Hi Greg,
Our vacation otherwise is wonderful.
LOL, all vacations to Hawaii are wonderful
It was a pleasure meeting you and your wife too in Aruba. We got to meet jestme and his lovely wife yesterday @ HHV. Frank is the 3rd tugger I've met so far. We've enjoyed meeting everyone.
We're in room 1063 at the Lagoon Tower. We also spent two nights in the Grand Waikikian Tower room 2208 via Open Season. We stayed in a one bedroom plus in both towers. We like the Lagoon tower room layout and views the best. We found the Grand Waikikian room layout awkward and we didn't care for the limited partial ocean view on the marina side and the extremely loud city noise while sitting out on the balcony.
Since it's our first time on Oahu by ourselves (no family & friends), we tried some new things this trip (see list below).
(1) Pacific Aviation Museum @ Pearl Harbor -
http://www.pacificaviationmuseum.org/
We've visited the Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri (Mighty Mo) several times taking family & friends and we've enjoyed each of our visits. This was our first visit to the Pacific Aviation Museum. We enjoyed our visit and tooked the guided tour. I would recommend the museum and guided tour if you've already hit all of the major sights and have time. It's not a must do but if you're in the area and have time, I would recommend it.
(2) Home of the Brave Tour -
http://www.pearlharborhq.com/
It's a family own business. Our tour guy Duke (son of the owner) was great however I didn't think the tour was worth $89pp therefore I can't recommend it.
Perhaps our expectation was too high. We've been to Pearl Harbor several times taking family and friends. We were hoping to get more out of the visits to the military bases. I came away feeling we got a brief tour of the bases but the time spent on the base was not specifically focused on seeing things related to WWII.
I also should have spent time reading the detailed description of the tour on their website which indicates what would be seen at each of the stops (I mistakenly booked a Monday tour which prevented us from visiting the museum at Schofield) -
http://www.pearlharborhq.com/pearl_harbor_tour.html
(3) Alan Wong's Honolulu @King St -
http://www.alanwongs.com/node/176
Alan Wong is one of our favorites. We normally recommend the Classic Tasting menu at Alan Wong's. Since the Classic menu hasn't changed in years, we decided to try the more expensive Chef Tasting menu. We're glad that we tried it but I didn't think it was worth the price therefore I won't be recommending the more expensive Chef Tasting menu to friends and family. It just wasn't as good as the classic menu and some of the courses were nothing special.
(4) James Campbell Wildlife Refuge (for birding) -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Campbell_National_Wildlife_Refuge
It's up north near the Turtle Bay Resort in Kahuku. We drove up there but the site was closed because they lost some of their staff. I got to see some birds but hopefully it will reopen again in the future when their staffing levels increase. It looks like a wonderful place for birders.
(5) The Hawaiian Railway -
http://www.hawaiianrailway.com/
My husband's hobbies are trains and birds. So we had to hit the trains this trip. The train ride is basically for family with kids and diehard rail fans.
The 90 minute ride is available every Sunday.
Phyllis