Feb. 18, 2013----STL-DFW-OGG, the long travel day!

The much anticipated, and dreaded, day finally arrived.  Our marathon flights began at 7:30 am, 3:30 Hawaii time.  All started ok---we made it from STL - DFW on time and looked like we'd leave there on time, too.  But, of course, that wasn't going to happen!  After teasing us with a plane at the gate and announcing boarding soon, they decided to check out the plane and found mechanical  problems.  For some reason, they think the brakes should not have a hydraulic leak.  So they ended up pulling the plane and sending us to another gate.  3 hours late (resulting in about 5 hours layover instead of 2), we were finally on our 8 1/2 hour non-stop flight to Maui.

At least the views from the plane were somewhat interesting.

We were suppose to see sunset from Kihei, but ended up seeing it from the air while we were on our appoach into OGG.

Picked up our Budget rental car (a new Ford Escape) and headed straight to our resort---Worldmark Kihei.  I reserved a 2 bedroom twin/no view unit since I had to waitlist the first 8 or so nights and those are the configured rooms that WM Kihei has the most of.  The waitlisted days started filling in 4-6 weeks before our trip even though I started the waitlist 13 months out when I booked the last 9 days.  About a month before our trip, I got all the days and was able to combine them into one reservation for the whole trip.  Yea!---we didn't have to change rooms and only ended up having to pay one housekeeping fee!  About 6 months before our trip, some friends decided to join us for part of the trip.  Won't they be surprised when they end up in twin beds when they arrive next Wed.?!  Anyway, we checked in, unpacked, then headed out for food---Safeway, too tired to go to a restaurant.