Day 16 Big Island - Kauai: Continuing flight with malfunctions...

August 7, 2022

We wake up at 5 o'clock, have a quick breakfast, load the car, and drive to the airport. The Avis rental station is closed. Hm... now what!? Since Avis and Budget apparently belong together, we try our luck at Budget and can drop off our rental car here. We then take a shuttle to the airport. At the check-in machines, we are already expected by an employee who explains to us that all machines are out of order due to a technical problem. Oh no...

We have to check in through the app (luckily I had downloaded it on my phone), but we are not supposed to add and pay for luggage. The ladies at the counter will take care of that.

After we have checked in, we go to the counter where the lady issues a luggage tag by hand (!). But we don't have to check or pay for luggage with her either. Hm...

I wonder if the manual luggage tag will work??? Well, everyone has to do it - it will be fine.

We go to the gate and wait for the plane. The plane is full. Since a connecting flight is apparently delayed, we have to wait, as today only one plane takes off from Big Island to Kauai.

With a 20-minute delay, we finally take off.

We are sitting on the right side and can see Kauai during the approach. It is quite cloudy as we approach for landing.

When we arrive at the gate, I hear the flight attendant announce that all passengers whose connecting flights were late should report to the information counter, as their luggage did not make it onto the plane.

We joke that "lost" luggage would solve our luggage problem today. It is 10:30 a.m. and we can't check into our apartment until 4 p.m. It is still unclear what we should do with our 4 suitcases. We will see what kind of rental car we get. If necessary, we will just have to park at some beach park and stay with our car. Well, it will work out, it worked on Big Island as well.

The baggage claim is already running and many suitcases with luggage tags "HNL" - which means Honolulu - are finding their owners. The passengers of our flight, like us, are waiting at the baggage claim. Eventually, all suitcases are gone and the belt stops.

No!!! Seriously???? Where are our suitcases???

Like everyone else before us, we stand in line at the baggage information counter. This could take a while...

When it's finally our turn, we receive a form to sign and are informed that our flight flew completely WITHOUT luggage. The lady couldn't tell us whether this was due to the problem with the machines or the manual luggage tags.

The baggage will be flown in between 3 - 6 p.m. with planes from Honolulu and then sent to our apartment by courier. But she cannot tell us the exact time. Great.

So we need to go shopping before we go to the apartment, because we won't be able to leave afterwards.

At Budget, we pick up our rental car. It looks familiar. Another Nissan Altima, this time with a funny license plate (KEN). There are chickens and roosters running around everywhere around the car rental, one chicken with chicks even runs through the room, in through one sliding door and out through the other 😂

The kids are hungry, so we go to Taco Bell near the airport.

After that, we drive to Kalapaki Beach, which is only a few minutes away, and take a look around. Kalapaki Beach is very popular with surfers, there are quite a few of them in the water. The husband and daughter are already planning to have a surfing day here.

We take a look around the nearby mini-mall behind the beach and find, among other things, a "Christmas Store" 😂

Actually, we want to have ice cream, but in the ice cream parlor, one scoop of ice cream costs a whopping $8 - uhm no, better not. We get something cold to drink in the shop next door and then watch the surfers on the beach for a while before we drive to Walmart. It's time for our weekly shopping. Finally, we have plenty of time to shop and compare prices in peace. Expensive - as we already know from everywhere else.

My men each grab a Hawaii sun hat, otherwise only the most necessary items end up in the shopping cart.

At 3 p.m. I receive information from our landlady that our apartment is ready for occupancy and we can check in earlier. Perfect!

We drive about 30 minutes south to the Poipu Sands Village complex, not far from Shipwreck Beach near Poupu Beach. This is where our apartment is for this week.

The apartment is really nice and after we have stowed away all our purchases, we first test the spacious pool. It's really cool!

For tonight, we bought burgers that we grill outside on one of the many barbecue areas and then eat on our big balcony.

By now it's dark and our luggage still hasn't arrived. We inquire at the airport about where our luggage is. They tell us that the luggage is on its way and will be delivered by a courier. But no one can tell us when that will be.

We continue playing card games when the doorbell rings at 9:30 p.m. Yay!!! Our suitcases have safely arrived. Now there is only one suitcase left in the courier's bus, so we were almost the last ones to receive our luggage today.

Funny, now our luggage was already on Oahu / Honolulu and we were (still) not 😂😅