Trip Report August 25th-Sept 2nd... VERY long..

I want to start this by saying this trip couldnt have been more perfect for us, We went all out expensive on some things, and cheap and relaxing on others. I will go through day by day as that is how I did it in my trip journal (so I wouldnt forget a detail to pass along.. I remeber how much I loved reading these!):

Augst 25th

Flight leaving Pittsburgh 6am through American Airlines. The flight was long with one layover our second flight was 8.5hrs! But we slept most of the way and woke up in line with Hawaii time zone just as planed... plenty of rest to start out day. When we arrived at the airport it was 1pm in Oahu. We were picked up by GoGo vacations as soon as we came off the flight, big wonderful lei%26#39;s they walked us to baggage and were at our hotel Outrigger waikiki on the beach within 30mins of touchdown. Amazing! We checked it we had booked a partial ocean view but the front desk made a big deal of saying they were going to upgrade us for free to a ocean view (which they did not do) but that didnt matter. We were exactly where everyone says not to be, on the cheescake factory side, right above the fan, and I have to tell you we had no problems at all! The room was nice the view was great, and we didnt have a problem with noise at all. We droped our stuff and went to Round table pizza to watch the UFC fight. It was a really cool place, my b/f loved it but I didnt like the crowed too much, I felt uncomfortable. The food was great but a little expensive (as expected) we payed about $50 for a Large pizza and 2 beers + the $20 to get through the door. Still totally worth it. Afterwards we went for a walk on the beach, where my b/f got down on one knee in front of Dukes at sunset and proposed!!!!! Which i was not expecting, that being said, I dont think anything could have made this a bad vacation. After I stoped crying and called my family we went for a walk down the beachwalk and stoped for icecream at baskinrobins.. it was just ok, but still just what i wanted. Then back to the room for much needed sleep!

August 26th

We ate breakfast at seaside bar n grill, its under new managment since i was there years ago... the food was not as good and the waiters couldnt understand english well enough to give me what i ordered. But it was cheap and it was good. We did return later in the trip. We then spend the day at the beach, which was no where near as busy as i was expecting. We layed out towls right in front of our hotel no problem. We ate lunch at tacobell and had cold stone ice cream yum! We ate dinner at Chucks steak house in our hotel, it was amazing!! We got right in and had the perfect seating with a nice view, expensive about $100 for the two of us without drinks. But I still feal it was worth it.

August 27th

Breakfast at Hula Grill in hotel, Wow if you get a chance eat here, it was so good.. my favorite breakfast of anywhere the whole trip. We then went to Hunuama (sp/) bay for snorkling. We booked through a company we had a discount coupon for with our entertainment book.. it didnt have a name but it said 50% off, when i called they told me for two people it would be $13 so i booked, they were late to pick up and late on return. Not very friendly and then they charged us $26 saying that was 50% off that they normally charge 26pp.. yeah right! I would not book with them again, but the bay was fantastic. The line was long at 11am and the food was very expensive but you are allowed to take your own so do! We ate dinner that night at the oceanarium restraunt it was king crab night and it was fantastic.. i bearly ate any crab because the rest of the buffet was so good, but thats all my (now) fiance ate. we also got that smoking pinapple drink for $10 and it was really good. Then back to the hotel for some hottub time and hula pie afterwards at dukes.. which was not as good as i expected.

August 28th

Day the the Northshore! We rented a car through enterprize which overall was a bad choice, the lady on the phone was wrong baout everything the cost,the insurance, the pickup and drop off time. We thought we could return afterhours and ended up needing it back before 6pm, but luckily it happend. We ate breakfast at a little store in northshore, and then went snorkling at the beach with seaturtles.. this was great, we were sooo close! one swam right under me scared me even. We drug ourselves away from this beach to go on a shark dive with shark adventures. The water was really rough, they auctually cancled the rest of the dives for the day.. and im not a good swimmer.. but i was able to pull myself under the current enough to enjoy it. My fiance love this, said it was his favorite thing we did. we saw around 20 sharks. We then headed back to return the car and to take a nap. We ate dinner at the cheececake factory which was just an ok experience. The waiter was terrible and food was good and the cheesecake was so sweet even i couldnt finish it (and as you can tell from the rest of my posts i love sweets ).

August 29th

This was lazy day, we ate breakfast from stuff we bought at abc store, stayed in the room for lunch we ordered in from round table pizza. Then spend the day at the pool and beach. We ate dinner at the international market place food court which i would never wish on anyone lol it was really bad, and no where near as inexpensive as i thought it would be. I auctually got a little sick from eating it. My fiancee wasnt ready for bed yet so i went to the room and he went for a stroll along, he ended up having some boys follow him almost a block, made him nervous he was pretty sure he was gonna get mugged. He did make it back to the room through, safe and sound.

August 30th

Day at PCC.. now this i could really go on and on about! We bought the Super Ambassador Package for $205 pp and it was worth every cent! The experience was great, the guide was wonderful (her name was Park and i would recommend her to anyone! request her if you can) We had ate breakfast at dukes buffett that morning (very good and worth the cost) so we didnt eat luch at all.. but we did have dinner and it was the best service we had the whole trip. The food was good. Our seating all day was special and so much better because of our tickets.. we sat front row for the horizons show, which was a little close but still a great seat. The bus ride out was fun, but back it was boring and most people slept. Overall it was my favorite thing we did... and i really dont think i would have like it near as much if we didnt go all out on the expensive tickets.

August 31st

Breakfast again at the hula grill.. another day at the beach we bought rafts and a boogie board at abc, ate lunch at mcdonalds (dont knock it people, it was cheap and good and close) then for dinner we order round table pizza to the room again.

Sept 1st

Breakfast at the Seaside again, Today we went souvineer shopping and bought stuff for the plane ride home, we then went out and got tattoos.. we went to a place called tiki tattoo and cant say enough good stuff about this place.. I didnt think id like it but we looked at everyone and im really glad we decided on it... the work was great and the price wasnt terrible. It was very clean. Again to dukes for a late lunch. We then went out to one of the adult strip clubs (id be happy to give more details if you pm me, im sure no one wants them posted on here) we stoped by cheesecake factory for a giant peice of chocolate cake to take back to the room.. now this was amazing and totally worth the cost.

sept 2nd

We at breakfast again at Hula grill, we got picked up for our flight at 145 it left at 415pm. Aloha hawaii... it was a great trip, now i have a wedding and honeymoon to plan.. where can i find a forum for that?

Trip Report August 25th-Sept 2nd... VERY long..

I just posted 10 pictures from the trip on my page if anyone wants to see them I think it takes 24hrs or so before they will show.

Trip Report August 25th-Sept 2nd... VERY long..

Very nice.

And congratulations on your engagement.

Dear Jadexx....you obviously spent a lot of time preparing your report from your daily writings....and I enjoyed reading it. But the best of all was your boyfriend%26#39;s (now fiance!!) proposal. Wow! You will never forget that moment and Hawaii will always be special to both of you. Maybe you can return for your honeymoon!

P. S. I understand that the site TheKnot.com is a great wedding planning one! Congratulations!

Congratulations Jadexx. I ditto theknot.com but you could also check out hawaiibridezilla.com. I used both extensively when planning our Hawaii wedding. I haven%26#39;t been on here in a while so I%26#39;m just off to find your proposal story. xx

We wont be going back to hawaii for the honeymoon but we do plan on having a luau receiption :)

Congratulations,

You put alot of effort into researching it%26#39;s good to see it helped. Are you thinking about a beach wedding our daughter just had hers on Waimea Beach in June.

Congratulations! What a wonderful way to start the vacation.

Hi Jadexx,

Do you remember where you ate on the North Shore? Did you go to Haleiwa? Did you have shave-ice at Matsumoto%26#39;s? Did you make stops at any of the great North Shore beaches?

What was the name of the company that you did the shark adventure with? Did you do the ';cage'; thing?

How did you like the Waikiki Outrigger? We think it is such a terrific place to stay!

You didn%26#39;t mention it, but were you able to see any of the east side of Oahu?

Do you remember the price of King Crab at the Pacific Beach Hotel(Oceanarium)? Is this on a certain night? This was a buffet right?

I%26#39;m asking a lot of questions because I%26#39;m making notes!

What did you eat at the Hula Grill?

Thanks.

Pattie-2004

Happy to help..

we ate at a place called kono%26#39;s for breakfast, the food was just ok but it was cheap and really close to where the shark dive was.. we ate lunch at Haleiwa Joes and it was fantastic. We paid like $10 for a hamburger and french fries and it was totally worth it! I wish i would have had room for dessert. we never made it to Matsumoto%26#39;s just too tired.

We did go the beach with the turtles on the north shore the one right down from sharks cove but i dont remeber the name of it, it was amazing! We didnt get out of the car at the other beaches but we did drive around for the view, if we had the energy we would have gone to sharks cove and to Waimea Bay.. they both looked really cool. We really liked the north shore so much that my fiance%26#39; said he would like to stay there if we go back again anytime soon.

we did the shark cage dive with a company called shark adventures. there are two companys make sure you go with adventures, because they are much better from what i could see. even got a warm shower on the boat after you get out of the water... felt so good...

we loved outrigger couldnt have been much better.. we will go there again and again.. Hula grill was my favorite breakfast anywhere in oahu. the pancakes were fantastic, the coconut syrup toped it off so well.

we never made it to the east ohau.

we had a coupon found in one of the magazines youll see all over King Crab at the Pacific Beach Hotel(Oceanarium) its monday/thursday nights only for the crab and we both got the buffett and one of those pinapple drinks, our total was $60 + tip. totally worth it!! I would reccomend this place to anyone.

Great report! Congratulations on your engagement. For help planning my wedding, I used weddingsolutions.com. I tried theknot, but found weddingsolutions to be a lot more helpful.