In all of the flights we booked, the hardest hop to organise was the one from Fiji to Hawaii. The One World Alliance round-the-world ticket planning website could only offer an insane route via Tokyo!
In the end, Lucy at Flight Centre found cheapest flights with Air New Zealand. Hence we had to fly south to Auckland and overnight there before heading north again and passing Fiji once more when well on our way.
As you might imagine, the Hawaiian islands offer a vast choice of accommodation. I did look at taking a short flight to one of the smaller airports on Maui and going to a secluded resort near there. However, any difficulties with the short hop back could have led to big problems with our next big hop - disastrous in a journey so complicated already. This was compounded by resulting timings on departure day. I also wanted to visit Pearl Harbor, just west of Honolulu.
So we took the simplest way out, and decided to stay on Oahu, where Honolulu and its airport are located. Following the "Beaches of the World" theme, we decided to stay on Waikiki Beach, which is in the southern part of Honolulu.
We chose a hotel (Aqua Lotus at Diamond Head) that has good TripAdvisor reviews. It is a 15-minute beachside stroll away from central Waikiki, and so avoids noise complaints common there. It has no restaurant and, we found on arrival, no bar either.
It all made me wonder whether the hotel is "gaming" the review scores by having nothing to review badly. Being behind other buildings, we had only a partial view of the ocean. The room was lovely, though, and reception very helpful (see below).
What made things work was the hotel next door, with a restaurant looking out over the beach from under the wide, low branches of a set of trees growing up through the floor. The menu was broad enough and well enough executed that we ate there every night and some lunchtimes. Symbiosis.
We started the week quite slowly, not going more than a few hundred metres from the hotel on the first day.
On the second day Clare woke with a headache. When this didn't clear with ibuprofen nor, an hour later, paracetamol (branded as Tylenol in the U.S.), Clare then revealed that she'd had a headache every morning since two nights with feverish symptoms in Fiji, but hadn't told me to avoid worrying me.
We went first to a traveller-friendly clinic, but they said they lacked diagnostic tools and referred us to the Emergency Room at their associated hospital. I was afraid that we were falling into the grip of the American medical system, and was worried how much this would cost us.
We were shown straight into a private room and samples were swiftly taken for tests. Clare was even wheeled up for a CT scan (which only showed a mild sinusitis behind her right cheek).
The doctor came to see us as soon as the test results were in. How different private medicine is from British public A&E! He listened well as we told the story of Clare's ailment for the fourth time. You could sense the subtle precautions against being sued, with only cautious statements and every test that might possibly be needed. The doctor even suggested a lumbar puncture to rule out possible side-infection, but there was a chance of side-effects worse than the original problem.
Ultimately, the doctor diagnosed something serious-sounding but which would clear up by itself in time.
When everything was done we headed out, braced for a grilling about our medical insurance. Instead the reception staff said they had what they needed and (when we prompted) said we should just ask our insurer to fax them a billing address. We were so surprised!
The hotel reception was brilliant when we needed to print out forms from our travel insurer and fax them back internationally. Full marks.
After such an exciting Sunday, we delayed our planned trip to Pearl Harbor to Tuesday and simply strolled into the edge of the built-up area for Monday lunch.
On our first morning I looked into visiting Pearl Harbor, and went online to try to book a slot to visit the memorial for the sinking of USS Arizona during the Japanese attack in December 1941. The first available time was just after our plane out departed!
Our hotel arranged a coach to Pearl Harbor for about a tenth of what a taxi would have cost. We saw all of the attractions except the Arizona Memorial, spending 3 hours on huge USS Missouri, the last great battleship, then lunch and a whistle-stop tour of the Aviation Museum, and finally an hour on the submarine USS Bowfin (which Clare sat out). Six hours flying past.
We took our last day quite quietly again, with another stroll into town for lunch and then time on the beach with a quick snorkel offshore with cheap masks from a convenience store.
We probably didn't make the most of Hawaii, but we did have a nice time and were close to excellent medical services when Clare wanted them. We had to visit as part of our round-the-world leg because the impact of the flights from the UK rules it out as a holiday destination at any other time. We might come again one day, but we'd go the extra mile beyond Oahu.
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