Well so much for "I don't want to always travel to the same place" - this is our third consecutive year travelling to Maui. Now we have travelled to other places as well during this time, so I don't think I'm really breaking my own personal commitment to myself at this point. And even if Maui were the only yearly destination, would that actually be that terrible? It offers a lot of the things I look forward to for vacation.....warm sunshine, gorgeous sandy beaches, good snorkelling, and well a break from reality!
Our day started early....5:30am early. You know, it's only for vacations where I don't mind getting up at such a hour. We travelled through LA with a 2 hour layover there. That 2 hours went by real quick with having to make our way from one terminal to the other side of the airport to our departure terminal, to having to sort out seat assignments which got really messed up at check-in, to re-clearing security to having lunch and being at our gate for boarding. We flew United from LA and for whatever reason United hasn't retrofitted their planes with individual TV's so we had pre-decided to watch the movie "Now You See Me" on the computer. This would not have worked well with our original seat issue of being seated in different rows. The movie was fantastic, worth seeing especially for anyone who enjoys a good magic show.
We arrived in Maui around 4:30 local time and made our way to our hotel in Wailea. Our rental car is a Ford hybrid and it has a bunch of neat features including in car navigation. The drive to our hotel started getting us on Island time and into the relaxed atmosphere of the Island. We checked in and were upgraded to a lovely and overly spacious junior suite with an ocean view. How awesome is that? Or should I say how awesome is Z and all the hard work he puts in to get these perks?!?!
Just as I was quickly settling into vacation mode and relaxing, I went to my suitcase to unpack a little and found that a lovely 3-lettered agency had picked my bag for additional screening. But what really annoyed me about this "exercise" of theirs is that my lock which is approved by this 3-lettered agency appears to have been cut off instead of being opened by the master key they are supposed to use. Now of course I did not witness this so I cannot be 100% sure they cut it off, BUT inspecting what's left of the zipper it looks like a clean cut versus my bag getting stuck somewhere on the conveyor belt system. What's more to support my suspicion is that my suitcase has a 2 zipper system and the 2nd zipper is also gone along with not so cheap lock, and to top it all off, there is no visual damage to the zipper track itself. So it would seem in my humble opinion that my suitcase did not get stuck, as this 3-lettered agency would tell me if I complained to them, and in fact was accessed by them by cutting off my lock. So I was rather annoyed at all this, but on the bright side I get to go suitcase shopping when I get home. After having had a day to disgust this, it also struck me that the extra "security" gained by them searching my bag is a farce because absolutely none of my contents appeared to have been moved while they "searched" my suitcase. Everything was exactly as I had placed it except that I found a lovely card from them saying they searched my bag. OK...I'm done ranting on this topic. Anyone interested in knowing how frequently this occurs, just google search it. You'll be amazed at the amount of similar stories out there.
We had a great dinner at Cheeseburgers at the Shops at Wailea and I'm looking forward to heading there for happy hour so I can enjoy some half price Piña Coladas!! They make a GREAT PC!!
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