Hawaii Thanksgiving Day: Hanauma Bay

The only problem we ran into with all our planning for this week was Hanauma Bay. We had to make our reservations 2 days before we wanted to go at 7 am. This meant that we had to make the reservation while in Hawaii because we had planned to visit on Thanksgiving Day. So, Brian and Danny got in at 7 am on Tuesday morning to make the reservation for around 8 am. The registration opened and Brian whizzed through it and reserved the 6 tickets for their family. Danny was using his new laptop and had to fill in all of his information (no autofill yet) There were no more tickets left by the time he had filled everything in. They were able to reserve 2 more pairs of tickets for different times that morning, but that still left us 2 tickets short. There was still the standby line, so we all got up nice and early on Thanksgiving Day (after our late night at the PCC) and headed off to Hanauma Bay. There was already a line of cars when we got there 15 minutes before standby opened. Instead of waiting at the end of the line of cars, we waited across the street in the start of a blocked off road for them to open the gate. When the gate opened, Brian forced our big van into the line of cars and the nice Hawaiians let us un. We went through the booth and got our last 2 tickets. 

The other downside to the morning was that it was drizzling and windy and the coolest day we had had in Hawaii thus far. Not a great day to spend on the beach. They told us that we could all wait until our latest reservation and go in together, so we had about an hour and a half to kill in the parking lot. Some of us took a little walk up this path to the side of the lot. It had a nice lookout of the bay.

Not only was the view of the bay amazing, but there was also a beautiful sunrise and a rainbow.

After going through the safety video and walking down to the beach, the kids were excited to get in the water and see the fish. We bought new snorkels for the little kids that covered the whole face so they did not have to bother with breathing through their mouths and blowing water out of their snorkels. Tyler and Camden spent about 30 minutes in the water and then decided they wanted a break. it was cold on the beach, especially after getting wet. The water was actually warmer than the beach.

Ashley and Lydia were in the water almost the whole time. Alyssa didn't go in for a while, but once she did, she really enjoyed it. 

The younger 4 kids spent a lot of the time on the shore line playing in the sand.

I had to snap a picture of this lady who was wading in the water with a winter coat on because it looked so funny. It was chilly, but definitely not cold enough to wear our winter coats. LOL!

Danny played this stomp on each other's feet game with the boys in the sand for a while. I don't know if they did it to entertain themselves of to keep warm. The sun did peek through the clouds a bit right before we left. Most everyone was ready to go after a couple of hours.

I took this picture with Ashley right before we left the beach. The trees and vegetation right off of the beach was just as pretty as the ocean view the opposite way.

We headed back to the rental home to get cleaned up and decided on Denny's for dinner We had all decided that the luau the day before was our Thanksgiving meal this year, so we were not looking for turkey dinner, just somewhere that everyone would eat well and would not be crowded and could accommodate our large group. Oh, and somewhere close-ish to home. Denny passed on all accounts.

After dinner, we hung around the house for the rest of the evening and went to bed early. We were all tired.