What a crazy awesome adventure we had on our trip to Hawaii for fall break. It really surpassed my (already high) expectations. The Big Island isn't very populated (just our style) and on one side it's dry and mostly acres and acres of black lava fields and on the other, it's like a lush tropical rainforest. The diversity in the landscape was super interesting and by the end of the trip, we'd pretty much traveled the entire perimeter of the island and felt like we'd seen it all.
It really wasn't much of a "lay on the beach and relax" vacation but more of a "get out there and explore" vacation. We spent most of our time adventuring. I took a gazillion photos to help us remember all the fun we had. Let's dive in, shall we?!?
We had a pretty smooth trip over flying on United with just one stop in Denver. We departed Memphis on Saturday morning and arrived in Kona mid-afternoon (Hawaii time). By the time we crashed for the night that first night it was 1:00 AM in Memphis, so those kiddos really hung tough and it made for a smooth transition to our new timezone.
It was a very small outdoor airport in Kona. No big building or jetbridge. Just the island air and lots of steps greeted us upon arrival.
We stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village and the property was humongous ... offering lots of great activities and beautiful views.
early morning exploration on our first morning
View from the balcony of our room. That's Maui you can see off in the distance.
View of the lagoon from the main lobby area
one of three room towers on site
You could get from place to place on the resort via boat or tram
There was a natural ocean lagoon on-property that offered a small beach (when there was a low tide) or no beach (during high tide) and some excellent snorkeling. The endangered green sea turtles would come in and out of the lagoon all day long offering many opportunities to swim right alongside them. It was pretty cool.
James and Case coming over to swim with a turtle
There were several large pools on-site as well that the kids enjoyed featuring water slides, waterfalls and more fun stuff.
We really enjoyed the luau at our hotel. It was really well done, I thought. Not as cheesy as I expected it to be. The storytelling was great, the choreography was good and the flame tosser guys were very entertaining.
The kids chose to do Dolphin Quest at the hotel for their Christmas gift from James' parents and they loved it.
Most nights we enjoyed the most amazing sunsets at the edge of the hotel property.
Watching the sunset from the hammock
Then we added two more
The hammock was taken so we settled for some lounge chairs.
At sunset each night a torch runner would jog the entire property lighting all the torches that illuminated the walking paths at night. He would light the last one near where we watched the sunset and then blow into a shell to signify that it was done. We looked forward to it every night.
Our first outside the hotel adventure was a day trip to hike the Pololu Valley Trail. This is exactly what I had in mind when dreaming of Hawaii. The photos could never do it justice. It was such a beautiful place ... the views from the top, the wooded area at the bottom, the river, the black sand, the lush green valley, the water ... it was just all so stunning and so so fun to explore. In hindsight, I would have hauled our picnic lunch down to the bottom so we could have stayed longer.
No need to be alarmed, right?
James commented that this must have been what the garden of Eden looked like
These kids were filthy! A sign of a good time!
Covered with black sand
James and I were lucky enough to score a day date for a kayak and snorkel tour. Our guide took us to an area called the "turtle cleaning station" and it was so cool. The sea turtles would come up and the fish would start cleaning their shells. We saw a variety of fish and all sorts of cool stuff. Then we kayaked to a beach for lunch before heading back in.
One day we ventured out to find a great beach that was near our hotel. Wailea beach (or 69 beach) was one of my favorite spots. The beach had these cool trees on the shore providing lots of shade and the kids had a ball playing in the waves.
When you get hit by a big wave with lots of rocks mixed in the water.
My favorite view ...
And the most unique and amazing experience of the whole trip was a night snorkel with manta rays. After a sunset boat ride to our snorkel location, our guides put a surfboard in the water that had a light attached to the bottom. The light attracted the plankton and the manta rays show up to eat the plankton. We hopped in the water and held onto the board and just watched them feed. The rays were about 7-9 wide ... they were huge and they would come right up to us gobbling up the plankton as they belly rolled to do it again. Literally rubbing belly to belly with us. Quite possibly the coolest experience of my life.
Ready to dive in
Another super fun excursion was our trip to Volcanoes National Park. Man oh man did we learn a lot about volcanoes. It was super interesting. And while we were disappointed that there is no longer any flowing lava in the park (due to the recent eruptions), we were thrilled that parts of park had reopened. It was still really cool to see the steam produced from the hot rock and the giant crater formed from the recent earthquakes. We also learned that the recent eruptions added over a mile of land to the Big Island. So the Big Island got a bit bigger.
It was raining on us, but getting a pic by the sign is a MUST for me
And we're done ... time to make a run back to the van!
Real life, right here ...
And we're ready :)
And here's the lush tropical rainforest part of the photo tour. It was such a contrast to the rest of the island. We did a short loop hike through the rainforest ending at the waterfall and it was just stunning!
cutting the meat out of the coconut for us ... yum!
And then our final adventure was up on top of Mount Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea is a dormant volcano with a peak that's 13,000+ feet above sea level. Most of the mountain is actually under water so when measured from its oceanic base, it's over 33,000 feet tall. That kind of blows my mind. We saved this activity until the end of the week and it wasn't an ideal day weather-wise, but we made the most of it and enjoyed short views hiking in the clouds instead of long panoramic views of the ocean.
And the best part of the whole trip was all the family time we got to spend together. And we squeezed in a lot of family photos too.
Super grateful to have had James' parents on the trip with us
Last night date night dinner. Thanks grandparents for a bit of alone time.
Our flight back didn't leave until 8PM Saturday night so we had one last day to soak in island life. We knew that the International Ironman Championship was being held that day and that the main road was going to be shut down for the cycling part of the race, so we had planned to just spend the last day relaxing at the hotel. Just after breakfast, the kids were playing in one of the pools and Emery fell and hit her face and busted her eyelid open. We could tell by looking at it that it was probably going to require a few stitches so we prepared to head for the ER. Only problem was ... the Ironman. Couldn't get across the main road to get to the hospital until there was a large enough gap in the cyclists to cross. Emergency or not. So after a long wait to cross the highway, she was off to the ER and as good as new in no time at all. So much for a nice relaxing last day in paradise. But it could have been worse, so we were thankful! It makes for an exciting story.
all stitched up
After all those photos, no one but me wants to look at more, but I accidentally figured out how my iPhone makes these super cool video montages and am thrilled with how it turned out. Not bad for an amateur.
Such a great week and many memories made. So grateful to have had the opportunity to go. Ready for the next adventure!
