Hawaii Travel Diary-Oahu
It’s been almost six months since our honeymoon in Hawaii and my husband and I cannot wait to go back! I did a post shortly after our honeymoon on Makeup Must-Haves for Travel in Hawaii but I realized I never went into detail of what we got into while there. If you’re interested in where we stayed and what I recommend doing while there, read on!
We stayed for two weeks, about 3 days on Oahu and about 10 days on Maui. For Oahu we stayed at Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club. The resort was absolutely gorgeous and the view was incredible! It had its own private beach cove, along with several swimming pools, and jacuzzis. The resort also had several restaurants, a spa, and fitness center. It takes a while to get to Hawaii from Ohio, there’s no good direct flights so we had to fly from Cleveland and have a layover in San Francisco. So after a whole days worth of traveling, we were exhausted by the time we got to the resort, but we quickly perked up when we saw the view from the lobby! After checking in we immediately changed into our swimsuits and coverups and grabbed lunch and of course a cocktail at the restaurant right off the beach. Then we walked the resort a bit to get the lay of the land and then found ourselves on the beach enjoying a few hours of sun and a good nap!
The next day we woke up around 5am to get to Pearl Harbor nice and early. Tickets online are difficult to get and are booked 
months in advance. However, if you get there very early they have a select number of tickets available for free, handed out on a first-come, first-serve basis. So we took our chances as we only had a few days in Oahu and arrived at the USS Arizona Memorial just before 6:15am. Luckily we got there just before several tour and school buses showed up. The doors open at 7 am with tours beginning at 7:30am. The line moved pretty quickly and we got our free tickets with no issue. Also note, it’s good to not bring any bag or purse if you can help it as no bags are allowed on the premises. If you do bring a bag, they have to put it in the storage area and there’s a $4 fee per bag no matter the size. But we were able to fit everything we needed for the day easily in my husband’s wallet and carried our phones.
The USS Arizona Memorial is a must visit if you visit Oahu! There are really no words to fully describe how moving and solemn the experience was. I’ve never been in a tour group before where the silence is deafening because everyone is paying their respects and it is truly remarkable. The center also does a wonderful job of orchestrating everything. They get millions of visitors each year and it ran so smoothly and everyone was very kind.
After visiting the memorial for a couple of hours, we walked down the street to the Aloha Stadium for the weekly Swap Meet.
My coworker told me about the Swap Meet and I’m so glad she did because we had a blast! It’s an open air market where local vendors come set up shop and sell everything from coffee, to shirts, bathing suits, hand made crafts, jewelry, fresh fruit, local art and so much more. This was our first full day in Hawaii so I was in heaven! This marketplace happens every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday from 6:30am-3pm and admission is just $1 per person. When I’m telling you it felt like thousands of vendors, it really did seem to stretch on forever! The swap meet happens right outside the stadium and wraps around, I’m not even kidding, the entire stadium! We got free samples of Hawaiian coffee, I bought some fresh mango with Li Hing Mui (a sweet and slightly spicy spice that they serve on fresh fruit, so delicious!), and we also got some samples of local bakery. Then of course I did some shopping for myself and gifts for family such as jewelry, little artwork, souvenirs such as magnets that my mom and Grandma always love as a gift. I could have spent forever there but I didn’t want to blow all my spending money the first day. However, I do recommend while you’re there, if you see something like a little souvenir such as a magnet or shirt I would recommend you buy it there because the prices there were very inexpensive. After that, I regretted not picking up a few more things because other stores had slightly higher prices for the same stuff.
After wrapping up at the Swap Meet, Chris and I took an uber over to a nearby restaurant right on the water called Restaurant 604. We sat at the bar, tried some local beer and food. I ordered the Shoyu Chicken plate lunch because I wanted to order something “local” as I read a lot about Hawaiian food before going. However, this one was a little bit of a disappointment because the chicken was just so salty it was hard to finish it. A plate lunch comes with usually pork, chicken, or fish and served with Hawaiian Mac salad which is essentially macaroni salad and also rice, so lots of carbs! I probably would have enjoyed a burger from there though as Chris’s food was good. We did, however, have a plate lunch at other places throughout our trip and it was much better elsewhere. The view though you couldn’t beat and the service was really good.
The rest of the day we spent at the resort where we took advantage of Marriott’s Time share meeting to score a free rental car
for the following day and about $150 towards dinner at Monkeypod, a restaurant nearby. The time share meeting was definitely worth it if you’re looking to get some free stuff and are willing to spend about two hours of your time listening to their sales pitch. We had no intention of signing up currently but it doesn’t hurt to listen to the deals as long as you are getting something that’s worth your time. The sales people need to reach a certain quota of people to pitch to, so they will incentivize you any way they can. That night we used the gift certificate for a really delicious four course dinner at Monkeypod. Their food was amazing, we got a couple of appetizers, the gnocchi with pork sausage and the ribeye steak, some cocktails (their Monkeypod Mai Tai is so good, along with their Maui Mule!), and finally to finish it off we got their famous banana cream pie. I’m telling you, this was the best banana cream pie we’ve ever had! Banana cream pie is Chris’s favorite, he asks for it every year for his birthday instead of cake, and when he first tried it he immediately proclaimed it the best banana cream pie he’s ever tried. They use fresh apple bananas grown in Hawaii so it has a slightly sweeter taste to which is so hard to find here. Definitely check out Monkeypod while in Hawaii! We ended up going to it twice while there because we went to the one on Oahu then while on Maui we wanted it again and went to their new location there.
Stay tuned for more on our Hawaii honeymoon! I’ll be posting soon about our last day in Oahu (which felt like 3 whole days since we accomplished so much) and will also be covering Maui in future posts!
For now read about my Hawaii Beauty Inspiration and Travel Must-Haves