When I look out my bedroom window every morning, this is not what I see. But that’s what vacations are for: to visit beautiful places and, hopefully, to get such memorable views.
This is the view from one of the rooms in the historic wing of the Moana Surfrider Hotel in Waikiki. This was the first hotel to be built on Waikiki’s beach in 1901, and I think it’s still the most beautiful. I don’t know if I had the best room in the house, but it felt like that to me. That’s all that matters, really.
Truth be told, I had been wanting to stay the night at this white palace by the sea since I first laid eyes on it. But, I did have to wait over ten years to be able to afford a stay at this luxury hotel. They do say good things come to those who wait. We spent one night at the Moana Surfrider last summer on a layover in Waikiki, and I think we all fell in love.
Because we knew how lucky we were, we squeezed all that we could out of our one day. We sipped Lava Flows and smoothies on the beach, we floated with all the other tourists and their neon inner tubes, we took a ride on an outrigger canoe, and then we brought our take-out dinner back to the balcony of the hotel to enjoy a sunset dinner. It doesn’t get much more perfect than that.
I can still hear the sounds of the slack key guitar playing those mellow tunes under the big banyan tree. I remember laying out on the balcony that night, thinking that there is something intoxicating about all that beauty. I looked out past the hotel courtyard, and saw this lady dancing around in the waves. She wasn’t hard to miss, with her Mumu dress pulled up to her knees as the waves rolled in past her dancing feet. I knew exactly how she felt.
Now there are few hotels that I will write a love letter like this for, but I do enjoy many a stay at hotels while on my travels. They say half the fun is getting there. I say the other half the fun is in the hotel you stay at when you get there. That’s why I’m spending a bit of time writing about hotels this month.
I kicked it off by posting a new page on the site with a list of the hotels I’ve loved and reviewed. I’m also planning to share a bit of the process behind how I choose a hotel for our trips and some of my hotel rants and raves. Come back and check it out, I’d like to hear your thoughts on hotel stays with your family.
I’m linking up my hotel dreams to Mother of all Trips’ Monday Dreaming. There’s always something good going on with Mara, go read all about it.
