Aloha!

Aloha from Waikiki. I am happy to finally be blogging. We are now at on the evening of day two and still trying to resolve some computer problems as we speak. Hopefully all will soon be resolved and I can start blogging from our beautiful room instead of the business center. Well now lets get started. After what was a lonnnng trip from Atlanta, we landed in Honolulu at 2pm local time and 8 pm Atlanta time. We hit some classic Honolulu traffic and arrived at the Outrigger Reef on the Beach hotel at 4pm.

If you are following our dream itinerary you will note the location change. Heather (the Outrigger staff person who made our dream itinerary come true suggested our switch and we are so happy for it.) This hotel is beautiful and I don't think our pictures of the open air lobby will do it justice. We were met at the entrance by the General Manager (Bill) himself and escorted to our penthouse level, ocean front room. (Outrigger really knows how to treat their contest winners!).

On the way, we were greeted by Heather and Nancy from Outrigger. Even though we had never met, warm hugs were exchanged. I think that we were all equally happy to finally be meeting. They took us to our room and went over the binder that Heather had created for us. (Yes I said binder!). Heather is a true planner like myself and did an amazing job for us. After a few more hugs and pictures, John and I were left just a few moments to change into shorts and get down to the beach for our sunset cruise on a Outrigger catamaran.

I learned after I booked the trip that this cruise was also known as the "booze cruise" and although there were many drinks to be had I decided it was probably best to pass. The cruise was very relaxing and the sunset was spectacular shades of pink, orange, red and purple. I would love to share a photo but unfortunately our camera battery was dead but we didn't let that get us down. After all we were sitting on a boat just off Waikiki enjoying what we hope to be 1 of 8 sunsets to come. More to come!