Maui for Dummies by Cheryl Farr Leas

One last anecdote from our vacation:

Final day. We arrived at the Osaka airport with plenty of time to spare for our afternoon flight. However, the United counter wasn’t open yet, so we shopped and visited the observation tower before trying again. When we arrived, the counter was open all right, and there was a huge line of people already snaking through the area.

I tried to see if we could use the automated check-in computers, but someone in line was trying to explain that I couldn’t. I must have looked confused, because the American then said, “you can’t check in. There’s no flight.” Incomprehension. “There’s no flight—it was cancelled,” he said. Then an airline employee handed me a hastily printed flyer. In both Japanese and English, it explained that our flight had been cancelled and that there were, “unfortunately no accommodations in the Osaka area.”

While E got in line to rebook, I bought a calling card and called my mom in the States and had her call United from there. During the next hour, we waited and waited, while I called my mom every fifteen minutes to check in. There must have been a lot of trouble finding flights for people to San Francisco, because the line hardly moved at all. As far as we could make out, there didn’t seem to be any flights to San Francisco for another two days. Some people were able to get a flight to Seoul, then to the U.S. from there. With a hundred people still in line in front of us, it didn’t seem likely that we would be able to leave that day.

But my mom, who insisted that the airline was not going to leave her daughter in the Osaka airport for two days, talked to a manager was able to get us rerouted out that day. With confirmation in hand, we stepped out of line, leaving hundreds of frustrated people behind us.

Where did we go? We flew that evening from Osaka to Honolulu, arriving at 7:00am. Then we transferred to Aloha Airlines and “island hopped” to Maui, where we had an eleven-hour layover. Eleven hours in Maui!!

(I wished for a moment we had a guidebook, but I let it go. I really need to be more spontaneous, and wasn’t this the most spontaneous way to take a trip to Hawaii there could possibly be? )

First we rented a car and headed for La Haina, the only place I remember from my one trip to Maui ten years ago. I also remembered there being a row of swanky resorts just north of La Haina, so we headed that way, stopping at the first one we saw: the Hyatt Regency, right on the beach.

Even the lobby at the Hyatt was a tropical paradise. The weather was crystal clear, hovering in the low 80’s, bright and sunny. A warm breeze wafted from the surf. We checked into the spa and got lockers, where we changed into our swimsuits. Before getting wet, we had a bite to eat at the poolside café. There, we ate and basked in the sun. Across from our table, an older couple was relaxing in lounge chairs. Each of them was reading a different Maui guidebook, and the one the wife was holding was Maui for Dummies.

“Hey, E,” I whispered. “Look at her book.”

He looked over and shrugged. “Uh-huh?”

“Isn’t that funny?” Was it just me? While I sometimes joke that I don’t want to be reading a book that calls me a dummy, I can see the appeal for many subjects—especially computer-related ones. But when you sit in a lounge chair by the pool of the Hyatt Regency resort, do you really need a book called Maui for Dummies? I don’t know. I guess it’s just me.

And we took off for the beach. We splashed around, sat on our towels watching the kids, then tested out the swimming pool. Finally, we went back to the spa to shower and change. Completely refreshed and tired, we had an honest-to-goodness cheeseburger (so welcome after a week of rice and fish) in La Haina, and returned to the airport for the final leg home.

Remember when I joked about our vacations being so tiring that we need a vacation afterward? Well, we got it this time!

Maui for Dummies by Cheryl Farr Leas


That's me!


View from the Hyatt Regency Spa


La Haina Sunset

Tags: flight cancellation maui Cheryl Farr Leas