We left Hilo at 4:54 pm to sail over to Honolulu and the island of Oahu. After watching a beautiful sunrise over Diamond Head, we docked in Hololulu at 7:44 am the next morning right next to the famous Aloha Tower in downtown Honolulu. Four hulu dancers and some musicians met us at the dock. Nice. But we didn't get leied.
We had two days in Honolulu and rented another car to use to tour the island of Oahu. Note: there is no 'W' in Oahu. We walked out of cruise terminal and down the street past the Aloha Towers Shopping Center to look for a city bus, called The Bus, that would take us to the rental car office (the rental car people have a shuttle but we did not know that). One of our big problems that I had not really solved, but was aware of, was overnight parking for our rental car. As we waited for the bus we began asking passerbys about nearby parking. Nothing but grim news. There was no reasonable parking that they knew of . And most nearby parking lots charged $50 a night to park. We were in a pickle because we were not going to pay $50 to park a car for the night.
I had looked up the Bus's schedules on the web and knew which bus to take. Honolulu has an excellent bus system and if you confine your travels to Honolulu you can use the bus rather than rent a car. Having a car means that sometime you have to park it and you might not have enough money to pay for the parking fees. We chatted with some of bus passengers and the driver trying to figure out where we would get off to get to the rental car agency. Poor research on my part. I only had an address and not the name of the building the agency was in. After some hilarious moments with a new bus driver, who took over the controls of our bus at the transportation hub, we went about a block past the address that I had for the agency. I didn't see any any signs or cars that could belong to car rental agency. Almost panic time. We had our cell phone with us, but I wasn't smart enough to call the agency for directions. Besides I am a real man and everyone knows real men don't ask for directions. Seven did though and some nice people pointed to a nondescript two story shopping area attached to a hotel about a block away. We went into the little shopping center and began looking for the well-hidden rental agency. We found it and went down in the parking garage of a hotel, I think, and got our little red car. No free upgrade this time.The first thing we did once we got our car was drive back to the Aloha Tower Shopping Center area and look for overnight parking. We found one in a bank building after two tries for $13 a night if we arrived after 10 pm and left before 6 am. Good enough. I get up early anyways and could easily walk over and get the car.
All that done, we made our way out of Honolulu towards the Dole Pineapple Plantation, a big time tourist destination. We took H-1. It is not I-1 because it is not an interstate highway. The plantation was more like a part of Disneyland than a real live pineapple plantation. Lots of stuff to buy, clean, neat, great restrooms, and food. They had a good snackbar that sold pineapple ice cream. Not many people could pass that up including us. Where else can you buy pineapple ice cream? We got a pineapple sundae to share. $4 Delicious.There are three things you can do at the Plantation besides eat ice cream and buy things you probably don't need. There is a maze of some kind and a train that takes you around the plantation, I guess. We decided to do take a guided tour of the gardens. It was fantastically beautiful. I cannot include all the flower pictures here that I took.
After the tour we looked at the beds of pineapple plants and read about pineapple growing. It may not sound as if I was too enthused by the plantation but actually it is a pretty good place to visit, especially if you like ice cream. There is no admission to the gift shop and grounds part of it. Everything else cost to get in and to see or ride. The gift shop had quality items to buy. Lots of Dole t-shirts as you can imagine. I should have gotten one for Triathlon Girl, our daughter, because she worked for Bob Dole at one time.
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