Vacation - Day 1 - Travel Delays

Thursday, March 10th~ Doug and I left for the airport at 11am. We had a parking reservation at Parking Spot and then off to the airport. We were looking forward to the First Class seats all the way to Honolulu. The flight was supposed to leave at 1:25pm. We boarded AA flight # 5 on time, but then were told there were issues with the tail. There was an issue with the high frequency antennae. They had to get the parts from the hanger, then through security, get a large lift for the repair and then find someone to fix it. The flight, finally left at 4:30pm. We arrived in Honolulu at 8:30pm PST / 12:30am CST. Off to Enterprise to pick up the rental car~Chevy Malibu. This is where we were notified that an e8.9 arthquake had hit Japan about an hour ago and the islands of Hawaii were under a tsunami watch, which had just turned to a warning on our arrival. Sirens were blaring every so often. We proceeded to the hotel quickly to make sure we were off the streets. Streets were being closed near the oceanfront, which is where our hotel was located. We safely checked in to the Hilton-Prince Kuhio and given a room on the 33rd floor. This hotel is an evacuation site, so locals were arriving to get out of the low lying areas they lived in. We enjoyed a quick bite in the hotel restaurant(MAC 24) and then headed to bed. The tsunami was due to hit between 3:00am and 3:30am.

At 3:07 am we started getting calls from some of our family members that were worried about us. We assured Garry & Jackie we were safe in this hotel. We were curious and did stay up and watch the live footage on the local news, from a camera located near our hotel. The weirdest site was the water near DiamondHead receding exposing the reef below. It was not the wall of water they predicted and seemed no larger than a high tide. The receding waters though were a eerily different matter.

Back to bed...hope Friday will be a "less" eventful day!! Way less eventful!!