Guys, it’s 5:00 A.M. Hawaii time. It’s the start of day 2 of my Hawaii honeymoon. The below was written during day 1 on my Hawaii Airlines flight to Honolulu.

The Travel Day

I’m 8791 km away from New York and the outside air temperature is -69 degrees F. At least, that’s what the screen on my Hawaii Airlines flight is telling me right now. 

That’s right guys, it’s honeymoon time! Unfortunately, travel comes with travel time; the total crap part of the trip. 

The part where we have to spend an entire day flying. It’s an 11 hour flight to Honolulu from JFK. The cool part(sarcasm) is that’s not the end of our travels!

After our arrival in Honolulu, there’s a 2 hour layover followed by a 40 minute flight to Kauai, our final destination.

It’ll be around 7 P.M. local time when we get there. However, since Hawaii is 5 hours behind EST, that means it’ll be midnight in my neck of the woods. It’s a 30 minute drive to the AirBnB plus we have to get our rental Jeep and our bags too. That means we likely won’t be home until well after midnight when it comes to my internal clock.

That sucks!

We left the house at 7:30 A.M this morning so that’s quite the day of travel.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that we’ll be pretty damn tuckered out by the time we get here. My wife is already a bit tired and we’ve still got a while before head hits pillow.

Still, a good part of the journey is done. Honolulu is only about 900 km away and we should be landing in just north of an hour.

The flight hasn’t been too bad. They gave us a cute little pillow and a blanket too! It’s always nice to get free stuff.

It’s been rather warm inside but the gesture is appreciated. 

One thing that was new to me was a safety message to keep the windows open during take off. I’ve never heard that on any airline. I guess it’s to make sure that safety crews can see inside in case things go awry. Not sure if that makes me feel safer or not. 

The leg room is decent even though we’re in the cheap seats, not that flights to Hawaii are ever that cheap.

I’m 6”1 and there’s a little space left as you can see below. You can also see the little blanket and pillow we got. I’m not sure if you can take those with you nor do I plan to since they’re not exactly merino wool. 

We’re also lucky enough to sit in the side seats. The aircraft is a big boy, two walking lanes with a 2-4-2 configuration. My wife and I are all alone in our little 2 seat side near the windows It’s much better than the 4 person middle seats which seem less comfortable.

Even though we have some comforts, sitting down in a tight space for 11 hours is no party.

My wife is probably taking it less well than I am. She’s got a little bit of back pain, a headache and some stuffiness while I’m just dealing with a slight back ache from all the sitting.

However, it’s not the worst. I’ve had 3 hour domestic flights with Southwest or United where I’ve felt less comfortable. 

Quick update, we’re now 786 km from Honolulu! That means the majority of the flying is done. Soon, we’ll be in our little paradise eating Acai Bowls by the beach. 

Maybe it helped that they served us lunch early on in the flight. It was actually pretty decent too. Check out this spread of pasta with some sort of meat and a cucumber salad.

The little container that looks like it might be juice was just water.

It’s not high-end dining but it actually tasted pretty good from what I ate. I would rate it as one of the better airplane meals I’ve had, not that I’ve had a ton.

My wife ate my cookie.

I generally try to eat Keto but I was pretty starved and didn’t have a ton of options given the timing of the trip. I’ll try to get back into it. However, it might be hard as I really want to try all these fancy island foods and fruits. I hear that shave ice is a must try!

The past wasn’t the only meal we had. There was a little egg and veggie sandwich with mayo. It was preceded by a hot towel to wipe our hands which was a nice touch. 

That’s not keto friendly either so I skipped it as did my wife who hates mayo. Look at the cute little serving bag though!

My wife did eat her chocolate though as well as mine.

I guess if you’re looking for a Hawaii Airlines flight review, then you’ve come to the right place because this post is turning into that!

One smart thing I did was download some movies from Netflix and Amazon Video onto my phone. 

My wife and I watched Galaxy Quest and Arrival while splitting a headphone set; one earbud each. Galaxy Quest is one I’ve seen before but it was my first time watching Arrival and that’s a damn good movie.

The flight has a nice screen on each seat but it costs 7.99 to unlock the TV package. Movies are $7.99 each too which is a bit steep.

I really hate it when you get on a flight and see that credit card slider on the screen. They should just build the extra $8 into each ticket so I can have my free movies and don’t have to plan ahead!

They do offer some free entertainment but it’s pretty lean. It was mostly bad Hawaii related shows or music. I tried watching a show about poke but the audio kept cutting out and that didn’t make for a very enjoyable experience.

After that, I went back to watching The Good Place, another show I downloaded onto my phone from the Netflix.

I will say that watching a movie on a small phone screen while sharing headphones isn’t ideal. I’m not doctor but perhaps the bent over head pose is what led to our lower back pain.

If you came here for the Hawaii Airlines review, I’ll say it’s a good experience but they should make the movies and TV free.

The Second Day

Now that I’m up and writing, I can comment on what happened after we landed in Honolulu.

The first thing I noticed is that the airport is hella old. It’s probably one of the most old looking places I have seen. They even had old dell machines set up where you could rent time at a computer with a credit card swipe to pay for it.

I could see it if the machines were top of the line but these things looked ancient.

The food selection wasn’t good either so I didn’t eat anything. The two hour layover was a snooze and the flight to Kauai was uneventful.

Luckily, our bags were there in no time and the car rental was a short shuttle away.

We got our jeep and drove to our AirBnB and slept.

Two notes about Jeeps. One is that they’re huge and drive like a boat on the highway. Two is that this one seems to be missing key features. I can understand no back up cameras but having to roll down my windows again upsets me! I think newer cars have spoiled me. Also, no automatic door locks? Come on Jeep!

Another thing is Kauai at night is DARK. I mean, there’s like no street lights in a lot of spots and while most roads have reflectors on the road, some don’t.

Overall, the trip wasn’t too bad. We got here even if it took something like 16 hours of travel time. I’m a bit tired but I might put on some shoes and walk down to the water and see if I can see a sunrise.

The AirBnB we’re in is pretty close to Poipu Beach so that’s awesome. It’s got A/C and the bed was relatively comfortable. I’m never great at sleeping in other beds so I woke up a few times but I don’t feel dead tired right now.

Day two is ahead. That means driving around, getting some groceries and finding some neat places to eat. We’ve got a sunset cruise tomorrow but plan to take it easy on our first day here.

Related : Hawaii Diaries #2