This is not about my time in Hawaii, but about the actual process of getting from my house in Aliso Viejo, CA to Kona on the Big Island. I have made this trip many times before and the process was always simple. Buy a plane ticket and fly to Kona. Rent a car and drive to my timeshare. This was not to be, this time. Due to a combination of the CV-19 virus and my incompetence, (I blame on my age not my IQ), it became a frustrating and expensive experience.

The process started when I found a flight with the perfect times for us, a direct flight out of LAX to Kona, taking off at 7am and arriving around noon. It was on Alaska Airlines. I gave Karin the fight information and she booked the same flight, but it was with American. Same plane and times. A few days later I got an email notification from Alaska saying,” Your travel plans have changed.” I was now on a flight that arrived in Kona at midnight, and Karin, was left on the original flight. I called and told Alaska that “my travel plans did not change” and I wanted my money back so I could buy a new ticket on American and be back with Karin. I did that.

All seemed to be back on tract. A few days passed and we got a message that our American flight had been changed. We were now taking off at noon and arriving in Kona at 8:30 pm. I called and changed my car rental to a 9pm pick up.

We got the information that we had to be tested for CV-19 within 72 hours of our take off time. OK we can do that. Then we were told that it had to certain type of test by a certified facility that the airline and Hawaii accepted. They gave us a list. I started calling places on the list and found out that we had to pay for the test because it was considered to be a voluntary test, not a medical test. I could understand that. After calling a number of places I finally found one in Carlsbad, 60 miles away, that only charged $170/test. Everyone had a different price. Some were up as high as $395 each. We drove to Carlsbad on Tuesday morning to get our test within the 72 hrs.

We were told that we had to create an account with the state of Hawaii and upload our results when we got them by email. Karin did that on her computer and I did it on my computer. We were under pressure by now because we needed to upload a picture of ourselves, fill out a health form, and upload our CV-19 results from an email we were to get on Wednesday. Once it was all complete, a QR code would be sent to us which we must have on our phone or we couldn’t board the plane.

With the help of my daughter and her husband we were able to figure out how to do the health form and the photo. I received my test results, but Karin’s didn’t show up in her email. It was now late Wednesday and I’m going into panic mode. I called the Carlsbad testing site.

They had sent her results to my email address, instead of hers. They guided me through how to find it on my computer. I found it, then sent Karin an attachment for her to upload into her Hawaii travel account. It didn’t work. I printed a copy of it and took it to the airport with my fingers crossed. It worked – – they let us on the fight.  We landed in Kona at 8:30 p.m., Hawaii time. I’ll pick it up at that point in my next blog. The adventure isn’t over yet.