John and I went to Kauai for our 10th wedding anniversary when William was a toddler. He has always wanted to go back and take William on the Na Pali Coast hike, and to see Waimea Canyon. I said once we got a timeshare offer I would go. We finally got one for Westin so I booked it for spring break. I'm not really able to fully enjoy spring break thanks to it being in tax season. But I've recently embraced the thought that I'd rather work on vacation than stare out the same window all year. Plus, with my Southwest companion pass, I could either buy myself a ticket and have John come along for free....or buy him a ticket and stay home. Either way it's two tickets, so I went. Turns out it's a good thing I did, because John was in bed sick the entire trip.
But first, since we flew Southwest, it wasn't a nonstop flight. We routed through Las Vegas both ways, and the Starbucks there was a disaster. It was 30-45 minutes to get a drink - even though the mobile ordering said ~15 minutes and the line wasn't crazy long (for a Starbucks). The result here was that almost all of the drinks on the counter were abandoned by people who had to leave to catch a flight. "Luckily" our layover was long enough to wait in this ridiculous line and still walk to another terminal to eat breakfast!
After we arrived in Kauai, we went across the arrivals lot to this fancy Avis shop to wait another ridiculously long time. At least there were feral chickens to watch? Welcome to Kauai! The problem was that John was getting sicker by the minute. He had not felt well the prior week after catching some sort of bug at the Boy Scout Wilderness First Aid class. He tested negative for COVID all week and thought he was on the upswing. He was not. He would go on to spend the next 5 days bundled up under the covers with a fever. The web visit he did to the urgent care said it wasn't COVID and it was just some other virus that had to run its course. He had about a half day mid-week that he was well enough to leave the condo to site see, and then our last day that he was well enough to lay on the beach chair at the pool for a few hours. He finally felt normal two days after we got home.
The Westin Princeville. This was my view from my lanai desk: chickens and ne ne birds and other birds and people watching were all exceptional. We had a ground level one-bedroom condo. Interestingly, even though I shared the bedroom with John all week - I never got sick. Neither did William. Princeville is up on a hill so oceanview but not oceanfront.
William and I explored the resort several mornings including feeding the koi pond fatties and playing in the pool. My favorite parts of the vacation were swimming in the pool by ourselves at 8 or 9 am and going down to the strip mall for shave ice. And then the afternoon that John could venture out with us. Most of the time I worked or read on the lanai, William watched TV and played on his Nintendo DS, and John slept/watched TV in the bedroom. So....exactly the same things we would have done at home on a weekend except we were in Kauai. It was rainy most days, so that made it easier to stay near the condo versus making plans to get out and around the island.
One of the days the three of us got out, we went to a beach where a river met the ocean. It made the current due crazy (and dangerous) things. We didn't plan to swim. Just went exploring. Across the river on the other bank was a fort someone had built so William waded over to check it out. He was still far enough away from the mouth of the river that I was only mildly panicked.
The rains were crazy back at our resort! But the place has amazing drainage because this during and after picture were only a few hours apart.
We finally made it out to the lighthouse (it was closed the other day we ventured out) and did some whale spotting. They weren't very close to land that afternoon but we did see them. It was a beautiful afternoon, and I could have stood out there for hours.
It's a shame our trip was marred by John being so sick, but luckily we had the timeshare discount for the condo and the Southwest points/pass for the flights. We also had booked one extra night on the south side of the island in Poipu at the Koloa Landing hotel using Bonvoy hotel points. This is the best hotel pool in Hawaii according to several polls and we just wanted a play day to end the trip. After a nice lunch (yay poke bowl after eating frozen pizza in the condo!), William and I played in the pool for a few hours. John laid in a beach chair and was doing alright that day. But I don't think he got into the water. Poipu had so many feral cats! This one was stalking us during lunch.
Not what we hoped for, but it was nice to get out of the house for a week! William and I had time to hang out and I read two books. Not a bad week in a lot of ways, quite honestly.
