see whales on our voyage.

We spent about 3 hours on our voyage and we did get to see humpback whales along with some other interesting items.

For one, we got to see Marge vomit in a bag from sea sickness. I then got to see the kids sleep for about an hour of the trip on the way back.

I can’t complain because I got a couple of minutes of shut eye on the trip myself. The hot beating sun with the cool sea breeze mandated a quick nap.

After our exotic trip whale watching, we headed back to the hotel where Marge, Bart and Lisa lounged around the pool. I took a quick walk around the grounds and took some pictures of the nearby fauna. You can see the the big island fauna here.

We headed back to our room to watch our final sunset from this hotel as tomorrow we move on to Hilo.

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I’ve got snorkeling fever! We had another adventurous day today as we started the morning out at Kahalu’u Beach. This is THE BEST PLACE on the island to go snorkeling and we weren’t disappointed.

I snorkeled for a couple of hours and I saw the most amazing colorful fish (like the movie NEMO) inside this sheltered reef. I did manage to take many pictures but unfortunately, the CD was taking too long so we left it and hope to pick it up tomorrow.

Here are some shots of us around Kahalu’u Beach.

Check out Mr. Snorkel in the water!

After snorkeling we headed back to Wal-mart to pick up a few more items and get the aquatic underwater photos developed. We got the prints but no CD until tomorrow. We lunch headed back to the hotel and hung around the pools and heated spas then went for an hour long walk along the beach where we encountered four large sea turtles hugging the shoreline so I jumped in with my snorkel gear and took some underwater shots. Unfortunately, this is a new roll and it’ll probably been a while before we use up the roll and get it developed.

With overcast skies we ended the day by heading out to dinner to a place cost Pesto Diner which claimed to have served the best pizza & paste this side of the pacific. We weren’t disappointed. We had Shrimp Nachos that were absolutely delicious. We had Luau Pizza and Mehigi Pizza that were delicious!

Update:  We got the CD and all photos are posted here. 

Categories: Hawaii
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We had an action packed day today. We got up early enough to see the sun rise behind the mountain and were able to capture the moment with this great shot.

We headed into town again to eat breakfast as the kids were in the mood for some pan cakes so we stopped off at Dennis. We then hit the tourist zone where we went shopping for some more knickknacks, sun tan lotion and snorkeling gear. Despite using sun tan lotion our first two days here we really got sun burned so we upped the SPF from 30 to 50 and we hope tomorrow we won’t be as burned.

After shopping we headed to visit some historic sites. We walked by one of the Hawaiian Kings original homes called Hulihe e Palace but was closed for repairs. We then headed to an older home called Ahu ena Heiau and took some shots (one is pictured below).

Driving back from our historic visit, I spotted a giant lava tube as I was driving down the main road so I looped back and we all got off to explore a bit. The lava tube went on for a long distance and we opted to leave it as the area seemed to become more perilous as we journeyed further and further away from the main road. Although Hawaii is often perceived as a lush tropical vegetative island, the big island has a great deal of barren rock laden land for miles and miles as far as the eye can see.

After our brief excursion we stopped lava tube cave near Kiholo Bay and visited the nearby Queen’s Bath. Some interesting highlights are pictured below. The water in this cave was pristine clear and very cold.

We ended the day by spending a couple of hours poolside then headed back to our room to get ready for the big luau. On Wednesdays, the hotel cooks a large pig buried deep inside the ground. The pig cooks all day as it is “buried” in the morning and “exhumed” in the evening. We ate dinner (not the pig) and then watched a fascinating show with various island cultures expressing their dancing technique. Islanders from New Zealand, Tahiti, the Cook Islands and Hawaii all did a routine or two.

I could write more for hours but this action packed day really zapped the strength from us and we’re dead tired but not too tired to take this picture perfect sunset from the luau.

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We must have slept 12 hours last night since we went to bed at 8:00 p.m. and woke up at 8:00 a.m. but that’s jet lag. This is the view we woke up to from our room.

We started the morning by heading to town (near airport) where we stopped at Dennis for breakfast then a quick run to Wal-mart to acquire some food stuffs and gifts for the return trip. I forgot to mention that yesterday after we had lunch we stopped at a convenience store to buy a few snacks. The items in the picture below cost $50!

After Wal-mart we made a quick pit stop at Costco to pick up some wine. We picked up wine at Wal-mart but wasn’t quite sure of the quality so we needed to have an emergency backup. After shopping we headed back to the hotel where we spent all day between the beach and the pools. I went snorkeling for a couple of hours and saw some fascinating coral and tropical saltwater fish. The coral was huge and looked like an eerie giant brain.

Below is a picture of one of the fish I saw (no I did not take this photo).

Below are some photos of us at the various pools at our hotel.

We finished the day watching the sunset from our room sipping some Macadamia Nut Honey Wine from Volcano Winery here in Hawaii….

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We spent the better part of the day traveling today. We left home at 8:00 a.m. and arrived in Kona, Hawaii around 2:00 p.m. local time. The flight felt like your typical butt buster overseas flight and the day seemed to drag on. A funny anecdote is that we had an early breakfast today, flew for three hours and landed in a breakfast time time-zone only to eat pizza for breakfast then proceeded to Hawaii and landed during lunch time.

The rest of our day was a bit challenging and unexpected. Little did we know that Kona airport didn’t have umbilical walkways to the airplane. We actually had to climb down stairs from our jet! We then had to walk about half a mile to get our luggage and no there weren’t any moving walkways either!

We then proceeded to our car rental where a queue of 9 people were being serviced by a staff of two. It only took 38 minutes to get our car! The clerks were eventually attentive and helpful but the long wait was very disappointing. I’m keeping score on all our “vendors” and I’ll summarize at the end of our trip.

We finally drove to our hotel which wasn’t too far from the airport. I was somewhat disappointed with the size of our room. At nearly $300/night for an ocean front view room, you’d expect a little more space. As I checked in there was a couple checking in next to us that complained about the hotels daily resort fee of $20/day. I could over hear part of the argument centering around whether parking was included or not in the fee. Evidently parking was included with our $20/day fee for some reason but they would need to pay an extra $10/day for parking which would bring their total up to $30/day which is quite frankly ridiculous.

The ludicrous fees might explain why during spring break, this hotel of hundreds of rooms had but a scant few people staying here. The beach and pools were totally empty all day today! I’ll post a follow up review of our hotel at the end of our trip.

After arriving at the hotel, we headed out to a nearby shop to get some grub. Be forewarned that there are no fast food restaurants for miles around Kona so if you’re traveling with kids be sure you eat either at the airport or plan on stopping at Costco to pick up something unless you don’t mind paying $20 for lunch per person. We ended up eating at a fish and chips place at Kings Place where lunch for two adults and two kids cost $40 (the kids shared one plate of food).

We picked up a few snacks and headed back to the hotel to check out the beach (sunset) and pools. We ended the day on a high note as the sunset was spectacular and the heated spa pools provided some much needed relaxation after a very long hectic day. The sand here feels strange, it feels more like salt & pepper than typical beach sand. We’ve been to Cancun’s white sandy beaches , Gulf of Mexico brown sugar sands and many other places but this sand feels totally unique. Your feet actually sink into the sand without any water agitation as in other beaches.

And here is a shot of the sunset our first day here!

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It’s been a long while since we’ve made an entry on our travel blog but Marge and I have been extremely busy these past few months.   We’re planning vacations for 2008 and we’re planning on Hawaii, Acapulco and perhaps a South American cruise later in the year during winter.

We’ve begun planning our Hawaiian vacation and a funny thing has happened to our favorite travel tools, they’ve become fairly useless.

I’ve written about being an avid fan of Expedia and TripAdvisor and while the sites generally provide useful information, the competitive pricing has completely disappeared.   It is cheaper to book flight directly through airlines and hotels directly from the hotels rather than booking through Expedia.

What really hurts Expedia is the fees they charge for booking and exorbitant fees they charge for making any type of change (usually $30 per transaction).   Why pay a fee to change your itinerary when you can avoid or pay less directly with the vendor?

It’s really disappointing that the travel industry is in such a mess and we’re really concerned about getting bumped, delayed, or otherwise hassled during our vacations this year.

We’ll keep you posted on our travel adventures.

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We flew out Wednesday July 4th.  Our bus took us straight to the airport but our last night was spent watching the fireworks over the Magic Kingdom.  Unfortunately, without a tripod, the photos weren’t too spectacular.  Over all we had a good time but Disney World is a fairly expensive proposition no matter what the marketing commercials say on TV.

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Exhausted from the heat and long walks, we decided to head out to the Animal Kingdom with the intent of not staying there too long. We didn’t expect too many attractions that we or the kids would like but we were grateful and surprised about some of the Animal Kingdom’s hidden features.

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First, the Animal Kingdom was built to include many many trees! There were plenty of shaded areas to walk along and stand by when visiting attractions. The sun’s rays were tamed by so much shading.

Secondly, many of the attractions had heavy foliage which also limited the sun’s powerful heat.

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Like other parks, Animal Kingdom suffered from “commercialism” and “consumerism” and lacked some creativity. Here’s a shot of A Bug’s Life character.
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We took the Safari and encountered various animals during the trip….

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The exciting part was how close up we could get to some of these animals.  The ride takes about 30 minutes and is entertaining but we were too exhausted to take advantage of too many other attractions.

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The last shot we took by the Tree of Life.  Note the shade!

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We didn’t have a late start on Sunday despite being very weary and tired from our first two days at Disney World. On arrival, we had booked a fishing tour to go out on the lake and catch a few fish. Our scheduled departure was 7:00 a.m. so we got up at 6:00 a.m. to get ready and head out.

Marge surprised us all by catching the first three fish. Bart was getting a little agitated that he and no one else was catching any fish. Our boat captain took us over to a different part of the lake where the fish were biting for everyone.

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After our two hour fishing tour, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and have breakfast. We ate at the snack facility and headed out to MGM Studios. Unfortunately, there was no monorail connecting our hotel to MGM, so we had to wait for and take a bus from our hotel to MGM Studios.

This was our first visit to MGM for all of us and we enjoyed our day although I had a few complaints. Evidently Disney didn’t think it necessary to plant any trees at MGM because the whole facility seems to be made entirely of concrete and brick. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem were it not for the fact that the sun bears down on you all day long and there is very little shading. The concrete also reflects the heat so it makes it even worse as you walk around.

I won’t complain about the “creativity” factor here because MGM Studios is by default all about making movies and mass consumerism. We visited the Chronicles of Narnia exhibit, A Bug’s Life Playground, and various other attractions which were fun for the kids but rather lame for the adults.

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The more memorable ones however were the stunt shows for Indiana Jones and Light’s, Camera, Stunts.

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The kids had fun painting their faces, meeting various characters and taking photos with them.

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Our night concluded with dinner at our hotel with a few Disney characters from Cinderella’s Castle:

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We started the day late on Saturday. We were dead tired from Epcot and slept in till 9:00 a.m. We headed down for breakfast at one of the snack eateries and weren’t surprised to see a charge for $20 for breakfast. We took the monorail from our hotel over to the Magic Kingdom. We were surprised to have to connect at a transportation center to get on board a second monorail to actually get to the Magic Kingdom.
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I stated yesterday that I had visited this park about 20 years ago and the park looked relatively the same although it did seem a bit smaller than I remembered it. Marge & Bart headed out to space mountain while Lisa and I rode the kiddie rides. Lisa was too short to get on many of the bigger kid rides but we had fun nonetheless at the Teacups, Carousel, Dumbo, and Cinderella’s Castle.
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We regrouped and waited around for Bart & Marge to ride splash mountain. The wait there was about an hour for them to ride while I waited patiently below to capture the screaming terror as they plunged and splashed down the mountain. I did have some fun taking pictures of other people’s expressions and I’ve included my favorites below.

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We spend the rest of the day visiting various shows and attractions. We stopped by to see one of the many shows at Cinderella’s Castle in the afternoon.

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We left around 5pm that evening right after the above pictures were taken since a storm rolled in and hit hard.  We took a boat ferry from the Magic Kingdom back to our hotel, the Grand Floridian and the rain pounded the little boat.   After the rain cleared, we headed out to the rock pool and relaxed for a few hours.

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