Maui ... Finally...
Well, I got to Maui last night… 36 or so hours after I left Calgary. At least the weather in Vancouver was really nice.
As for Maui, well… I got in late last night so I couldn’t tell what it was really like. My eye was at it’s worst last night so that didn’t help. John and Syl put some antibiotic ointment on it and then proceeded to put on diaper patch on it. I kinda look like a pirate, but not quite…
This morning the eye was quite swollen but after some compressing, it was better. Tonight, it’s much better but I’ve put ointment on it again and it’s patched again… Arrrrr…..
As for the day, we spent the day sitting on the beach, swimming, and building sand castles. Tonight we went to a luau… I’ve never been to one before and it was quite fun… They had this pig cooking in a pit all day….mmm… cha seew… They also had the other 3 main food groups covered, teriaki steak, honey chicken, and turkey… and also fish, but that’s not one of the main food groups.
After dinner, there was some entertainment… dancers… in grass skirts and coconut bikinis… Syl picked out a girl for me… she has good taste… the fire dancers were cool too…
we have a tour of Hana tomorrow…gotta be ready by 6:40am… eesh… early…
A New Day
The debate in my head last night, and a bit on MSN was whether or not I should get up early and fly around the continent first class… I decided to set my alarm for 4am and decide then. It would all hinge on how I felt, and more importantly how my eye felt.
I woke up at 4:50am… my alarm didn’t go off… should have gotten the wake up call. Since I was supposed to be at the airport in 10 minutes, I decided I wasn’t going to make it. That was an easy choice.
So I slept till 9… amazing how much better an extra 4 hours of sleep makes you feel. My right eye was glued shut though this morning… a sign of infection I hear. After washing it, I was able to see out of it. Albeit barely… my eyelid was quite swollen. And there’s these little white spots on the inside of my eyes.
And what luck, my cousin’s in Maui… yes, the doctors were on MSN. So I send some pics of my eye over there… yep, I’ve got conjunctivitis, which according to Wikipedia “is an inflammation of the conjunctiva (the outermost layer of the eye and the inner surface of the eyelids)”
Gotta love the internet… i send a pic to some doctors, they come back with a diagnosis and I can look up some home remedies for it. Brilliant! This interweb thing might catch on after all…
So here I am killing time in Vancover. There’s not a lot to do around the hotel, and without a car, I’m pretty much stuck here. I got a late checkout at 1pm, and I managed to get a hold of my friend Melissa who I haven’t seen in a few years. So I’m still in Vancouver, but it’ll still be a pretty good day. For now, I’m going to take a nap and rest my eye some more…
Man what a day...
February 9th… the day I was supposed to get to Maui… 8 hours later, and i’m in…. Vancouver…
Owww my eye
The morning started out at 6am… yes 6… no, my flight wasn’t early, but my right eye was killing me… not swollen or anything, but it had been bugging me for a few days… so I decided to go see a doctor at the drop in.After checking a few things, Dr. Davey put some dye in my eye and looked at it with one of those eye machines… yes, that’s what their technical name is for it… he told me that cause of the dry air in Calgary, and my dry eyes, that my contacts probably scratched my eyes and now they’re irritated…
So I’ve been using these drops for my eyes… since yesterday morning…
The Scramble
Anyhow, back to the travel story… my original flights were UA 6421 from Calgary to San Fran at 1:27pm, then flight39 from San Fran to Maui at 5:25pm. Well 6421 was delayed 2.5 hours so I was going to miss my Maui flight. So the rep, I’m sorry I didn’t get her name, cause she was awesome tried everything to get me to Maui. So she put me on standby on AC 217 leaving at 3pm to Vancouver and confirmed me for flight AC57 from Vancouver to Maui… Well, 217 was overbooked by quite a bit and they only let one standby passenger on… and it wasn’t me… all the standby’s got pushed to AC 221 leaving at 4… that one got me in at 4:25, which left me 15 minutes to catch the connecting Maui flight.I didn’t think that was enough time so I went back to the United counter to see what my backup plan was if I didn’t make the connection. She told me to get out of Calgary cause all the flights tomorrow were full. If I got to vancouver there’d be more options and I’d have more options… She also booked me on first class from Vancouver if I could make it there. The first class ticket goes Vancouver to Denver, Denver to Maui with a stop in San Fran… but it left at 6:57 am! 
If I missed the connection in Vancouver tonight at least I had an out in the morning. And if I had to sleep at the airport, at least it wouldn’t be for that long…
Well, I got on 221, but it ended up being delayed cause it got to Calgary late, one of the luggage doors was stuck, then the plane had to be de iced again cause it was sitting around for so long… by the time the plane left 2.5 hours later, some people had finished watching a movie on the personal movie screens…
Ah, the plane… I’ve never been on an Embraer 190... but it’s quite new and modern. Each seat had a personal tv screen with movies/tv and such that you could start and stop whenever. It also had a USB slot for charging stuff… quite handy…
I finally got to Vancouver at about 7:00. There were a bunch of people on my plane going to Honolulu, and they were holding up that plane for them. After grabbing my bag, I find the one desk that Air Canada that was open, explain my situation to them, and ask if I could at least get to Honolulu tonight and catch a short flight in the morning from HNL to Maui. That way, I wouldn’t lose a day. Unfortunately the flight was full. So I asked if she could put me in a hotel since I missed the connection. She looked at the United ticket, then at my Air Canada boarding pass and said “well, you missed cause AC 221 was late, so I can get you a room”. I wasn’t expecting that. After all, it is United I was booked through, not Air Canada. After that, she confirmed me on Air Canada’s direct flight to Maui at 4:50pm… so now I don’t have to get up at 4am and sit in a plane all day. It’s not first class, but I’ve got a hotel now, some food vouchers and I’m tired…
Anyhow, now it’s late… I’ve had a long day… and I’ve only gotten to Vancouver… Oh, the eye? Um… it’s swollen now… I don’t think those eye drops are helping… Good thing John and Syl (my cousins vacationing in Maui) are both doctors.