Show Me The Money

     I've never made a nickel blogging. Not that it ever was my intent to do so. That also goes for my other on-line posts as well, usually reviews of places I've written about for TripAdvisor. I've submitted well over 100 reviews there over the years and the most I've gotten out of that is a map with dots marking the places we've been. That was good enough.

     But it appears that one of my reviews there might actually bring me some money. Okay, it's actually a refund of sorts but it still counts in my book.

     Back when we were in Hawaii in November, we had a full day off our cruise ship in Honolulu. I mainly wanted see some sights and hang out at the beach. It appeared the best way to do that was to get an all-day pass for their hop-on, hop-off trolley. We've had bad experiences aboard oversold, overcrowded trolleys on past vacations but were told this one should be okay.

     So our first trolley took us along the coast of Oahu, past the boyhood home of Barack Obama, past the beach where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr were doing their thing in the movie From Here to Eternity, past luxury golf courses and gated communities for millionaires, then back to Honolulu where we hopped off and hung out at Waikiki Beach.

     We were specifically told of the last trolley, the “red line trolley”, that was the only bus to get back to the cruise ship. So after my wife and I enjoyed the beach for a few hours, we camped out at the Waikiki bus stop. Just in case the bus came early, I made sure we were there at the ready, though the sun was quite hot that day.

     Many buses and trolleys came and went. I was looking for the “red line” but didn't see one carrying that sign. Surprisingly, most buses did not have English descriptions, but signs with Japanese or Chinese writing, not sure which. Just to make sure, I once asked a driver, “Is this the red line?” He responded, “This isn't any line.” Great.

     Our trolley didn't come at the appointed time. Another trio of waiting passengers decided to take a cab, but we'd spent an extra $40 just for this last bus tour that would take us to the cruise ship. When it was nearly ten minutes late, Wendy called the trolley company and was told the red line was finished for the day.

     WHAT?? When she told them the bus hadn't arrived at our stop, the company suggested we find its GPS coordinates and plug them into an app on our smartphone to find its location. Again, what?? The only app we use on that "smartphone" is Facebook and I doubt that would help us here. Then they gave us a 1-800 number to call which we did. The bus was arriving soon.

     And it arrived . . . full. Every seat taken. When we boarded, and tried to stand the driver told us we'd be standing for over an hour and implored us to get off at the next stop, just down the block, where he said to take city bus 19 or 20 and “you'll be back to the cruise ship pier in 20 minutes.”

     So we took his advice, hopping off the bus at the bus stop where we took a seat next to a panhandler who was being severely remonstrated for his indolence by an elderly gent who said he was an ex-Marine. Wonderful. Then the ex-Marine boarded a bus and left us alone with the vagrant who gave his persecutor a one-finger salute as he rode off.

     “It's getting dark,” Wendy whispered in my ear as buses not 19 or 20 stopped and went. Downtown Honolulu was getting a little scary for us. People joined us at the bus stop occasionally but they boarded buses that came and went, leaving us alone again with the homeless guy who was dragging on a cigarette, his suitcase on the pavement beside him.

     Finally bus 19 did come. Hallelujah. I asked the bus driver if this bus went to the cruise ship pier. He nodded that it did. We grabbed seats and rode through Honolulu. Remembering the trolley bus driver had predicted we'd be back at the pier in 20 minutes (we'd already waited over 20 minutes for this bus), I kept looking for our cruise ship.

     Twenty minutes later, I was still looking for our cruise ship. It was fully dark now and this part of town didn't look as familiar as I thought it should. It appeared that we were going to Pearl Harbor and that's not where our cruise ship was docked. Was there another cruise ship pier?

     Then the bus stopped and a number of passengers rose to get off. No announcement was made but I could see our ship's silhouette in the distance. We were across an eight-lane busy expressway and down the block, but this was as close to our cruise ship as we were going to get.

     After getting off the bus and finding the energy to cross the highway and make our way back to the terminal, the guard at the security checkpoint warmly greeted us. “Welcome back, Dave” he said after checking my passport. I thanked him, went through the inspections and the x-ray machines after which my wife and I finally breathed a sigh that our troubled journey back was over.

     But it wasn't yet.

     We followed the exit signs posted in the empty main terminal station which took us right back outside. When we discovered we took the wrong door, my wife pleaded fruitlessly with a security guard to let us back in the door we'd just exited. Nope. Back to the security checkpoint, she insisted.

    “Welcome back,” the puzzled guard said.

     “Again,” I said.

     Next time we just might stay on the boat.

     Oh, the money I got. I wrote a review of this trolley for TripAdvisor and lamented about our experience after which the company reached out and, to make things right, sent a check for $55.