Hawaii Part 4

Our last day on the big island of Hawaii, was serene and relaxed. We started the day off with a short two-mile run around the Waikoloa resort loop drive and landed on the hotel's beach for some R&R and one last look at our hotel's beautiful, private bay.

On our first day, we were told that the hotel's beach is one of the most popular places for sea turtles because it is very shallow, which provide safety from deeper waters. As we soaked up the rays, so were some of these large sea turtles. We saw a few hanging out beach side and swimming around in the water.

During our run that morning, we passed a Hilton resort also located in the Waikoloa beach area, so, later in the day, Justin and I walked up to check it out. It was huge, much bigger than the Marriott, but it didn't have ocean front property—nah, nah, nah. However, it was so large that it not only had a tram shuttle taking guests from end to end, but also a man-made canal with boat shuttles as well.

The Hilton also had exotic birds placed along the canal and a dolphin pool where guests could swim with them. This particular dolphin kept circling the pool and would turn his? her? head to face one eye up to look at me. I think it was flirting with me.

In the hotel's man-made pool, were a couple of sea turtles. Just like the size of the resort, this pool was ginormous, it was so large that guests could rent paddleboats and tool around the water and feed the turtles. This one was mowing the leaves down so, I appropriately named him Starvin' Marvin.

After exploring the Hilton, we went a few miles north to Hapuna beach. Our travel book described this beach by saying if you were to imagine the most perfect beach in the world, you would be picturing Hapuna beach. After seeing it first hand, I wouldn't go so far to say it was perfect, but it wasn't bad.

Right on Hapuna beach is the Prince Hotel, yet another amazing resort, and just outside they have this beautiful walkway lined with perfectly white palm trees. I couldn't pass up the chance to snag another photo.

We closed our last day by dining on oysters and fruity, cocktail drinks at the Prince Hotel's Coast Grille as we watched the sun set on Hapuna beach.

Bright and early the next morning we were off again, jetting back to Oahu for two more days of fun in the sun before heading back to Chi-town. FYI: If you missed the first three parts of our Hawaiian vacation, you can catch them here, here, and here.