So of course, this being Christmas break and us, being the Hamptons, you know we’re not just going to Hawaii. Ty found us tickets from Honolulu to Osaka, Japan for a great deal! So darn if we didn’t have to get ourselves to Hawaii.
The plan for Christmas break is to fly through Hawaii on the way to Osaka. Then instead of staying in Japan we decided to plan a few days in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Then back to Japan for 2 weeks and finishing up with a couple of nights in Hawaii on the way back home. Totally relaxing vacations are not our forte. 🙂
The flight left Anchorage at 3pm on Thursday. Such a wonderfully relaxing time to leave.
Those are all our bags, for four of us, for 24 days! Part of why these flights are so cheap is they’re on Air Asia, which is notoriously a nickel and dime airline. So we went with the super lightweight bags since we could only have 7kg per person. All to avoid a $30 bag fee. (Please note we have weird tightwad tendencies just in certain areas) Ty veto’d the roller bag this year in order to save ourselves 6lbs.
We made it to Hawaii smoothly. We stayed at the Best Western right by the airport. Nothing fancy but it worked just fine for what we needed. It came with free breakfast in the morning, and a pool. A freezing cold pool, which R loved!
We spent an hour or so at the pool, then realized we needed to get some lunch, and food for the plane before our flight. Air Asia doesn’t feed you unless you buy their expensive, not very good food. So we were planning on bringing out own sandwiches. We walked to a BBQ and Blimpies just down the street. L of course had a mysterious leg pain, and it was driving me nuts how slow he was walking.
Once we got our food, we checked out of the hotel, and took the shuttle to the airport. We were stressing about the weight limitations on the luggage. So we stuffed our coat pockets with our heavy electronics. Made the kids wear their boots and coats. Then we get to the counter and see this sign about seat upgrades!
So we won’t pay $30 to check a suitcase, or the $5 for an onboard drink. But offer us a $300 lay flat seat and we will go for it! Really though, it came with a meal and these seats are usually over $1,000. This was a great deal and would make the 10+ hour flight so much more comfortable.
The lay flat seats definitely made the LONG flight, so much more comfortable. R had some tummy issues because we were all thrown off on meal times. I think she just got too hungry and was feeling sick to her stomach. L got about 6 hours sleep, the most of any of us. Ty and I each got an hour or two. R finally fell asleep the last hour of the flight.
The service wasn’t anything amazing, which was a little disappointing. They said since we were last minute upgrades we had our choice of four very basic meals. But it was free food and a bottle of water. We also got a tablet with movies on it, plus a blanket, and pillow. The lay down factor was totally worth it. I’m a terrible plane sleeper so it kept me from just suffering through like usual.
We landed in Osaka about 8:30pm local time which was about 1am Hawaii time. Our bodies were all out of sorts. Customs was several stations, and long lines. The kids were exhausted. Those are the less glamorous sides of travel. Nobody instagrams those moments. But we got through it.
Wonderfully Ty booked us a room, at a hotel right in the airport. So once we were through customs we were practically there. The room even had three beds! It was super swanky, they gave the kids little robes, slippers, toothbrushes, and wash clothes. We all crashed asleep immediately.
