September Travel #1 (cont.): Hawai'i Hiatus (Part 4/End of Trip)

Tuesday, September 3: Work, Foot Massages, Pesca Restaurant #2

We had a final workday in our respective rooms, and my NYU classes started up for the Fall semester. After some lunch and afternoon reading time, we went to a nearby salon for foot massages and did some final souvenir shopping. Then we returned to Pesca but unfortunately didn't have as pleasant an experience in terms of service, until we luckily got saved by David, the older bartender from Chicago with the multi-colored hair. We enjoyed some conversation with the friendly couple Eric & Donna from Idaho and Iowa who bought a unit on the 12th floor nine years ago ad have been retired since October 2023. Mr. E and Eric talked Big 10 sports for quite some time...!

We got back to our room for sunset on our lanai and then did most of our packing to get ready for our departure tomorrow. I added on a short yoga practice before we finished the evening with our usual favorite TV show set on Oahu.

Wednesday, September 4: Travel Day

A lovely sunset accompanied my final morning walk through the Modern and the Prince Waikiki as a prelude to my usual workout.

We had enough time for breakfast at the hotel before catching a Lyft to the airport for our return flight from HNL to SMF. All was on time, so we were home with the kitties by the evening and had some time to settle in and get ready for the work week.

Final Thoughts About Ilikai

This was our first time staying at this condo hotel, and we have somewhat mixed reviews. We learned that the Aston manage 190 units and all of the rest are owner-occupied. It's definitely an older building, and L and M stayed here for their honeymoon! We liked the studio units that we ended up in for their layout and views, but the a/c was a bit tricky to manage given its location in the room and the picky remote control. Hotel amenities covered by the daily resort fee included a daily newspaper delivered to our door, daily kids size ice cream or sorbet at Dave's Hawai'ian Ice Cream in the hotel lobby, two bottles of water (which we stopped getting once we realized that the hotel didn't have any recycling for plastic bottles ???!!!), and a few other things we didn't really take advantage of. 

One thing that I loved that wasn't mentioned anywhere on the web site was the awesome free lending library with four big bookshelves of fiction and non-fiction that were available for owners and hotel guests. So nice that I didn't have to buy any more books during the trip or for the return flight! I think I ended up reading four books during our stay, and I loved being able to browse the offerings and also donate the book I had brought with me as part of my Beers books purchase before we left Sac.

The hotel staff was super friendly and helpful, making it easy for us to change rooms, for example. I appreciated the morning reserved pool time and the fact that the pool was a decent length for lap swimming. We rearranged the furniture in our primary studio multiple times, and I could stack two of the end tables to make a DIY standing desk arrangement, which was very helpful (glimpse of this to the left in the image below).

The kitchen supplies weren't quite as comprehensive as at the Aston Sunset or the condo hotel on the Big Island. But overall, it was a good location and suited our need for a longer stay. However, I still don't think we've found "the one" lodging on Oahu that we'd return to without question for future visits. More exploring to be done!