Okay, so I started this post on May 30th, and obviously forgot about it, but the events leading up to Hawaii were kind of interesting, and I'm procrastinating, so I thought I'd finish the post. 😀
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Yesterday I woke up and was really motivated to get Hawaii stuff done. I packed a box that we had to mail, then I packed Maddox's bag. He's not leaving until the week after we leave, but I didn't want to leave it up to Damian and him to pack it, I helped Maddox clean his room, and went for a run. I felt like I had done a whole day's worth of stuff before noon. I was going to pack my own bag too, but I need to do laundry so I put it off to today. However, this morning I woke up and am not any where as motivated to do anything. I'm already dreading my work week. I know tomorrow is a holiday, but I still have to work a little, and I have to drive down to SeaTac, which is probably a 2 hour drive, to get my COVID test. (Hawaii requires a very specific test and it has to be no more than 72 hours before your last flight leaves the mainland). The other two days of work are going to be very, very busy.
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Honestly, that's not a lot to work with, but I will talk about our prep and then do a separate post with pictures of the trip.
So, I should back up to a week before we left. My sister and her husband went a full week before Chris and I, so they were our guinea pigs because there is a lot of things you have to do in order to go to Hawaii, or at least it felt like it before we did them. We had to have a very specific COVID test no more than 72 hours before your last flight leaves the mainland. Living and leaving from Washington, that wasn't a big deal, but we had heard stories of people that got their test 72 hours before leaving the east coast and then it not being accepted because they had a layover on the west coast before flying to Hawaii. Or the couple that got the test at the correct time, but the testing place had the time zone wrong on their negative result so it looked like it was eastern time instead and were denied. If you don't have a negative test result within 72 hours, you're required to do a 7 or 14 day (I can't remember now) quarantine in Hawaii. And then, on top of the test, you have to upload it into the Safe Travels website that Hawaii has set up and fill out a health questionnaire 24 hours before leaving. And then you get a QR code that allows you access to Hawaii (and many other things once there, like a rental car).
Oh! and rental cars! Apparently, when the pandemic hit and no one was traveling, rental car places shipped their cars back to the mainland, so when Hawaii reopened, they had very few rental cars. There were stories of people getting there and not being able to find a car, even people that had reserved one. My sister was very scared she wouldn't have a car when she got there. While we were there we even saw people walking along the road with their suitcases, we assumed they couldn't get a car, and Uber was also very overbooked.
Once at the airport, if you check in with your QR code and let them look at whatever, you get a wrist band that allows you to not have to go through the check points after you get off the plane. My sister said those check points could be hours long to wait through, so the wrist band was important to get.
My sister got everything done (she was very, very stressed out) and made it to the airport on time. My dad had given us some money for Christmas, and her and her husband decided to use it to upgrade to first class. They only travel Hawaiian Air when going to Hawaii, by the way. So, they get to the airport, she even recorded where to go once there, she did it mainly for my son, Damian, who was coming with Maddox a week after Chris and I. Damian has only flown once, to Disneyland 9 years ago, and we were with him (he was only 12). Anyway, they are there, waiting for their flight and then hear that their airplane had mechanical difficulties and would be delayed, for a very long time. So long, that they would not be able to catch a flight out of Honolulu where they had a layover before going to Kauai, so they would have to spend the night in Honolulu . . . and would likely miss their car rental and not have a car. So my sister is panicking and decides to see if there are other flights, the one other Hawaiian Air flight was also having mechanical issues, so they couldn't do that.
They ended up looking at other airlines, and there was an Alaska Air flight, but it was leaving very soon, and it was on the opposite end of the airport. They literally had to run through the airport to get to the next terminal. Oh, and Hawaiian Air serves food for free, Alaska, you have to pre-order. Alaskan was a non-stop flight to Kauai, that's 6-8 hours in the air . . . no food. Thankfully they had brought a few snacks but they had gotten the last two seats on the plane, but they were not together. So they had to divide their snacks up at the gate before getting on. Oh, and remember, they had paid for first class on Hawaiian? Yeah, no first class available on Alaskan. (Spoiler alert, they did not get refunded for their first class because they chose to find another flight and not wait for theirs.)
Anyway, they made it, they got their rental car, and everything turned out okay for them (they ended up with more gray hairs . . . but they got there). This story freaked me out! I am not as travel savvy as my sister (she's sort of a travel agent, sort of), if that happened to me, there's no way I would have been able to figure out a new flight . . . and if it happened to Damian and Maddox . . . yeah, no. So I was rather freaked out.
BUT none of that would matter if we didn't pass our COVID tests. There were so many stories about the test, that some people got the wrong one, or the place they went to didn't get their results to them in time for their flight. My sister said the best place to go would be the specific Hawaiian air testing site that was close to SeaTac. They are guaranteed to have it to you in 48 hours, so we booked there, and had to drive an hour and a half south to the airport on Monday, for us, Memorial Day. I wasn't too worried about the traffic going down, but was rather worried about the traffic going home, but it turned out fine.
So Chris and I got our tests that same evening, by 8pm we knew. So we uploaded it into the Safe Travels site, and had to wait for Wednesday to do the health questionnaire. Meanwhile, I am freaking out about Damian traveling with Maddox alone and trying to get everything prepared for him. You should have seen the bathroom mirror, it had so many notes sticking to it. I wish I had taken a picture. 🤣 Thankfully I thought of Maddox's birth certificate and thinking that it might be good for Damian to have it handy. I'm so glad I did, because they asked for ID for Maddox at the COVID testing site, and Damian gave them the birth certificate. (That's the only place that asked for it). I had Maddox's bag packed and told him he was NOT allowed to touch anything in it. And the only thing he forgot was his water bottle, so I consider that a win!
Chris and I sailed through all the requirements. We had no problems. I even had Damian watching everything we were doing so that he would know what to do when he had to do it for their trip. And finally we were on the plane! No problems. My sister's stories and worries were definitely an unnecessary stressor.
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| Eating Linner at the Honolulu airport while waiting for our connecting flight. |
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I love Hawaii but...no thanks. I think I'll wait until things are more normal!
ReplyDeleteWe had this trip planned since 2019, and were happy we didn't have to postpone, even though getting there was rough. Kauai still had strict mask mandates, and since we weren't in a lot of crowds, I felt really safe regarding COVID.
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