As I write this, I am sitting on the wrap around deck of our amazing end unit room in Maui. I am in awe of this place. I heard Maui was nice, but this nice? I had no idea. It is stunning. Easily the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my life. Way better than Jamaica, and the best part? We are not paying for it. Yay for Bryan being so great at his job! There are about 334 people here from his company. The thought of what the company's final bill will be makes my head hurt. The resort is amazing. The island is amazing. I can't say enough wonderful things about it. I just hope we get to come again! I am so grateful for the trip we are having. Did I mention it is amazing?
I guess I will begin with the start of the trip. Our flight was to depart at 6 am from Denver to San Francisco. As we are boarding the lady stops the line in front of us, and says there is a maintenance issue. We learn it is a carpeting issue and they just need some tape. All is a go. We get on the plane, settle into our seats, and begin to taxi. Then we stop. They say there is a warning light on or something, and they need maintenance to check it out. Well, we wind up having to go back to the gate, get off the plane, and wait for another aircraft. What does this mean? A missed connection that we had already been upgraded to first class on. I was expecting to sleep, but being in the middle seat did nothing for my ability to fall asleep (I originally wrote "my ability to crash" and thought no, crashing and being on a plane should not be in the same sentence.) My eternal optimist husband is certain we will make the flight, or that they will hold the plane for us. Some may say I am a pessimist-I consider myself a realist. We were already 2 hours late, we only had an hour between the flights, and YES, there was a small, slim chance that we would make the flight if they held it for us, I was not counting on it. The thing that made me nervous at the beginning was the lady told us there were not many flights available because it was the day after a holiday. I of course had visions of being trapped in Denver (well, we would not be trapped, since we DO live there, but I really wanted to get to Hawaii. Here's to hoping we get trapped in Maui.) My determined husband called the travel department and made sure we had seats on the next flight. We were worried we would not get upgraded, but Bryan worked his magic and got us upgraded on that flight too. We wound up being at the airport in San Fran for several hours. We hung out at a restaurant with Rich and Michelle, and then hung out at the gate. Eventually, we were on our way to Maui!
As we were in the air, the pilot came on and told us the nautical miles, speed, distance, etc. I look over, Bryan is in Excel typing all of the info into a spreadsheet and I am thinking Uh, am I supposed to care about this? Apparently, they have a contest to see who can guess the halfway time to Maui. As I sat there thinking, um, divide it in half the pilot says, "Don't just divide it in half. You won't get the right answer." Who sucks at Math? That would be me. Thankfully my husband did the work and I do what I am good at-handwriting :) We were off by 9 minutes. Oh well.
On the way to Hawaii, they have Mai Tais in First Class. Do I like Mai Tais? No. Were these any better? No. The lady saw that I did not like them so she kept adding OJ to them (the juice, not the felon) and although it was a little better, I still did not like it. Did I drink it though? Yes-it DID have a pineapple and a cherry on a tiki god looking stick. I think it was a mandatory part of being in first class on the way to Maui.
For some reason, I was not sleeping on these flights, so I thought, hey, I will watch a movie. Well, I spent most of the time leaning in the center to SEE the movie. The guy in front of me had a ginormous head.
Here is our flight attendant. (Stewardess? On board entertainment?) I LOVED him. He was flamboyant and fabulous. He made me smile and was so great. I wanted to take a real picture of him but I did He lives in San Francisco but was from Ft. Collins. He graduated from Poudre High School the year Bryan was born. I did not say that to him though! When he asked me what I wanted for lunch, I said none of what he mentioned because I am so picky. He said he would check on any extras they have from coach. So sweet of him. It wound up being a spinach salad from Coach. Not the company-although they DO make fabulous purses, I don't see them being all that great at salads. I appreciated the gesture, but to a picky chick, a spinach salad is just as unappealing as the some big fancy name encrusted chicken he originally offered me. Still very sweet. He looked just like Randy from Say Yes to the Dress on TLC.
One of the funniest things that happened was I told my sister Bryan was bummed because the President sat next to us on the plane. She texted me saying something to the effect of "NO WAY! Obama is on your flight?!" She was kidding of course but it was funny. We meant the President of the company.
Eventually we made it to Maui. We got our rental car and headed to the hotel. Here are some pictures from our FIRST room:
It was amazing! We had a good view and it was phenomenal compared to our honeymoon room. We were excited to start the rest of our trip.
That night, we went to dinner with Rich and Michelle and the Pretzels. Yes, the Pretzels. What an awesome last name! Since meeting them I am craving soft pretzels. I told Rick that (Mr. Pretzel) and he said, "I AM a soft pretzel." One of Bryan's coworkers (Vinnie Magnifico-yet another awesome last name) told us to go to Mama's Fish House for dinner one night. He said it is at the beginning of the road to Hana so I am thinking it was going to be a little shack on the road. I was surprised to see it was a very nice restaurant, in a beautiful location. Everyone but me had fish. Here are some pictures from that night. Note: I am not pregnant-the dress just makes me look like I am.
Up next: The Road to Hana.
