After leaving Waimea, we headed back towards Aulani, stopping at the Dole Plantation. I originally had penciled in getting shaved ice after Waimea, but we were getting tired and saw the LONG lines when we were driving to get Giovanni's at lunch time. On the way, we passed tons on pineapple fields which was pretty neat to see. We got to Dole around 3:00. I was hoping because we were going later, it would be starting to empty out, but as we pulled into the packed parking lot, I saw this was not the case. DH got mad at a couple who "stole his spot" and was yelling/swearing/hand waving. I am not sure they even saw his little fit, but I was embarrassed enough! We found a spot after a few circles of the lot. There is no fee to enter the property, just to do the activities. I had been told the maze took average people around 45 minutes to complete. WE figured it would take us at least an hour and sounded pretty frustrating with preschoolers- so we were here to ride the train, cmon ride the train!!
Matt is really into trains so we knew we had to do this. Side note, when researching, I found out about the
Hawaiian Railway Society. This is really close to Aulani, but it just didn't fit in our schedule. Someone, please do it and report back!!
We bought our tickets and as we were in line a giant tour group sauntered past us. Okay. They were all about 75, so saunter might not be the right word. But, during Disney's Year(s) of A Million Dreams, I won a bunch of free Dream Fastpasses, and I felt like a rock star every time I had one of those pieces of plastic gold around my neck. That was these people. I didn't think much about it at the time...
We go up to the line and they have it pretty well organized. The first two switchbacks have benches for you to wait on in order. So you don't have that awkward "Am I cutting in front of the bench people. If I am on the bench, are people cutting in front of me?" I teach first grade. I spend my life dealing with cutting. Maybe others don't have these thoughts!Anyway, if you were in the first two switches, which were about 50 people each, you got to sit. The third one was against the rail and after that was the dreaded open space where who knows when those people got there compared to us! Maybe they don't have to use the open space much- but they did that day. I had also read the train only runs every 30 minutes. Groan. We are in for a long haul. Well, good news, last spring they got a second train so now they run every 15 minutes on busy days. Woot!
As the first train pulls up, we see the last car filled with about 20 people from the tour group I saw earlier. What? Who are these people with their last car filling ways? Why am I not with them? The rest of their group filled the last car on the next train as well. We got on the third train and waited about 40 minutes. As we were waiting-
Just ONE picture where you are both smiling and looking at the camera? Is that too much to ask?
All aboard!
Ms Hair Twirler made her appearance. Someone is getting tired!!
As you get on the train, they take your picture with a pineapple. I thought they took one with our camera too, but maybe not as I don't have it. I chose not to spend the $30 on our own copy of the four of us with a pineapple. I cando that at Safeway ourselves! The train is an out and back tour about 20 minutes long. They take you by a bunch of old machinery and talk about the history of pineapple farming in Hawaii. It was pretty interesting and 20 minutes was the right amount of time before getting boring. They intermixed the information with songs from some CD they were trying to sell in the gift shop.
While we were waiting to roll, I got some love from my sweet boy.
Someone perked up!
There were lots of signs like this near half dead or disappeared trees.
pink pineapple!
Is she gonna make it?
DH's favorite! He has requested some sort of nut tour next time we go to Hawaii.
And, she's out!
After the ride, Kate was a little grouchy from being awoken from her snoozie, but she cheered up quick when she was promised ice cream! We went and got some Dole Whips. DH does not like pineapple (well, buddy, you are in the WRONG place!) so he got the quesedilla- which he said was decent. Again, all the table were taken, but we managed to find one waaaaaay at the end of the building.
Mmmmmm..... Dole Whip
Now this girl knows how to eat a Dole Whip!
Uh-oh, there is a pineapple on that plate! I think I helped him with that problem!
Then we wandered the gift shop. DH collects shot glasses and golf balls so of course we had to get those. He actually found a guy who collects both those things too while looking at the short glasses, go figure. This is a HUGE store with more pineapple merchandise than you can imagine existed. They had a lot of yummy looking treats, but they were super expensive. I bought some local honey and the kids each picked up a small toy for hanging in there on the long day. Matt got a Pineapple 18 wheeler and Kate got a pink stuffed sea turtle (another stuffed animal????). We drove back to the resort which was uneventful and we didn't hit any traffic. If we had gotten back before 5:00, we told the kids we could do Menhuene Trail, but we didn't get back until about 5:30. Matt was a little bummed about that, but we promised him we would do it the next day. Again- my easy child! DH took him down to the Lost and Found where they had found purple bunny- yay!!!! All is right in the world again! They went to the Pua Huana room and rented Frozen sing along and Rescue Rangers for the night.
We cooked hot dogs and sausages and reheated the mac and cheese from the in room meal for dinner. It was easy and simple. Again the kids were out at 7:00 and we made it till 9:00.
Next up- let's go surfing now!