Saturday July 30

Saturday July 30th

Everyone managed to sleep in until after 7 but we didn't get rolling til 9. We packed our bags intent to find a rental car and see the island. After riding the city bus for a couple hours yesterday, it was time to splurge a little.
We grabbed some breakfast sandwiches at Subway and headed to Budget. Every single minivan was gone on the island and we thought maybe a convertible would hit the spot.
After some serious negotiations and a couple coupons, we snagged one for half price.

The boys were really hoping for Bumblebee from Transformers but I couldn't resist the red one. Have always wanted to rent a red convertible to drive around on vacation. They only had two so I picked my favorite. A 2011 Chevy Camaro. What a phenomenal ride. Tunes cranked up cruising around Waikiki was fantastic. Squealing tires at Green lights was so much fun...

Alas, the gas mileage not so great! Ha!  Ah well, one more thing off the bucket list!

We cruised out of downtown and headed for the far north side of the island. Hawaii seems to be so lush all year around. We were amazed by all the different shades of green foliage. There were these really cool trees that looked like pine christmas trees but were some type of fern tree.
Oahu has quite a fee hills and valleys with spectacular views. It is very difficult to focus on GPS directions with all the scenery, the music cranked up and the wind blowing in your face ( only 2 wrong turns and detours!)
 After 30 minutes we arrived at the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We went to the huge maze first and found the eight checkpoints. It was in the 2008 Guinness Book for largest maze in the world at that point. Afterwards, we had a ridiculously expensive lunch and souvenir shop. We learned how to look for the best pineapple and how to cut it properly also. We left after lunch and headed to the North Shore seeking some giant waves for the boys. Alas, the winter season is supposedly better but we did manage to find a great cliff diving beach at Waimea.
We parked a km away at St Peter and Paul RC Church and the $5 fee went to raise funds for their trip to WYD in Madrid in a week.
After walking down to the beach, it was apparent that we had to keep an eye on the kids as the North shore undertow should be taken for granted...
We spent a couple hours on the beach. Nicholas enjoyed watching the cliff divers/jumpers and joined them for 3 jumps from about 40 feet though some were 70-80 feet. Lots of people were doing backflips and belly flops so we stayed a while to watch.
After a couple hours, we headed back down the coast with the top down and tunes cranked and grabbed a couple pineapple cones at the Dole plantation. We headed back to Waikiki with a quick stop at Diamond Head crater. You arent allowed to hike it after 430 pm as it takes approx. 90 minutes to do so.
We headed back to Waikiki and sadly dropped the car off early as we didn't need it any longer. We wandered down the street crammed with thousands of people watching buskers and such.
I purchased an Entertainment book for $10 online a month ago. We grabbed a bite to eat in the food mart. We had a rack of ribs, fish and spaghetti. We got the kids back to the hotel, showered and to bed by 10. We had a busy day coming Sunday as we need to be gone by 9 to the airport to fly to Kauai at 10. Great day.