The thought about Maui...

The Oahu Hawaiian Island visit in 2006 had an everlasting effect on us. We were waiting to pounce on any opportunity to visit Hawaii again this year. Visiting Maui or the Big Island was way up on our to-do list for 2007. Chandan and Payal had voted in for a trip to Hawaii anytime and we talked about planning one before the end of the year.

The idea was dropped later in the year and was revived when talks about visiting the US open began late May. Sneha who is a huge tennis enthusiast was very much interested in the trip. We were discussing places to go, and Sneha was leaning towards Hawaii trip instead of the Open. Shashi & I were ok for any Hawaiian island but for Oahu, so we voted for Maui. It was sometime in July we had all agreed including Chandan and Payal.

Shashi was fishing for deals on the net targeting thanksgiving as our travel time. We knew, the earlier we booked the better flight deals. Early alright! We were still unable to find anything within budget for 4-5 nights. The only best deal we could get was ATA airlines that offered low prices if we had a week long stay (3 days extra than anticipated, which meant more time off). It was an easy decision for most of us as everyone seemed to have enough accumulated vacation time. I was the one to worry as I had joined Fluidigm just over a month ago and it would be extremely difficult to take 3 extra days off so soon. Since we couldn’t find anything better so we decided to stick to it. With the flight booked, Shashi was looking for vacation rentals. He found a perfect 3 bedroom house and booked it quickly. The landlady canceled the deal as she didn’t have a license to rent properties which had become a new requirement in Hawaii for vacation rentals. Shashi found a beautiful 4 bedroom house for a little more price and reserved it.

With house and flight booked it was time to relax as we had plenty of time to plan ahead. Sneha however was very excited and overly enthusiastic. She wanted to plan the rest of our itinerary right away. We were all a little laid back and decided to take it easy. Sneha tried doing research and kept pushing her agendas. I succumbed under little pressure and researched and forwarded some weblinks to her. Later she did her browsing and reading. As we were all less enthused, she decided to go ahead and book activities at least for themselves (herself, Sunil and Esha), like Luau and trip to Oahu which we had covered in our last trip.

Time flew by swiftly and the trip was approaching. I had landed a new job. Luckily for me my manager is an amazing lady. She sanctioned three days of leave on loss of pay.

As if asking for the worst to happen Sneha, Sunil and Esha had fingerprinting appointment for green card process that clashed with the journey date. Luckily seats on flight for the next day were available, but turned out pricey.

A week before the journey date we all got together at Sneha Sunil’s for lunch and to come up with the itinerary. Sneha took charge to look up some deals on the website and delegated the calling & booking half to me. I booked a helicopter ride over Hana Haleakala and later that day booked the snorkeling trip. This was all after Sneha’s list of questions and doubts clarified before booking a trip. Chandan and Payal pulled out of snorkeling as Payal was petrified of getting into deep water. We however decided to go for it as the cruise boat had a glass bottom viewing for non-swimmers.