21st bday STRUGGLE Trip
For those of you who love traveling and, if you’re anything like me, will travel by any means necessary you may be able to relate to this.
I was telling my cousins the story of my 21st Birthday trip to Hawaii so I thought why not blog about it. So here it is.
It was May of 2014 and my bestfriend and I were a few short weeks away from our 21st Birthday celebration in Hawaii. While we were looking forward to it, the entire planning of the trip had been stressful since the beginning.
One day, my best friend and I were talking, and she mentioned how she’s always wanted to go to Hawaii. I thought about it for a second and said “Let’s go!” I explained that we could ask one of my family members if we could use their timeshare and then we’d just need to buy a plane ticket, rent a car, and save up for spending money. We agreed and decided we’d go the following year as a 21st Birthday celebration. Her birthday is May 27th and mine is June 16th so it was the perfect idea.
I asked one of my family members if we could buy her timeshare for the week and she not only agreed but said that she wouldn’t charge us for the week. We only had to pay the taxes and name transfer fees. Bet! She then mentioned that we needed to act soon because the availability in Hawaii goes fast. She asked where we wanted to stay, we said Honolulu and she started sending us places to look at.
Since I was at work while she was sending different timeshare hotels and villas for us to look at, I was forwarding the emails to my best friend for her to look at and just tell me which one she likes. She was right about the availability going fast because the original one we picked was unavailable by the time she went to book it. We finally found a place and it was official.We were going to Hawaii!
Problem #1 Our Flights
Later that day, I checked the prices of flights and they were around $400ish so we planned to have the money for the flight in 6 weeks. 6 weeks came and went and we sat down at the computer to buy our plane tickets and the flights had gone up to around $600ish dollars. That extra $200 we did not have, so we sat that money to the side, decided we’d come back and buy them when we had the money, but this time, we made sure to check the flights daily.
I was new to traveling at this point and wasn’t aware of flights, how they worked, when to book, any of that so we were basically just winging it. The flights went up and back down but never back down to the 400s so we had to get creative. Where could we fly out of that had cheaper flights but wouldn’t cost much to get there? We checked D.C., Baltimore, Norfolk and Charlotte. Charlotte ended up having the cheapest (but still expensive) flight options. The prices kept climbing and climbing until they reached $862 per person roundtrip from Charlotte, NC. We started to worry that this trip wasn’t going to happen cause the money just wasn’t there.
One day in February I was walking home from class and I called my best friend, told her I was going to get the tickets when I got home. I was going to put them on my credit card and pay off what we already had and when we got the rest, I’d pay off the rest. I got home, bought our tickets, pouted a little at how much they cost, and immediately paid off the $1200ish dollars we had saved. The very next day those same flights went up to $921. Something told me to buy those tickets and I’m glad I did because we would have had to cancel the trip if we had to pay anything more than the $862 we paid. At the end of the day WE GOT OUR FLIGHTS! Our rental car was reserved, our flight was booked and our timeshare was waiting for us! We just need spending money.
Problem #2 The Timeshare
We are now 2 weeks away from our epic trip and I sit down to figure out the best mode of transportation from the airport to our destination. For some reason Google Maps was pulling up “No results” so I google the Timeshare and it turns out it wasn’t in Honolulu. Not only was it not in Honolulu it wasn’t even on the same island. It was on Kawaii island and holy shit we have a problem.
I immediately start freaking out, text Peyton and tell my mom. I try to get in contact with the family member that booked it, but I could not reach her. We researched the island and found out there was one bar on the island that was in a hotel. On the island website everyone was over 50 and had white hair. It looked like a quiet, retirement vacation island. Now, that wouldn’t have been a problem because we have fun wherever we go, but it was for our 21st birthdays. I mean, if there were a time to drink it was then!
So, we sucked it up. Came to terms with the fact that our 21st Birthday celebration wouldn’t be quite what we expected but we were determined to make the best of it. We booked a connecting flight from Honolulu to Kawaii Island which ran us about $200 each. Since we were going to snooze island we probably wouldn’t miss that $200 of our spending money.
We are now a week outside of our vacation and my mom calls me.
“I can’t let y’all go to that island for your Birthday’s. Y’all have spent the past year sacrificing and picking up shifts for this trip and that doesn’t even look like a place I would want to go to. See how much it would cost for a hotel in Honolulu for the week and I’ll help pay for it”
Before she finished her sentence I was texting my best friend so that we could find a place. The prices were IN-FUCKING-SANE! (Again, new to traveling, we didn’t know Hawaii was expensive as fuck). Since we would be there for a whole week the hotels were ranging from $1500-$2300. There was no way..no way.
My phone rings, it was my best friend.
“Hello”
“Before you say no, hear me out…”
Now that she said that, I was fully prepared to say Hell NO!
“We could stay in a Hostel..HEAR ME OUT”
Skeptical as fuck me “Okaaay…”
She explained that it was a very common and that we would get our own room that locked and that we would only have to share the common area with other people. I looked at the website, read the reviews. Read up on hostel life in general and I was sold. We called the place to ask a few questions and come to find out, all the private rooms were booked. Our only option would be to stay in the common area of one of the Hostel rooms. Meaning, we and our things would be out in the open and others would have to pass us in order to get to the kitchen as well as their rooms. We both were kind of iffy about it but what other options did we have?
Now, it was time to present the idea to my mom who’s only knowledge of a Hostel was the horror movie where all those young tourist kids got killed. She was not on board. She talked us out of it very quickly. It would have been easier to convince her if we had our own lockable room.
Finally, we found a hotel than ran us about $1300 for the week. My mom fronted us $500 and we paid the other $800 with basically the rest of our spending money.
Problem #3 Our Connecting Flights
So, remember earlier how we said that we would just suck it up and make the best out of Kawaii Island? & how we bought connecting flights from Honolulu to Kawaii? Well, since we threw that out the window, we needed to try to get a refund for said connecting flights.
I called the airline, spoke with a nice young man named PJ, explained my situation and asked if I could get a refund. He explained that I could get a refund and that it was a once per 5 year courtesy. Meaning, if I booked another flight through this airline within the next 5 years and needed a refund I would not be able to get it. Fine with me, I can no longer afford this trip I’m taking, so I know I won’t be back anytime soon. I was told my refund would arrive in 7 to 10 business days, which meant we’d be about to leave, or just getting back home by the time the money reached my account, so I couldn’t count on that refund for spending money.
Here’s where the problem comes in. My best friend called and was denied a refund. I told her to call again in hopes of getting a different person and try again. No luck. Third times a charm? Still no luck. So I decided to call and pretend I was her in hopes that I would get a refund for her. The customer service rep came on the line and I got so excited when I recognized the voice. It was PJ, the same rep that granted me my refund. Pretending I was my best friend, I explained the situation all over again and that the person I was traveling with had been granted a refund. Then, I mentioned the one time per 5 year courtesy that they offered. GOTCHA BITCH, DIDN’T THINK I KNEW ABOUT THAT HUH?!
I called my best friend and told her that her refund had been granted and that it would hit her account in 7 to 10 business days.
Now it was super official. So what we had like $200 to our name for spending money it was almost vacation time bitches!
Problem #4 Food Poisoning
We reached the day it was time to leave, we loaded up, drove the 5ish hours to Charlotte playing “Race the GPS” (You know, when your GPS says you’ll get somewhere at a specific time so you try to shave off time? Anyone?)
We took our first flight and landed in LA for a 5hr layover. We raced through the airport because the plan was to leave, go get In-N-Out Burger (because my best friend had never been there) and then come back to the airport and wait. We did that, boarded our next flight and would soon be landing in Hawaii!
Since I was technically not 21 when we arrived and the car rental was in my name we had to wait until the next day (When it was my birthday in Hawaii not VA) to rent the car. So, instead of taking the shuttle to our hotel (because it was nowhere to be found) we paid for a cab, checked in, was fascinated by the views and went to bed. The next day, we got up, walked to Subway to eat, took the Hotel Shuttle back to the airport and then caught the shuttle to the rental car place. We got the keys playa! First stop, Walmart.
We decided to rack up on bagels and ramen because it was really all we could afford. We found some cute thermal cups and then discovered that they sold liquor in Walmart. One stop shop. We got a handle of Captain Morgan and a Handle of Malibu Rum (priorities). Then, we got a few $1 V8 juices as mixers. As we were leaving Walmart, Peyton mentions she isn’t feeling well, but that it was probably just because she was hungry again. We got back to the hotel, ate our leftover Subway sandwiches and headed out to explore things nearby. Peyton’s sickness was getting worse so we headed back to the hotel. She was throwing up quite a lot but didn’t want to go to a clinic or a hospital, so we made sure she had plenty of water and would play it by ear depending on how she felt the next day.
How was your first day in Hawaii?! Y’alls first night being 21 together?! Welllll….Peyton had food poisoning so we slept. lol
Luckily, the next morning she woke up feeling fine and our vacation could begin. Despite all of the complications we had to get to Hawaii the experience was absolutely incredible. We hiked up a mountain and got muddy, we had our first bar experiences (shout out to the dad that bought us one of everything so we could try different drinks and figure out what we liked. ‘Twas the birth of our love for Tequila Sunrise). We got to lay out on the beach and by the pool, we found a spot by the rocks where the locals liked to hang out, we spent a rainy day inside watching a Gumball marathon, we went to a Luau. My bestfriend’s boyfriend at the time transferred her money and treated us to a birthday steak dinner since all we’d had was ramen and blueberry bagels all week. Even through the struggle and being flat broke while there, we managed to have the time of our fucking lives, so i’d say it was beyond worth it!
