Catch Me If You Can

Monday night the hubby surprised me with tickets to see

"Catch Me If You Can" the musical.

We thought the musical was excellent!

The singing, dancing, & acting were perfect.

And we actually had some Pan Am flight attendants at the show.

Some of the ladies wore their Pan Am uniforms, some wore

just the hats and gloves.

If this show is coming to your area,

I definitely recommend go seeing it.

Even if you don't care for musicals, this one

is very much worth seeing.

The Phone Debacle of 2012

Before the holidays I dropped my phone in a big cup of water.

I thought I could save it, but it was dead.

So I went to T-mobile hoping to get a good deal on the 

Samsung Galaxy III.

You'd think by me being a customer for over 10 years

I'd get a good rate.

Nope, even though it was time for me & hubby to upgrade,

they were going to charge us $350 per phone!

I hate cell phone companies.

They remind me of pimps.

They tell us what we're gonna pay, and we have

no choice but to pay it.

Well not that day.

I refused to pay $700 for 2 cell phones.

So I was phoneless until Black Friday.

Wal-mart had a special on phones that started at 5am.

SGIII's for $130 plus a $100 Wal-mart gift card.

$260 for 2 phones? Yes please!

So we get to Wal-mart and do all the paper work, activate the phones,

and just as they go to print the contract the printer jams.

An hour later, they realize they can't fix the printer and I will have to go to another 

Wal-mart to start over. The manager had to call T-mobile to 

deactivate the new phones and cancel the upgrade but she clearly

told them, they are going to another store and will be doing this again in 20 minutes.

For our troubles, she gave us each a $50 gift card.

We get to the other Wal-mart, do all the paper work, but T-mobile couldn't get 

us activated. They said we had just renewed and we had to wait, then she got hung up on, then

we had someone from T-mobile physically come to Wal-mart.

It was a nightmare!

We waited 4 DAMN HOURS until they could get this resolved.

Once she got the phones activated, she realized she put in one of the phones as a 

different type which made the price of one phone as $80 instead of $130.

She said she was going to start all over.

I lost it yall.

Not rudely, but I told her politely,

"We have been at Walt-mart since 4:30am and it was now

10:30am. We have missed all the other black Friday sales because of this situation.

Walt-mart is going to have to eat this mistake and pay for the difference

because I refuse to wait any more. I am walking out with these phones now and if you have to call

a manager over here, then do it."

She agreed, so we got 2 phones for $210.

PLUS, we were able to use the two $50 Wal-mart gift cards that we got

from store 1 to go towards the cost

of the phones, so that brought it down to $110.

Plus, the account rep from T-mobile had the "activation fees' waived from each phone. 

(Which I don't know why the hell we should have to pay activation fees anyways).

Plus, we got the advertised $100 gift card for each phone.

So although this was the absolute worst experience EVER

with T-mobile, we actually got lucky because of Wal-mart.

 We paid $110 for the phones and got $200 in gift cards, so we actually made $90 

off of this upgrade. :)

Hawaii Summary

So this is my final review on our Hawaiian Vacation.

Hopefully it will help someone out who is 

planning a trip to Hawaii!

First, I am so glad we chose to do a cruise vs

just flying to one island.

I know cruises aren't for everyone, but if you

have ever priced a trip to Hawaii, then you know

how expensive it can be.

Cruising was much more affordable, and it allowed us 

to visit multiple islands vs just staying on 1.

Plus with cruises, you can make payments over time.

So book early so you have  longer to pay on it.

And since food is included in the price, we saved big time

in not having to pay for 3 meals a day x 4 people!

(A whopper meal at a local Burger King was $9!)

 The downside to a cruise is you don't really get enough time to 

fully explore an entire island.

But, you can still get a lot in if you plan right.

Here was the schedule I had written out for us.

I took this notebook along with all my print outs for

receipts for rental cars, passes, groupons, etc.

This kept us very organized because each night the guys

would ask, so what's next on the agenda. 

Initially they said I had too much planned but we actually ended up with a 

lot of down time to relax.

One major way we saved money was that my brother applied for one of 

those credit cards that give you travel rewards.

So we gave him the cash for the plane tickets and he purchased them on his card.

This racked up lots of points, plus he was able to

pay the card off right away.

We used those points for rental cars in Honolulu, Maui, & Hilo.

We also used the points for our "day hotel" in Honolulu from when we returned from the cruise.

My next very important piece of advice is to use the 

hell out of Google for good deals and research everything.

A lot of people feel safer booking their excursions right through the

cruise line. And I totally understand that logic if we were cruising to 

Mexico maybe, but Hawaii is in the good ol USA so I took my

chances and it paid off wonderfully!

For us, we created a MUST DO list for Hawaii.

We all agreed you can't go to Hawaii without:

Seeing Pearl Harbor

 $39 vs $59+ per person

Going to a Luau

 This was $100 either way but based on 

online reviews, we decided not to book with the cruise bc we

read it would be overcrowded.

Seeing a Volcano 

$10 total vs $100 per person
Rode in our own vehicle and stopped when we wanted

Road to Hana

Free rental car vs $139 per person
Rode in our own car vs being crowded 
in a van with 12 other people for 8+ hours

Going to the Beach

Once we had our list, we compared the prices on the cruise website

to all the various links on the Internet.

For me, 9 times out of 10 we found it was much cheaper 

to book things ourselves.

 Definitely check Groupon.

I can't tell you how many times this website

has saved us money! 

I found great deals for dinner, sails, spa, etc.

For plane tickets, it's really hit or miss.

Flying from the east coast to Hawaii is going to be expensive. Period.

But we downloaded this app called Sky Scanner and we just randomly checked the 

prices every week.

We got our tickets for $550 per person which is still high,

but to us it was low because every other time we checked, the flights were about $900. 

So we were extremely happy to get them for $550.

 If you have any questions let me know!

I'm no expert but I will definitely help if I can.

Day 8 & 9- Hawaii Recap

We left Kauai @ 2pm on Friday on our way
back to Honolulu by 7am.

We enjoyed our last day on the ship swimming
& sitting in the jacuzzi.

We also got a special treat when the captain took
us by Niihau.

Niihau was one of the Hawaiian Islands where

Jurassic Park was filmed.

There are only about 150 people who live

on this island. There is no running water, no hotels, &

no one pays rent here!

Magnificent!

On Saturday we woke up to this beautiful sunrise in Honolulu!

 Once we ported in Honolulu, things moved pretty fast.
We hopped in a taxi to take us to a "day hotel"
since our flight wasn't until 6:45pm.
Hubby & brother went swimming in the pool
while me & my mom just relaxed.

View from our hotel!

My mom was shocked at how high up we were!

.

Hawaii was absolutely the best vacation ever!
I think everyone should go at least once,
or twice, or 3 times if you're lucky.

Aloha!

Day 8- Hawaii Recap

(Part 2 of Kauai)

 

After the beach day we went back to the ship to get ready 

for the luau I booked for us.

As you should know by now,

I booked this on our own.

This was the most expensive event I booked but

very much worth it! 

Tickets were $80 per person.

I decided to go with the 

Smith Family Luau!

Don't let the name "Smith" fool you!

They are definitely a Hawaiian family...

We were told that the Grandfather of this family was an 

English man who married a Hawaiian girl.

The Smith Family provides a huge shuttle bus that will pick

you up from the cruise ship and take you to their place of business.

Once we arrived we hopped on the trolley to ride through the beautiful 

grounds with lots of gorgeous flowers and hundreds of birds!

Before hopping on the trolley you can buy bird food.

The birds (including the peacocks) will come right up to you!

Beautiful Peacock!

 Some views of the beautiful flowers!

I loved it here!

The grounds were very well kept!

 Once everyone got shuttled in they started this pig ceremony (or IMU ceremony).

The pig is cooked & buried under ground.

This cermeony would be my only complaint.

There was just way too many people standing around the 

ceremony so not everyone could see.

They definitely need some type of circular bleachers.

I had to force my way in to get these shots!

After this we were directed to a huge pavilion area which 

is where the feast was being served!

There were loooong tables set up for everyone to sit at freely.

It reminded me of a wedding reception to be honest!

The food was served buffet style which I thought would be hectic 

with 400+ people but it was VERY orderly.

They did a wonderful job getting each table up & served!

They also had a full open bar which did us 

no good because we were SO full from all the wonderful 

food that we couldn't drink or eat another drop!

While we ate, members of the Smith Family kept us entertained!

After dinner we walked over to an outdoor auditorium for the show!

This was just like the show we saw on the boat but it 

was a little more lively!

We took pictures when we initially arrived &
of course had to buy it!
Me & Hubby should have switched places, lol!

Kauai was officially our last stop of the cruise.

The next stop was back to Honolulu!