Hawaii, part 1

Our vacation started out with a rough start at the airport.  Our tickets said we were flying Alaska Airlines out of Phoenix. So we show up to the terminal only to find out the flight is actually Delta.  Problem is, Delta is in a completely different terminal at the airport.  The Phoenix airport is huge and we had to get on a bus to get to the right terminal.  We get to Delta, the line is HUGE.  We are now already late.  So we finally get to the counter and head up to security with 20 min before our plane departs.  I have never, ever seen a security line so long.  Seriously, probably 150 people.  Surprisingly enough, the line moved rather quickly and we got to the terminal with 3 min to spare.  Door closed, plane still sitting there but no one at the terminal. The lady finally comes out only to tell us she waited as long as she could for us.  So we head back downstairs to the delta counter.  We then spent the next hour at the ticket counter because Delta wasn't allowed to change our tickets because they were coded under Alaska Airlines. The problem was I booked our tickets through cheap tickets and they wouldn't fix them.  Delta finally just gave me some hand written tickets and we were on our way.  Lesson learned, don't buy tickets from cheap tickets.  Anyway, we finally arrived and it was beautiful.  It was so strange because the airport was open to the air, no real windows just fresh air.  We got to our hotel on Waikiki beach and it was beautiful.  We walked along the beach, had some dinner and just relaxed.

The next day we went up to the temple and the Polynesian cultural center.  The temple was beautiful as usual with wonderful flowers.

We stopped at the beach

 

We watched the boogey boarders, very intense

We had some lunch a a local restaurant recommended to us by the sisters and then headed over to the PCC.  I highly recommend the PCC, it was fantastic, the whole thing, very well done.

You start by going around to different villages and watch the shows about that specific culture. All of them were very entertaining.

 Check out this snow cone, it was huge!

They had a floating parade with all the customary dancing.

Andrew and I played this stick throwing game. Andrew dominated as usual.

The point of the game is to throw your stick so it lands in the middle of the circle, look how close he is!

We took a canoe ride and then had dinner.  Dinner, not so awesome but it was the free one so what do you expect.  We then went to the night show. You can't take any pictures but the show was so well done. We had a fantastic time.  Seriously, a highlight of the trip.