Finally arrived!!!

I'm writing this in on the 6th floor of our hotel room in lovely Oahu Hawaii!! It's so beautiful here and warm and relaxing. Tomorrow we're going to Hanauma bay to go snorkelling and swimming all day! I'm so excited. I would love to put a few pictures up, but i'm on my dad's laptop which doesn't have photoshop so it is unable to process my pictures. The reason I'm writing this post today is to tell you the story of our wonderful adventure on trying our very hardest to make it to Hawaii.
It started on saturday the 20th. We left our home in Edmonton around 10:30 because our flight left edmonton at around 1:20. So we arrived, checked our baggage and whatnot, then flew to seattle at about 1:30. All seemed to be going really well and everyone was so excited! We made it there a little late (around 2:30) but we werent worried because our flight to Honolulu didn't leave until 5:30. We happened to land in Seattle during a snowstorm (which is very strange for Seattle) but we figured nothing of it because we've seen MUCH worse and it was in fact snowing in Edmonton when we left. So we hung around, played some games and had something to eat. We kept making sure our plane was leaving at the right time, but found that it wasn't supposed to take off until an hour later (6:30) We thought whatever, we'll just arrive in honolulu round midnight. Oh how wrong we were. They boarded all of us passengers onto the plane, and we ended up sitting on the plane at the gate for 5 hours!!!! You could tell seattle obviously never got snow because they had I think three snow removal trucks out on the runways trying to clear it, and only 2 de-icing trucks! It was a disaster!! We got de-iced about 2 hours after we had been in the plane (we were waiting in line for de-icing) but then we had to wait to take off (which ended up being another 2 hours. By then, our de-icing had worn off so we needed to get de-iced again. This time we actually made it to the runway. We were getting excited thinking we were finally going to be able to take off, but our hopes were dashed when the pilot announced that the runways weren't clear and we were going to have to cancel the flight for that night. Everyone left the plane extremely grouchy. They also promised us a flight the next morning at about 11:30. So we thought we'd just get a hotel room and come back in the morning. But to our dismay, when we called, we couldn't get a hotel room. So we ended up staying in the "comfy" airport overnight. It was so cold and we had to sleep on the floor. We found out our flight was cancelled at midnight, so we'd already been there for 10 hours. And now we had to stay another twelve until our flight.

That was one of the longest nights I've ever had, and I think any of us were lucky to get 3 hours of sleep. We all woke up around 6 or 7 and just waited around, had breakfast and kept watching the board for our flight. Come nine o'clock, my dad happened to find out that the company we were flying with, actually used our plane to fly people to minneapolis only about an hour earlier! We were so mad because we would have been able to fly out the night before (It wasn't a very bad snowstorm at all, and planes take off in canada in that weather all the time, i'll show you pictures) So now we were going to miss a full day and a half of our time here. We ended up paying for a hotel room and car rental we didn't use, and were facing another night in the airport. After that, the company put us (along with 240 other angry passengers) on standby for their plane leaving at 5:30 (which was already fully booked) We pretty much gave up hope on that flight because there were 240 people who were supposed to leave the night before trying to get on that plane. My dad called his travel agent and asked her if there were any more options (where we wouldn't have to pay) and she ended up setting us up with another flight that landed on a different hawaiin island, but had a connecting flight to honolulu. We transferred our tickets and went through security again just in time to make it to the next gate. We had an hour left before we were supposed to board, and low and behold, they cancelled our flight yet again because the airport (rather the company) ran out of de-icer. We were so exausted and angry, and hopeless, that we were deciding to just head back to Edmonton and have christmas at home. So we walked back to the Northwest gate (the company we were originally trying to fly with) and were going to see about cancelling our tickets and transferring to an edmonton flight. While we were there we noticed that there was a plane flying to honolulu around 5:30. So my dad decided to try one more time, and if that didn't work out, we were going to fly home. We were able to board that plane (on stand by) because there were empty seats. and we actually were able to fly out of there around 10:30 seattle time (11:30 alberta time) We arrived in Honolulu at about 3 am Hawaiin time (7 am alberta time) and went to get our bags. Oh, I should also mention that when we went to transfer our tickets to that other airline, we went to get our bags and found out they already sent them to honolulu. So we arrived in honolulu to get our bags, and were told that 4 of them weren't there!! we were so frustrated and exhausted and we'd already been in our clothes for three days, so we just wanted to get to our hotel to rest. We sent out a mising baggage description and asked if they could send them on the next flight out. (That was early monday morning) and we just received our baggage finally this morning!!!!

It was an exhausting and such a frustrating trip, but we are so thankful to be here safe and fine. We aren't happy with the airline service along with 240 othe people (If you'd seen how not bad the weather was, you'd understand) but we're just laughing it off now, and calling it an adventure! We've been touring around lots, and in fact, Marlys can barely walk now because of all of our touring. We have yet to go swimming in the ocean but that is tomorrow's day! I miss all of you and hope to talk to you soon! Have a wonderful Christmas!