A good friend of ours used his United miles to get two First Class tickets to Maui, in honor of our tenth anniversary. We decided October was a good month to go, considering United was still in business and was able to pay the pilots.

We arrived at SFO in plenty of time for the flight. Since we had F tickets, we got to stand in the 1K/First Class line; like most airline lines, it was a single line served by several agents.

I have developed a number of theories about picking which line to stand in; for example, at Home Depot, one has to watch out for plant-buying check writers. People who buy plants always seemed quite shocked that there is a payment required and this consumes a lot of time. And of course, people who write checks in 2002 – I mean, why not just bring a goat to barter?

Anyway, at the airport, there isn’t much choice. We got to stand behind Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer. The reason we knew this was that just as it was Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer was about to be served by one of the four agents on the (short)1K line, the next agent said, “Sorry, sir, I’m closed.”. This outraged Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer. He couldn’t believe it! He had waited a Whole Three Minutes in line and now this outrage! He proclaimed, “I’m Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer! You can’t close! Where is your supervisor??! I’ve flown over a Million Miles!” He carried on until one of the remaining open agent yelled over, “Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer – I can take you.” So, Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer got to stand right behind the other customer being handled by that agent and wait. Meanwhile, another agent opened up and took us, while Mr. Important One Million Mile Flyer was standing behind the other customer and waited, just like a VIP like him deserved.

We checked in two bags – wendolene’s steamer trunk and my garment bag. We went to security. I had had a dream the night before that there was going to be an earthquake, and that our house would slide down that road 2 miles (but would be otherwise undamaged), so wendolene took that as an Omen and packed all her jewelry in her backpack. The jewelry is metal (Lapponia, from Finland), and comes in a metal lined bag. Also, since she had not flown since last summer, and obviously had not read a newspaper since, she packed her fancy European manicure set, glistening and fully capable of performing emergency surgery on board.

Needless to say, this caused quite a distraction at security. I could have carried on a scud missile, as all of security descended upon her. After all the excitement was over, she dumped all the jewelry in my now 50 pound carryon, and went back outside security to check the backpack.

First class on the 767 was full. We had a window and aisle seat. Legroom was fair, not great. The plane took off on time, and we were on the way.

They were running a contest (“Halfway to Hawaii”) for the person who determined when the plane would be midway between the mainland and Hawaii (it was never clear what the prize was). The flight crew supplied all sorts of wind speeds, plane speeds, vectors, etc. (It turned out the right answer was exactly 2.5 hours into the 5 hour flight. Duh.).

We didn’t have any drinks, but the couple in front of us made up for us. In fact, about two hours into the flight, I calculated that they single-handedly got United “Halfway to Bankruptcy”.

Although I’m not elite on United anymore, I was for a long time – I’ve flown about 400K miles on UA, almost all in front on long-hauls and transoceanics. In all that time, I never – not once – received a “gift” bottle of wine per the legends posted on the United board. Anyway, I thought I would give it a shot.

The FA’s were taking food orders for the three entrees. They were darting this way and that way all over the cabin. My wife said “What the heck are they doing?” (she really didn’t say heck or anything close to it). I said they were taking orders based on Mileage Plus status (since we were on award tickets on someone else’s account, our UA FF numbers weren’t even on the records for this flight!). She said, “That is so stupid” (no such thing happens on Delta).

When they got to me, I smiled and said, “Just bring me what is left over; I have no preference.” She said “Are you sure?”. She checked back a few time, finally saying “all I have left is chicken – is that going to be OK?” I said, “That sounds wonderful”. I figured that bottle of wine was mine.

Of course, I do have standards. I didn’t say, “It is our tenth wedding anniversary.” Then, you’re just begging. I didn’t give a flying leap about the wine, anyway – it was the principle.

(By the way, I didn’t get the wine. My wife did order a Drambue and spilled it on me, however).

We arrived early into Maui, got our bags and our rental car (a Dodge Neon from Dollar). It would take me 6 days to figure out how to turn on the dome light without opening the door.

We had booked a week at the Grand Wailea on the south part of the island. This is the section of the island with the opulent resorts, fancy beaches and golf courses. And we were going to spend a lot of money and get no miles from the plane ride, hotel and car (with the exception of the credit card miles!).

The Grand Wailea is a massive resort hotel with 7 pools (which we would never wind up using), hot tubs, artificial rivers, streams, ponds and bridges. The streams were full of tropical fish. The place reminded me a bit of the Opryland hotel with two exceptions: (1) There is no dome; (2) Opryland is one of the nine circles of he11.

We had reserved an “Ocean” room, but when we checked in, my wife asked for a room with double beds, since I picked up a cold on my Vienna-Paris trip . Romantic, huh?

Anyway, desk clerk searched for a while and then said, “I’ve upgraded you to a Deluxe Ocean” room, meaning we get the fancier ocean.

The room was very nice, but at $450 or so a night, it should be (we actually had enough Marriott points to get a room at the Renaissance, but wendolene insisted on the GW).

I did like looking at the fish. I don’t know much about fish that doesn’t come on a small mound of vinegared rice, so I would tend to make up my own species names for them (“3D fish”, “Pineapple Upside Down Fish”, etc.).

We had both been working very hard, so this was a “relax” vacation – low on activity (I don’t swim, anyway, that that cuts a lot of stuff out). However, since wendolene has dropped about 80 pounds this year and is now a full-fledged she-jock, we needed to get up every morning about 5:30 for a 3 mile beach run/walk.

The fish like to sleep (they just float there, which looks kind of silly, but I can’t imagine any way a fish would sleep that wouldn’t look silly to a non-fish), so we would jog by them at 5:55 and wake them and their friend Luca Brasi and be on our way.

We’d grab some breakfast from the fridge in our room, then hit the beach at 8:00 – leaving before 10:30, when the sun got too intense. I have a custom with sunscreen – I use SPF 906 or so, and spread it all over my body, with the exception of certain, random spots, which would burn. At first, it was just carelessness, but now I consider it a form a performance art.

One thing about the “tourist part” of Maui (South & West) – every single eatery, fancy or simple, full meal or snack – has a gift shop that sells t-shirts and merchandise with the name of restaurant. Every meal is worth of a piece of clothing. If you eat so much you jump a size, they are ready to capitalize.

The Grand Wailea has a “world famous” Spa, the Spa Grande (there are a lot of world famous things on Maui that I had never heard of). Wendolene wanted to get a massage, she suggested I do the same. I told her I was much to tense to have a massage (and the $140, plus tax and tip was not going to make me any less tense). So, she had one and was so relaxed she was practically comatose for three days.

Our return flight was scheduled for 9PM. We left the resort at 2PM, and went to the airport side of the island, where the Real People live. We had a wonderful early dinner at the Moanai Bakery & Café in Paia. When then parked the rental car in short-term parking, checked our bags and checked-in, and then took the car and went to Borders for some shopping.

The flight home was on time – strong winds made it a short, 4.5 hour flight. We skipped on the food, and tried to get some sleep. We got back to our house at about 6 AM, unpacked and took a nap..

<Even more trip reports at http://home.pacbell.net/opus17 >


[This message has been edited by opus17 (edited 10-20-2002).]