Big Island 2009

Didn't make this

$130 per person - all morning with gourmet meal

One of nature's wonders! I'm so happy to have take the time to stop.

We had a great snokeling beach across the street from our hotel, so we had no need to find this beach.

It is a long walk from the parking lot.

You have to do a Luau at least once. Now it's done. Madison enjoyed it the most. Pretty good food, a 5 minute walk to the free drinks, and good entertainment. Only the rich don't have to wait in line and get a real flower lei and I'm tired of every aspect of tourism having a class system.

This is a quick drive and we did stop at the recommended smoothie place. The smoothie was good, but expensive. The drive was short and beautiful.

This was our only whale viewing experience, so I'm glad we did it. It was very informative, but I would still like to see a sperm whale. We saw pilot whales and sharks and learned a lot. The "lunch" was taco chips, fruit and smarties......we ate at Bubba Gumps after this.
Turn here, on Kealakehe Pkwy., off Highway 19 to reach the Harbor.

We didn't get to this.

We saw the valley, but didn't have time for the hike. The valley was amazing!!!

We didn't get to this.

We didn't eat here, but we did eat at some other amazing restaurants.

This was a blast. The cost was initially prohibitive, but they gave us a deal in the end.

We met on the beach of the Royal Kona, got a few beginning tips, then set out. We kayaked along the shore and eventually stopped to do some deep snorkel dives. I was afraid that I wouldn't get back into the kayak, but Jim assured me that he could get me in.....and he did...poor Jim.

We arrived back at the hotel and were offered an umbrella, two chairs, the rest of the drinks and fruit that we have for our trip, and a stand up surf board, which Madison spent the next hour and a half on.

If I went Kayaking again, I would not take a guide, but I would not be able to jump out of the kayak....unless I lost about 50 pounds.

This was our first day. It is $10 to park in the hotel parking lot, so we parked outside and walked around. The Hilton is the biggest hotel I have ever seen in my life. We walked for about an hour, apparently lost, then realized that we had to walk under the water fall to get to this restaurant (there were many others)
I picked this one so that we could watch the dolphins, but we couldn't get a table on that side of the restaurant. Instead we spend our (mostly inadequate) lunch watching people swim and lay on the manmade beach within the resort and holding on to (or sometimes retrieving) our lunch because of the fierce wind that came up.

I'm glad to have seen this amazing hotel, but grateful not to have stayed there. The monorails, boats, turtles, dolphins, are all amazing, but I like to see nature in it's habitat.

Didn't make this on this trip.