I now have a new least-favorite airline: Go! Airlines, or as I think of them, No Go Airlines. We chose a flight to Kauai on Go! to arrive at the same time as Tom and Becky got in from CA. A week or so before our trip, Go! changed the time of our flight to Kauai by 2 hours, which meant that instead of a nice leisurely breakfast enjoying the sunrise in Oahu, we would instead be twiddling our thumbs for 2 hours in the Lihue Airport in Kauai. Lame. Their planes have virtually no space in the overhead bins and they don’t gate check stuff – you are forced to pay for all your bags. Again, lame. And our return flight to Oahu was so delayed (zero explanation given) that we missed our prepaid shuttle to the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Totally lame. So, a negative experience all around, and I have to think there are much better options for inter island travel. Like a dugout canoe or a makeshift raft.
Anyway, after meeting an adorable toddler at the airport Starbucks (he came over to me with outstretched arms – I thought he wanted to make friends, but it turns out he just wanted a bite of my scone! He was hilarious. His parents were mortified) we met up with Tom and Becky and checked into the lovely Outrigger Kiahuna Plantation in Poipu Beach, where T & B honeymooned 24 (?) years ago! The property is all condos, mostly individually owned, and thus all a little different. Ours (#82 in Bldg 15) was very nice.
After unpacking we headed back into Koloa for a quick lunch and a run to the supermarket. Koloa is the site of the first sugar mill in Hawaii, and our lunch spot, the delightful Kauai Food Truck, was on the ruins of the old sugar mill. While we were happily chatting and waiting for our lunch, we had our first taste of Kauai’s special brand of rain. It was sunny and breezy, and then wham, out of nowhere – a soaking, horizontal rain that lasted for all of 5 minutes. Yikes!
We spent the rest of the day on the lovely beach at our resort, catching up and planning our days on Kauai.
In the evening we went shopping in Old Koloa Town and enjoyed a fairly decent pizza at Pizzetta. Unlike Oahu, food options aren’t plentiful in Kauai, and Trip Advisor and Yelp weren’t as much help as they usually are for us. You need to remember that when reviews say “best whatever in town” it may be because it is the ONLY whatever in a 20 minute radius.
Kauai is known as the Garden Island and here are a few pix of some of the lovely flowers we saw on our visit.
Next we’re off to explore the eastern and northern sides of Kauai. Aloha!
The Wild Olive 