Vanessa and Joseph Travel

We visited 8 cities over two weeks in our European Christmas Markets trip across Germany, Austria, and France. We wanted to fit in as many of the top Christmas Markets as we could in our time there. We did research online with YouTube videos, google, TripAdvisor, and the Magical Christmas Markets of Europe Facebook group. We figured out our path of cities after a lot of research, along with researching the flights that worked best for us. We flew into Munich, took a train to Salzburg, took a train to Nuremberg, picked up our rental car in Nuremberg and drove to Rothenburg ob Der Tauber, drove to Strasbourg, took the train to Colmar for the day, drove to Cologne, and finally we drove to Frankfurt to fly home.

Overall Ranking of Christmas Markets at the Cities we visited:

1. Nuremberg
2. Cologne
3. Rothenburg ob der Tauber
4. Strasbourg
5. Colmar
6. Salzburg
7. Munich

Favorite Christmas Market Mugs:

1. Heinzels Wintermärchen – Cologne, Germany

2. Nuremberg

Overall Thoughts on each city we visited

• Munich – This was where we flew into, and it was a good introduction to the Christmas Markets. We loved the Christmas Village at the Residenz, and had an amazing “bosna style” bratwurst near Marienplatz.

• Salzburg – What a beautiful city, I loved crossing the bridge into old town and seeing Fortress Hohensalzburg overlooking the town. The cooking class here was a highlight, we highly recommend booking this cooking class for lunch and baking. The homemade apple strudel we made was sooo good!

• Nuremberg – The Christmas Market here was magical! We loved it, it was our favorite Christmas market. We got to try so many different yummy foods.

• Rothenburg ob Der Tauber – We loved this walled town, I would rank it as a top place to visit. Yes, the Christmas market is small compared to the others we went to, but we loved walking around this charming cobblestone town.

• Strasbourg – the capital of Christmas, we saw a lot of beautiful decorations here. The Notre dame cathedral is a “wow”, absolutely beautiful church.  My favorite view was the one in the photo below.

• Colmar – I would budget about 3.5-4 hours here for a day trip from Strasbourg. The train was easy to navigate. Keep in mind that it takes about 15 minutes to get from the train station to the markets.  It was a cute town with small markets.  

• Cologne – Keep in mind that their Christmas markets end on the 23rd.  Heinzels Wintermarchen was my favorite, loved it! There were a lot of Christmas Markets to visit, but it was super crowded at most of the markets we visited. The church here is another “wow”, beautiful.  

• Frankfurt – We only had a night here, but we did have a cool experience with the Pealing of the Bells that happens on Christmas Eve. We also loved our dinner at Kish restaurant.

Tips for your Christmas Market travels

• Pack some napkins – Most places will only give you one or two napkins, even McDonald’s only gave us one napkin each.  
• Bring wipes – some bathrooms don’t have soap
• Bring a ziplock gallon – to pack your mugs after you use them. Or you can ask for a new mug.
• Bring some bubble wrap – to pack your mugs and other souvenirs
• Bring slippers that you can go to breakfast in (It would’ve been nice to have some slides or slippers so that I didn’t have to lace up my winter boots for breakfast)
• Bring something for throat (pack some cough drops and tissue)
• Bring a packable bag to help with carrying your souvenirs on the flight home

Packing tips

My Christmas markets wardrobe was a beanie, a base layer pant, a base layer long sleeve, my heated vest, my atom Arcteryx jacket, hiking pants or jeans, and boots. I purchased the 32 degrees base layers from Costco, and those were easy to pack in my bag. I didn’t need to pack regular shirts, so that saved me room. When inside I would often just hang my jacket and leave on my vest. I didn’t have to use the heating element of my vest that often, but there were some nights that were windy and cold where it came in handy (like our night in Rothenburg ob Der Tauber). It didn’t end up being too cold when we visited, but the week prior to our visit it was snowing. We didn’t get snow.

Overall thoughts on our Christmas Markets trip

I am glad that we were able to see a lot of cities on our trip, and many Christmas Markets. Now that I have experienced all of those cities, if I had to choose my favorite route, it would probably be to visit Cologne, Rothenburg ob Der Tauber, and Nuremberg. I also would want to fit in some of the smaller towns, since we really loved Rothenburg ob Der Tauber. We didn’t end up becoming Gluhwein fans, but we loved the hot chocolate and collecting the mugs. It was a really great experience to be able to travel and experience the Christmas Markets.

If you found this post helpful, please consider subscribing to our Youtube Channel, @TravelingWithPoints. We are in the process of working on editing videos of our Christmas market trip.

Below is the blog from the day-to-day of our trip.

Day 1-2 – 12/13/23 – 12/14/23

We were running a little late leaving Fresno for LAX. We left at 9am and arrived around 12:50pm.  We returned our rental car and it took about 20 minutes to get to Terminal B on the Hertz bus.  We went through pre-check and navigated to the OneWorld lounge. The food here was very good, this ranks to the top of our lounge food list.

We hung out here for one hour before heading over to our flight. It’s a bit of a walk to get to the gates from the lounge, it took about 10-15 minutes to get to our gate. We got our passports checked and then got comfy in business class. Joseph and I had the row behind La Premiere and my parents were in the fourth row.

Our flight left around 3:25 and we were served our meals around 30-40 mins later. The appetizer was a piece of ahi tuna, then lobster salad, after was beef tournedos, an optional cheese course, and finally dessert. I liked the beef tournedos more last time, this time the meat was a little tough and fatty.

Dessert was good, and I enjoyed some peach iced tea. At about 7 hours left on the flight, I closed my eyes and slept a bit, until there was 1.5 hours left to go. The lights came on and we were served breakfast. The continental breakfast was good for me, I liked the yogurt with granola (they called it cereal). The croissant was yummy too.  Joseph got the bagel with salmon:

We landed around 10:50 in Paris. We found a board and identified our connecting terminal. We followed the signs to 2G and even took a bus ride. When we arrived close to 2G, we had to go through another baggage check and then customs. We didn’t know there was another baggage check so we had two full bottles of water. We ended up having to pull empty bottle from the trash and poured our water in there, they said we could not dump the water in the trash. That was unpleasant, definitely wish I knew there was another baggage check so that I could dump the water in the bathroom. The passport check was fast since it was the machines where you place your passport and take a photo. The waiting area was very full, but we were able to find some seats and waited until our gate was announced, which was at the boarding time of our flight. We got to this area around 12, so it took an hour to transfer.  We landed in Munich around 3pm. We got an Uber XL to our hotel for 77 euros. Note: when requesting an Uber you select the terminal, and I thought that was the pickup spot (two parking lots away) but after we got there I found out that you can choose which door to get picked up at. We asked a taxi for the estimated price and they said about 100 euros. The Uber was 40 minutes into town; our first night stay is at Hotel Schlicker in old town.  It was nice how close this hotel was to Marienplatz. On our first night, we went out to the Christmas Market at Marienplatz and got to try our first gluhwein.

We went to Hofbrauhaus for dinner, and we walked around and couldn’t find a spot until our second round. The place is huge, lots of people, and live music. The food wasn’t our favorite, but this is a top experience to have in Munich.

Day 3 – Friday – December 15th, 2023

We woke up around 2am for a couple of hours. Then slept until we heard our room phone ringing around 9am. Thankfully my parents work us up for breakfast or else we may have missed it. Breakfast at Hotel Schlicker was served from 6:30 to 10am. Their breakfast was very good. We would recommend this hotel, except the rooms were pretty small. And if you have a room facing the street, then you should bring ear plugs.  There were people chatting outside until about 3am.  After breakfast, we packed up our bags and checked out. We left our luggage at the front desk and then walked to Marienplatz. My dad got a berry Glühwein and we all thought it was better than the others that we had tried.

Then we started to walk toward the medieval market. On the way I got a Glühwein leicht, the lighter version, since I liked the mug.

Then my mom needed to use the restroom, so we tried to go down to the subway but they didn’t have one. She was able to use the Starbucks restroom. The medieval market was small and there weren’t many people there. But my dad was able to get a chalice and try the special drink from here.

We walked through the park by the Residenz and Joseph spotted another market, which was the Christmas village at the Residenz.  We really liked this market since it wasn’t too empty, nor too busy. A lot of people here were drinking egg nog with whipped cream. This was our favorite market in Munich, we highly recommend visiting here.

After, we headed to the nativity stalls by Marienplatz in front of the old Peter church.  There were several stalls here selling nativity sets, but they were expensive (for example, the stable to put the nativity set was about 150 euros).

Then we saw a Christmas windmill and some more stalls, so we went there and had a yummy bratwurst “bosna style” with grilled onions, paprika, and mustard. So good!

Then we got a potato tornado on a stick, the line was long but it went fast. My parents went to the restroom while we got them, but they took a long time. They ended up finding water while looking for the bathroom, we had difficulties locating places to buy water. After, we picked up our luggage and walked over to hotel #2. We changed our flights one month before our trip by adding a day, and there wasn’t availability to extend the hotel for 2 days. At Hotel am markt, the front desk person didn’t speak english, and had difficulty finding our reservation. He eventually found it and we headed to our room. This room was bigger, but the beds were pretty firm. Besides that, it was fine for us but my parents had issues with their room—squeaky bed and no toilet paper. After resting for a couple of hours, we walked around Viktulienmarkt.  We saw a stall that was very busy, so we decided to try the Glühwein, we tried white this time but it tasted very similar to the others. Joseph and I weren’t a fan of Glühwein, but my dad enjoyed it, we did love the hot chocolate.

For dinner, we ate at Augustiner Brau Munchen. There was a line out the door when we arrived, but it wasn’t too long of a wait. We really enjoyed our beer and dinner.

Day 4 – Saturday – December 16th, 2023

We met downstairs at Hotel Am Markt around 7:15am for breakfast, but it turned out it wasn’t open until 8am. We learned that orders are supposed to be placed the day before, but we had not been informed since the person who checked us in didn’t speak english. We paid 12.50 euros per person for breakfast. It seems like it should’ve been less for what we got, but it still was good for me.

We had Bayern tickets since it was an all day pass that was cheaper— 54 euros for 4 people for any Bavarian transportation. We took our luggage to Marienplatz and all of the S signs led to the same area downstairs. We took the S6 for three stops. We took the train before the one with a 9 minute transfer in case we had to navigate, but we found out it would’ve been an easy 9 minute transfer. We had to wait outside in the cold for about 20-30 minutes for our train. We took the BRB RE5, a regional train that was crowded. I wish we would’ve spent a little more on a train where we could reserve seats. We stood for our train ride of about 1 hr 45 mins.

Then we took a taxi for about 8 euros to our hotel.  We met with my aunt Rosie and her family, and then settled in to our room. Then we went out and walked to the Mirabell gardens along with the market stalls near there.

The gardens were beautiful, and had a nice view of the castle. There were stalls outside of the gardens, and we purchased a pretzel along with a hot chocolate. I collected my Salzburg mug here.

Stern advent was a super cute little market. After that, we we went to the main market. There was a lot of people. We had a good time walking around and looking at all of the souvenirs. I quickly fell in love with the cute smoker souvenirs, you put an incense in them and the smoke comes out of their mouth.

Then we headed back for our hotel. Salzburg is a beautiful town, we got some nice photos by the water.

On the way we saw Cafe Sacher and ended up stopping there for dinner. We had heard some good things about the dessert, and figured why not have a meal here. I ordered bratwurst, and man I was disappointed, check out this sad plate:

The Wiener schnitzel was a bit salty, I definitely did not care for the bratwurst I got, and the “famous” cake and apple strudel was not good.

We don’t recommend this place, but the salad was good. We went back and rested for 3 hours, then went back out to the main market again until it closed at 9pm. 

Day 5 – Sunday – December 17th, 2023

We had breakfast at our hotel, Leonardo Boutique Hotel Salzburg Gablerbräu, around 8:30am, the breakfast here was good.  They had scrambled eggs and mini croissants, along with some other items.  We decided to visit the fortress, so I purchased the tickets at breakfast for seven of us.  We met at our hotel lobby close to 10am and walked about 13 minutes over to the funicular.  The tickets were 14 euros per person, including the funicular ride.  This ended up being a good time to go, because when we were leaving around 12pm there were a lot of people.  There were really great views of Salzburg, good photo opportunities here.

We started at the panorama tour, which is where you walk up stairs, see some mini exhibits, and end up at the top of a tower for a nice view.  Then we went to the mini Christmas market in the center that opened up at 11am and I had a tasty hot apple cider and acquired another mug for my collection. 

Then we went to the museum, and left the fortress and went down the funicular at 12pm.  Overall, we were glad we took a visit to the fortress, this is a thing to do if you are staying in Salzburg for two nights.  Salzburg only has a few Christmas markets, so this is a good option for your day two.  After that, we went make to the market at the cathedral, and to the stein advent market until it was time for our cooking class.  At Stein Advent, I decided to try a schneeball, and I was not a fan. They look pretty yummy, but it was too dry for me.

We also walked along the Main Street, its super cute:

We arrived at 1:30pm to our cooking class, but learned it was actually at 2pm, so we returned again at 2pm.  Edelweiss cooking school is a cute little place, they have one bathroom and we all had to use the restroom when we arrived, so if you can go beforehand that is preferable.  We hung up our bags and jackets, washed our hands, put on aprons, and went to a table.  There were about 14 people taking the class.  First we learned how to make the apple strudel, the teacher did a demonstration and then we made our own. 

Then we learned how to make the strudel dough, and then we learned how to make cookies.  After shaping the cookies, we sat down for goulash soup for lunch.  The soup was very yummy.

Joseph and I got the $5 cookbook the class offered and plan to make it at home.  During that time, our cookies and strudel were baking, and we had that for dessert.  The desserts were sooo good.  I had tried an apple strudel the night before at Cafe Sacher and I did not like it, but this one tasted really really good. 

I also loved the cookies.  We took most of them to-go, since we got full from the strudel.

Overall, we highly recommend this class. 

Book the experience we did on Viator with Edelweiss Cooking School, please use our affiliate link for book this experience:

https://www.viator.com/tours/Salzburg/Christmas-in-Salzburg-Cookies-Mozartkugeln-and-Apple-Strudel/d451-31281P3?pid=P00209972&mcid=42383&medium=link&medium_version=selector&campaign=SalzburgCookingClass

We originally had a reservation for 5:30pm for Barenwirt, a place I really wanted to try, but we were too full from our lunch.  We went back to our hotels and rested until close to 7:30pm.  Then we had dinner near our hotel at L’Ossteria.  The pizza and pasta was good.

We finished around 9pm which is when all the markets close, plus since it is Sunday, there were already a lot of shops that were closed for the day.  

Day 6 – Monday, December 18th, 2023

We had breakfast at the hotel around 8am. One thing I found pretty cool was that most of our hotels had shoe horns, which were great for our boots. I had actually packed my own shoe horn, but it turns out I didn’t need to.

We packed up our bags and went out to a few last minute souvenir shops, as well as purchased water at the nearby supermarket. Then we checked out and took a taxi to the train station.  We had booked this journey months prior, and the train schedules kept changing. Our first train was a regional BRB train. Since Salzburg was where the train starts, we were able to get seats. It was at the station about 20 mins before our departure time. We took that train to München and then right before we saw that our ICE train had been canceled. Thankfully Alan saw on his phone that there was a replacement train. We made it with just a minute to spare. After we arrived in Nürnberg, Tre realized he had left his backpack on the train. They ran back and barely made it. Definitely keep an eye on your trains on your travel days.

We went to Enterprise and picked up our rental car, then drove to our hotel, Hotel Burgschmiet. We liked this hotel, it was located near old town so we were able to walk over to the main Christmas Market. After we settled in to our hotel, we walked over to to Old Town to eat dinner at Block House. On our walk to Block House we laid our eyes on the Nuremberg Christmas Market and it was absolutely magical to see. This was a “wow” moment for us, I was thinking I just want to stay in this market instead of going into the restaurant. The Nuremberg market is absolutely a must see. On the Christmas Markets Facebook group there are many who say they didn’t care for the Nuremberg Christmas Market, but it was my favorite of the trip.

I was initially apprehensive about eating at Block House since it’s a chain restaurant and I wasn’t sure what to expect, but this was a really great choice. They had really good steak. Joseph and I shared the filet mignon, since we planned to have some food at the Market.

After our meal, we got to enjoy this beautiful market. There were many rows of stalls, and lots of good smells from the food options

Here was cute souvenir my mom got, it was flat and easy to pack:

Day 7 – Tuesday, December 19th, 2023

We had breakfast at our hotel around 8am, they had a good buffet. Then we went and drove to a nearby laundromat to do laundry. It was about 45 mins for the washer and 18 mins for the dryer. It was 4 euros for the washer and 1 euro for each 8 mins on the dryer. So 10 euros total for our two loads of laundry.

Then we went back to the hotel, packed up our clothes and checked out. We walked the markets from about 11:45 to 2pm.

I got an ornament that said “Nürnberg” and a Pinocchio incense holder. Then we said goodbye to the Winco family and drove 1 hr 25 mins to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.  The towns we drove through were cute, with the half timbered houses. Driving in Rothenburg was stresssful for me, but Joseph was fine with driving. The streets in this walled city are very narrow, but we ended up making it to our hotel fine.

After we got settled in at Hotel Eisenhut, we went to Restaurant Alter Keller. They were able to get us in without reservations, but I do recommend making a reservation here in advance if you can. We saw others who came in after us who were not able to have dinner there since they had a lot of reservations made in advance. This was a nice little restaurant, we had a good meal and beer here.

Day 8 – Wednesday, December 20th, 2023

We had breakfast at the hotel, it was very old and interesting to look around at the breakfast area. 

The breakfast here was pretty good, I enjoyed all the bread with the bread baskets you could fill with bread goodies.  I enjoyed the rolls they had, and made an egg sandwich at most hotels we went to.  After breakfast, we walked over to a popular photo spot and took some nice photos, the area was called plonlein. 

Then we started walking back, and we stopped at a little shop where I got gloves for my co-workers.  My dad purchased a hat and glove set since Rothenburg ob Der Tauber was one of the colder towns we visited.

After that, Joseph wanted to look down a walkway, we followed it and got a beautiful lookout view from the city walls. 

We packed up our bags and checked out of our hotel, and left our luggage at the front desk.  We went back out to the Christmas market and did some shopping, my dad was able to get a Germany flag at a shop that Joseph found.  I also got a few items, including a Germany sticker to add to my luggage.  We had some yummy candied nuts that were a “Christmas” flavor, we both loved those.  We got hot chocolate, and did more shopping.  Then we had a yummy bratwurst for lunch.  There were two bratwursts in a bolillo bun.  We saw beautiful dogs walking around, and admired them.  When we were done, we had my parents wait at the hotel while we walked over to get the car.  On the way we stopped and purchased a small nativity carved from Bethlehem for Brandon and Michelle, then continued on to the car.

Ther nded up being a car that blocked us in, so I called my dad to tell the hotel.  Joseph and I walked around, we ended up walking up the walls for a bit and admired the town.  Rothenburg ob Der tauber is a really beautiful town, we enjoyed our time here. 

We had dinner at Restaurant Tonneau, and it was fine. Strasbourg was crowded, and the restaurant we wanted to eat at required reservations, so we made a reservation for the following night.

Day 9 – Thursday, December 21st, 2023

We went to breakfast around 8:45am. My dad was up at 4am so they ended up going to breakfast later.  The markets in Strasbourg are open from 11:30am to 9pm. Today we planned to go for half a day to Colmar. We walked 16 mins to the train station and purchased a return ticket at the station. We only had minutes to catch the train, so we ended up taking the next TER train at 11:51.

We had to choose our return time too, so we chose 4:36pm. It takes 30 minutes to get to Colmar. 

On the train, there was a weird guy yelling at us in French, we had no idea what he was trying to tell us.  Then we walked about 15 minutes into town. Here are the Christmas Markets of Colmar:

On our walk into town, we stopped at the carousel since we knew they had the boot mugs. Its a cute rotating bar with red boot mugs.

The town had many colorful half timbered houses, and many houses were decorated. 

Seeing this decoration with huskies reminded us of our husky at home.

The markets were small, there were five in this town. 

This city was bigger than Rothenburg ob Der dauber.  We saw little Venice, and got some nice photos, along with some souvenir shopping.

After that, we walked over to the food market, which had a heavy police presence.  Joseph and I shared a French onion soup, it was delicious.  We used the free toilets they had, and that was bad, they smelled so bad.  We ended up taking the 4:06pm train back to Strasbourg, I asked a worker at the SNCF train station and they said we could still use our tickets for an earlier train. 

Day 10 – Friday, December 22nd, 2023

We had the hotel breakfast around 8:30am.  We went back to our rooms after breakfast and packed up our bags.  We went back out to walk to the Cathedral Notre Dame of Strasbourg to see it in daylight.  My mom purchased a cathedral themed umbrella and I ended up purchasing a cup, since we weren’t able to get the official Strasbourg mug.  We were going to go inside the church, but the line was very long.  So we stood near there while my mom was shopping.  The line for the church ended up getting much shorter in a short period of time, so we got in line quickly before it closed at 11:15am.  We were able to get in around 11am, we only stood in line for about five minutes. 

The inside of the church was beautiful.  After that, we headed back to the hotel.  There was a section blocked off by police, so we had to navigate around that.  There has been a heavy police presence all around, Colmar had the most police.  France had more of a police presence than Germany.  We got on the road to Cologne around 12:30pm.  We stop at the halfway point at McDonalds, and there was a gas station next to it as well.  Here you pump gas first, and then go inside to pay.  The gas was 90 euros to fill up the tank. We ate at McDonalds, it tasted the same as back home.  We stayed as Wassertum Cologne, a Hilton hotel inside of a converted water tower.  We went out and walked over to Hard Rock Cologne so that my dad could get a shirt.  Then on to Heinzels Wintermarchen.  This market was awesome, just wish we weren’t there on a Friday night and Saturday (the last day) when it is most crowded. 

We walked through and then went to Keule for dinner.  We waited in the bar area and had a Gaffel Kolsch beer, that was a good beer. 

The food here was yummy, I had a viennese schnitzel and Joseph had a humongous pork knuckle.  The pork knuckle could feed two people. 

After, we walked to the Koln Dom Christmas market, and there were a lot of people here too.  This market was very pretty as well, with the cathedral above it. 

They started closing not too long after, and then we took the 20 minute walk back to our hotel.  Our hotel room was nice, but it was farther off from the main area.  We had a two story room with the bed on the second floor and bathroom and living space on the first floor.

Day 11 – Saturday, December 23rd, 2023

We had breakfast around 8:30am.  They had a very good selection at breakfast, best eggs of the other hotel breakfast’s.  It was very windy, so we decided to leave the hotel later.  We headed to Angel market around 11:15am. It wasn’t very busy, which was nice. 

They had a lot of food options.  Then we went to Rudolfplatz for Santa’s village.  This was a small market, but we did get a cute windmill and candles for the cheapest price we saw of 24 euros.  We got to take cute photos in life size mugs here. 

Then we got an uber for 10 euros to take us to the Koln Dom cathedral so that we didn’t have to walk for 20 minutes.  My dad got a Feruzangenbowle, which is a special drink they light on fire, and was able to ask how to pronounce it. 

Then we went to the Koln Dom market and it was crazy packed.  We got some potatoes and a cinnamon roll.  We didn’t stay long since there were so many people.  Then we went back through Heinzel Wintermarchen.  This market was also quite busy.

I gave my dad the gnome mug I didn’t want for him to trade in, while he got his new mug.  And this worked out perfectly since he got one of the gnome mugs I wanted, a gnome who sews. There are several different gnome mugs that you can get when purchasing your gluhwein or hot chocolate at Heinzels Wintermarchen. Then we got some yummy little beignet type things. After that, I wanted a hot chocolate (Heisse Schkolade) and  I walked over to a place to order.  I ended up getting the mug that was the bread maker, which was perfect since that was another one I wanted.  Now I have two mugs with each showing one of my hobbies.  

We went back to our hotel to rest, and for dinner we went to Puszta-Hütte. You can order a bow of goulash and a roll for 5 euros here, and 6 euros if you want a second bowl of goulash. I thought that was a good, inexpensive dinner before heading back out to Angel market.

It was nice visiting Angel Market at night since there were a lot of light decorations that were pretty to see.

Day 12 – Sunday, December 24th, 2023

We had a yummy hotel breakfast around 8:30am, and then we checked out around 11am.  We have a lot of stuff, thankfully I always pack a packable carry on and I filled that up with my souvenirs.  Souvenirs purchased include a windmill I got for 24 euros at Santa’s Village in Rudolfplatz, many mugs, a gnome couple from Heinzels Wintermarchen, and a red star light. 

n We drove two hours to Frankfurt in the drizzle.  On the way, Joseph saw a flash, so we likely await a speeding ticket.  We aren’t too familiar with how the driving regulations work here, we had read online that the speed was just recommended and not enforced.  If you are going to be driving a rental car, I highly recommend looking up the regulations in the country you are visiting. I regret not doing more research on that. We ended up getting a ticket in Strasboug for 45 euros from a photo speed camera. We also got a ticket mailed to us from Germany. In Frankfurt, the Christmas Markets had ended, but we were able to attend the Pealing of the Bells where 50 bells ring together from 10 downtown churches. I thought it was a cool experience to hear and see that.

For dinner, we went to a Persian restaurant that we had reserved in advance called Kish Restaurant, and it was super good! We had never been to a Persian restaurant, but we were sure glad to have our Christmas Eve meal here.

Day 13 – Monday, December 25th, 2023

We dropped our rental car off at Frankfurt airport Enterprise around 4am, and then headed to our flight. Here was how our jeep looked with four carry ons and personal items in the back:

We normally bring a packable carry on that fold up small, so that at the end of our trip we can use our packable carry on and personal item to bring on to the plane, and then check our roller bag. But, we were flying business, so we were able to bring multiple bags with us.

We had some difficulty navigating to our gate since we had to take a bus, but we eventually figured it out. Make sure to have plenty of time before your flight if you are also dropping off your rental car super early in the morning when there aren’t many people around.

Paris

Paris observations/tips

• If you are getting the Navigo Decouverte, bring your own passport photo with you. Overall we did like having the Navigo Decouverte pass since we used it a lot, but it was a pain to initially get it due to the need to get photos and the very long wait at the airport to purchase them. 
• We used the bus quite a bit, be prepared for hot bus rides in July. Make sure to bring a fan
• When you take the train from CDG, keep and eye on your bags and be on the lookout for those people around you without luggage. 
• The Louvre in the afternoon in July was so hot. Definitely take a fan and water. 
• Don’t trust google maps for hours of operation. We often found that it was not accurate. 
• When navigating the trains and buses, check the signs for an accurate train/bus arrival time and don’t rely on google maps for the train schedules. 
• They did not have free water at all the places we went to.
• Places don’t open early in Paris from what we could find. We often had to get to our destination and then eat breakfast around 8am or after. 
• Favorite thing I ate in Paris: Creme Brûlée at Au Petit Suisse
• My favorite photo from our trip to Paris was the glow of the setting sun on a bridge along the Seine

6/27/22 – 6/28/22 Day 1 

We left our house around 8:30am, dropped off Byron, picked up my parents and got on the road. We arrived to the SFO long term parking around 12:30pm. We took the air tram to International Terminal A and went through security. We spent about two hours at the Air France lounge. The lounge was small but they did have a good amount of food. I had a ham sandwich on a baguette that was yummy. We then boarded our flight at 2:25pm.  Joseph and I loved our first experience in business class. We enjoyed a glass of champagne that was really good, it was Cuvée Royal Brut Joseph Perrier champagne. About 2 hours after take off we had our three course meal. Our starter was lobster salad, then beef tournedos, and lastly was a dessert. We enjoyed our food, and enjoyed it with some red wine. 

I watched the movie Cyrano on the plane. About an hour or so after dinner, they dimmed the lights and window lights. I slept on and off for the first 2 hours, but after that I couldn’t sleep anymore. I laid with my eyes closed, but about 3 hours in I decided to start watching Emily in Paris.  I liked the show since it taught me about some of the different customs in Paris.  After a few episodes Joseph woke up, and saw that we only had 3 hours left on our flight. So I tried to sleep again, but didn’t have success as far as I could tell. Joseph tapped my shoulder about an hour later and it was time for breakfast. Breakfast was yogurt, fruit, an omelet, and a hash brown. I did not care for the omelet and hash brown, but I did like the yogurt.

After we landed we walked out and had some confusion with navigating. I knew we had to go to the train station, and that it was somewhere in terminal 2, but didn’t not know how to get there. We asked and found out that we just had to follow the exit signs. Once we went through immigration then we were able to go through the exit and find the train station, but that whole process of getting out took a while. Next was figuring out how to get our photos for our Navigo Decouverte pass. The pass is a week long pass for all modes of transportation. There was a very long line and they only had one desk open. So we got in line and I went first to take my photo for 8 Euros. I had a really hard time taking this photo, the machine had prompts on the screen in French and kept giving me errors, and once I finally got the photos it would not allow me to pay. I ended up speaking to the person in line and he tried to help me but couldn’t figure it out either. Thankfully Joseph came to the rescue, and we decided to try the machine on the other side of the station. On this machine I found the option for English, and Joseph told me that my smile was causing the photo to keep saying it was invalid. Once I did not smile, then it worked. And I was able to pay by tapping my card. We all took our photos and the line had not even moved a whole lot. It was miserable to have not had much sleep, having a hard time navigating to the train station, the issue with the photos, and then the long line for the pass. After 2 hours had passed since landing, we were finally able to get our Navigo passes. We went to go use the restroom before the 45 min train ride, and that cost 1 euro per person. Then we headed to our train platform and were able to catch the train. It was packed, we had to stand. Then a few girls got on around us.  They got close to us and only stayed on for a short time. After they got off, we noticed my moms bag was open. Later my mom said they had a bag that covered their arm, so we think we encountered pick pockets. Thankfully my mom doesn’t think anything was stolen. The train was full and hot, plus there was a very loud occasional banging noise. We finally reached our stop and walked over about 5 mins to our hotel. We checked in and rested before heading out for a meal.  We walked over to Burgers and Fries and had a good quick meal. Then we purchased some water on the way back to the hotel and rested until the evening. In the evening we got onto a bus near Luxembourg park, scanned our tickets, and we were the only ones on there. Then the bus driver came in, said stuff in French and left. We thought he said to go to the back of the bus, so we did and sat there. Then he came back in laughing and spoke in French again, then another driver came in and told us to get on the next bus. So we got out and got on the next bus. I had bookmarked a place near the Eiffel Tower but after we took the bus to get there, we looked at the menu and it was different. I didn’t see anything I liked. So we ended up walking around the area and decided upon Le Suffren. My dad and I ordered duck, and Joseph got beef carpaccio. Joseph just chose a dish he had heard of before, but didn’t realize until it arrived that it was sliced raw beef. Joseph still ate a good portion of it, and I tried it, but we learned to never again order beef carpaccio. The duck wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Overall we had a good experience at this restaurant, the waiter did stare at my mom and told her to put a smile on her face which I found odd. We went to the downstairs bathrooms and then walked over to the Eiffel Tower. Outside of the Eiffel Tower were people selling wine and beer. My dad purchased some beer and then we took some night photos with the Eiffel Tower. I thought the Tower would be sparkling with lights but I looked it up online and it only did it on the hour. We waited on a bench since it was only 20 minutes until midnight. As we waited we heard some music behind us, and started to see large scurrying rats in the park. Once it was close to midnight, we headed to a spot for photos, and took photos with the sparkling Tower. We tried to go fast since there were multiple scurrying rats.

Then we headed over to the bus stop. The sign by the bus stop showed the actual arrival time which was about 30 mins different from what the bus schedule on my phone said. My dad used the nearby self cleaning bathroom. There were definitely less buses and people after midnight.  Thankfully the bus eventually arrived and we went back to our hotel. 

6/29/22 – Day 2

We started our morning at 8:20am and walked over to Sainte Chappelle. There was a very heavy police presence, apparently we happened to be there on the day that they were going to do the verdict for the Paris attacks from 2015. We queued for Sainte Chapelle and went through security. We saw the two levels of the small chapel and enjoyed seeing the stained glass.

Then we walked out and as we were heading toward the barrier security exit, one of the police men started yelling in French and telling people to back up, so we had to get out of there quickly. That was scary. Then we walked over to see Notre Dame. The gargoyles were smaller than I had imagined.

Then we headed to Maison D’Isabelle. This place was voted best croissant in 2018, and it was delicious. The croissant was better than the pain Au chocolat. Then we got coffee and ate our croissants across the street at Coffea.

We walked over to the Pantheon and explored there. We used our Paris Museum pass and skipped the line (albeit short, but still nice). If we had more time and energy, we would’ve paid to climb to the view at the top, but we decided to rest instead.

We rested for about 30 mins or so, and then walked over to a sandwich place. We got sandwiches at Lebon L’Authentique Casse-croûte, they were very good. I got one of their specials, it was a “sweet and salty” jambon bourre (ham sandwich) and Joseph and I shared it. We hopped on a bus and took our sandwiches to the Louvre. We sat outside in a shaded area and enjoyed our yummy sandwiches.

Then we went into the Louvre. There was a separate line for the Paris museum pass, which led into the actual line, so that was weird. The Louvre was hot and very crowded. I wish I had brought my fan, and my mom was lucky she had brought hers. We listened to Rick Steve’s and toured around the Louvre. My favorite was a room that was heavily adorned (like Versailles) that includes some crown jewels and fashion pieces. The Louvre was huge, we had a hard time communicating with staff to find the bathrooms, and even to find the exit. After the Louvre we went back to our hotel to rest. We entered the Louvre around 2:30, and we were done by 5pm. On the way to the exit, we stopped at Laduree and got macarons. I loved the Marie Antoinette macaron which tasted like tea. The only macaron we did not like was the Rose flavor. It was much less expensive to purchase the macarons individually as opposed to purchasing them in a box. Then we took the bus back to our hotel. 

At 8pm we met up to go have dinner. We ate at Le Prince Racine near our hotel. Our appetizers included French onion soup and 6 pieces of escargot. My dad, Joseph, and I all tried the escargot. We described it as tasting like butter and garlic with a seafood after taste. As I kept chewing there was a grittiness, like dirt, that I did not like. I do not need to try eating it again. I’m glad I did give it a try though. I was looking forward to trying French beef Bourguinon, but I did not like it. It was a very fatty piece of beef, and the fat was hard to cut off. 

After this meal, we headed over to the Luxembourg park, but found out that it was already closed. We decided to look for a place for dessert, and found the nearby Au Petit Suisse and had an absolutely delicious creme brûlée there, around 10:30 pm on their interior second level. Then we walked back to the hotel and went to bed. 

6/30/22 – Day 3

We started our morning early, around 6:45am. We took the RER C to Versailles after transferring from RER A. We arrived to Versailles around 8am. I had looked on the train for places to eat, and found a spot for croissants, but then saw they didn’t have seating. So I found another place with less reviews but saw that it had seating, croissants, and coffee. When we arrived it looked like a place that sold lottery tickets, cigarettes, and had some seating. There was construction on the outside and I thought it was closed but I went in and they sat us at a table by the window. We were all apprehensive about eating here, and I learned after that it was a tobacco bar.  The croissant was actually fresh and good, and coffee was good as well. Plus they had a bathroom so it turned out to be fine.

Then we walked over to the Chateau de Versailles. There was a line, but it wasn’t too bad. It was slightly sprinkling. We got in and went through security. We took some photos in the courtyard and then went in and did our Rick Steves audio guide. When you go across the courtyard and walk in, there are bathrooms to the right.  Next to the bathrooms there is a staircase, which you will go up and start the audio guide in the nearby chapel. The chapel was beautiful, everything about the Chateau de Versailles was beautiful. My favorite room was Marie Antoinette’s room, it was crazy thinking about how people would go into that room to watch her give birth. I admired the wallpaper, the bed, the art, the couch, I did not want to leave that room. The chateau areas that you can walk through by yourself were limited, it was less than I expected but fine. It was also very cool to see the hall of mirrors, which was very grand. At the end there was a gift shop, and I was debating between a scarf with a special print on it or a canvas tote that had an 18th century lady on it. My mom said that they (my parents) would get me both as my birthday present which was awesome.

After Versailles, we got outside and the rain was really coming down. We walked to the train station and took it to the Eiffel Tower since my dad wanted to go to the top of the tower. We got off at the Eiffel Tower train exit and walked in the rain about 10 minutes to the only sandwich shop I could find. This meal was probably one of the worst we had, we tried a sandwich and a crepe and both were bad. Plus Joseph got their version of a hot dog which had really hard bread, but a good weenie on the inside. It was a bad meal, but most places in the area didn’t have the best ratings unless we were okay with Italian or Chinese. In retrospect we should’ve probably got Italian or Chinese. Then we walked over in the pouring rain to the Eiffel Tower. Our socks were starting to get wet, everything was wet. Thank goodness we had our rain jackets. It would’ve been worth buying an umbrella at the salesman outside the chateau. We found the entry to the Eiffel Tower for those without tickets, purchased elevator tickets, and took the elevator up to the second level of the tower. We got off, took some photos, and heard some individuals that were chanting since they were on strike. My mom decided in line that she did not want to go up further, so us three went to the top. It was quite high, but we learned it was not as high as the Empire State Building. We took some photos, headed back down to the second level, and then went back down to the bottom.

We walked over to the train station and took it back to Chatelet Les Halles and then back to our hotel. Around 6:15 pm we headed back out and walked through Luxembourg park with its square hedged trees. We walked to a Chinese place that my manager had recommended called My Noodles. Our appetizers were great but I did not care for their ramen. 

After, we took the metro to Musée d’Orsay. On Thursday’s they stay open later, so that worked well with our schedule. We went up to the 5th floor and admired Van Gogh (starry night and his self portrait), Monet, Renoir, and more. It wasn’t as hot, wasn’t as crowded, and wasn’t as big as the Louvre. I saw a lot of paintings I admired here, I preferred it to the Louvre.

After, we walked to a bus to take us to the Arc de Triomphe, but it was an hour until the next one even though my phone said the next one would be in 8 minutes. So we walked over to the metro by Place de La Concorde. There was a beautiful sunset sky. This walk was also great since we took some beautiful photos on the bridge that was on the Seine. 

We took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and got some nice photos with the blue lit arc. It was very nice seeing this in person.

Then we did some walking down Champs Elysses. I navigated us to the Adidas store since Joseph messed up the sole of his shoe and was hoping to buy some new insoles. Due to all the rain, Joseph used a hair dryer to dry his shoes but it ended up shrinking the insole. Of course the hours on google were incorrect, and it was closed. Then we took the metro back to Chatelet Les Halles to transfer to the RER A to take it back to our Luxembourg stop. The train was completely packed around 11pm at night and so we decided to wait for the next train. We waited for a while, but the super crowded train did not leave the station. Apparently there was an issue with the doors closing. So I tried to find us another route, and I navigated us to the metro line 4. After we arrived there, we saw that it was closed, so the next option was taking a bus. We walked about 10 minutes to the bus stop, but it was pretty sketchy around Chatelet Les Halles. It felt safer when we got the the Seine area since there were more people, and a lot of people out eating at cafes. A lot of cafes stay open until 2am, and open later in the morning.  When we got to the bus stop, it had a notice that said that it was not operating that stop, so the next option was to walk to our hotel. We walked about another 15-20 minutes or so and finally made it back to our hotel. We were exhausted when we arrived, we had a very long day. 

7/1/22 – Day 4

We met around 7:45 am, and learned that my mom had insomnia and had only had 1 hour of sleep. She decided to still join us at Disneyland. This day was supposed to have rail strikes so I was a little worried about being able to get to Disneyland, but thankfully we weren’t affected. We took the RER A train up to Chatelet Les Halles and then took the RER B to Marne Les Valles which is shown on the stations signs with a helpful little Disney symbol. The train ride was around 50 minutes or so. The train takes you right to the parks, super close and convenient. 

We arrived to Disneyland around 9am. We headed over to the McDonalds at Disney village and had breakfast sandwiches. I had a bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin which was pretty darn good. 

Parks and Rides we went on:

Walt Disney studios 

Ratatouille – 30 minute wait, this was our second time riding this fun one. It was half in French, half in English. Was pretty similar to the Epcot version. 

Cars road trip – We walked onto this one, it was cool for a special effect area it had with fire and water. 

Disneyland, we entered around 11 or so 

Phantom Manor – This was only like a 5-10 minute wait. It was similar to haunted mansion but it was darker (both in terms of light and the theme). I enjoyed it. 

Pirates of the Caribbean – 15 minute wait, I really enjoyed it as per usual with Pirates rides. It had a good amount of unique qualities to it, it was a cool change up. 

Indiana Jones – 30 minute wait, this ride looked promising but then our heads got banged around. It was constant head banging from side to side. I would not want to go on it again.  

Next, we checked out the dragon under the castle, that was worth a visit. Very cool animatronic. 

Hyperspace mountain – 25 minute wait, this ride started off awesome. The restraints were not like any I had ever used before, they were very snug and comfortable. This ride shot off and went upside down and had a corkscrew.  It was awesome until the very end when it abruptly stopped and we all banged our head hard backwards. 

Returned to Walt Disney Studios

Crush’s Coaster – 60 minute wait, our longest wait of the day. This wait did feel really long, but the wait listed was pretty accurate. This was an awesome ride, we loved it. We did not bang our heads on this ride. 

After this last ride, we did shopping at the World of Disney and the Disney Store. There wasn’t a whole lot of great merchandise, I ended up only purchasing a Stitch pin.

We first chose King Ludwig’s in the Disney Village to eat, but Joseph didn’t like pretzel buns. So we went to Annette’s diner. I give it a C+, the fries were eh, and the burger wasn’t bad. 

We left around 7pm to take the RER A back to Paris. After going to our hotel, we were going to try and do laundry and we took our dirty clothes to the nearby laundry place. It was close to 9, and we filled three of the washers along with putting in our tide pods. We tried to pay to start our washers but it said that we were out of time. So we pulled our clothes out and tried to retrieve our tide pods, but two out of the three tide pods broke. The washers here are a lot smaller than back home, you will probably need to do one load per person. After that, I was getting ready to shower and then Joseph said he was craving some creme brûlée. We headed back to Au Petit Suisse with my dad and sat on the second level again. Joseph and I ordered wine, I had a red wine and Joseph had a Rose wine. We both enjoyed our wine and my dad enjoyed his 1664 beer. We also shared a creme brûlée. After that we went back to our room, I showered, and we packed since that was our last night in Paris.  Note, the walls are paper thin, which I think is a Paris in general thing. We could hear our neighbors. 

Overall thoughts on Disneyland Paris: There we’re some nice things about the layout here, such as the walkways behind the Main Street shops. But what we didn’t like was our head getting banged around on the Indiana Jones ride and the Space mountain ride at the very end. If I were to ever come back someday, I would not ride Indiana jones, and I would try holding my head back hard for the space mountain ride at the end of it (although Joseph said he was doing that, and it didn’t help). It was cool seeing a different version of the Haunted Mansion and Pirates. I would say the space mountain ride and pirates rides here are probably the best of all the parks I have been to. Also, the quick service food in the park was bad. I wish we would’ve been able to get restaurant reservations inside the park, like for the Ratatouille restaurant. We booked our tickets about a month out and all reservations within the park were already booked. And they don’t have free cups of water here.  Overall, it’s not our favorite park.

Overall thoughts on Walt Disney Studios: This place is really small, maybe the smallest park I’ve ever been to. It will be better when the Avengers campus opens up on July 20th. The Crush coaster is awesome! When we first arrived the wait ranged from 80 mins to 100 mins, but when we came closer to afternoon/evening time we were able to get a 60 minute wait. The Crush coaster was my favorite ride between both parks. It was very convenient for the train to be super close to the park. My favorite meal here was the McDonald’s breakfast. 

Rome

Tips for Rome

• if visiting Rome in the summer, try to go first thing in the morning to do stuff and planning for noon to afternoon as hotel rest time. Then go back out in the evening (ex. St. Peter’s Basilica opens at 7am, be there by 7 or a little earlier).
• You will also want to take a shower after mornings activities, due to all the sweat, so pack accordingly for two outfits a day.  Or an outfit for the evening after a shower that can be worn again. 
• Most bathrooms we went to at tourist spots did not have toilet seats. (Ex. The St. Peters basilica dome bathrooms only had a hole in the ground for men. The colosseum womens bathroom did not have toilet seats.) 
• Make reservations for meals if you are staying in a busy spot. When we were looking for dinner around 8pm, the places with good reviews that we went to would ask if we had a reservation when we would say party of 4. When we said no they would react by shaking their head and tell us that we would have to wait. Also, at one place we went to, Saltimbocca, they said we could only sit inside if we had a reservation. With the heat you only want to sit inside, so definitely identify where you want to eat on your first day and go make some reservations. 
• The tickets for the metro/bus are €1.50 and include 1 metro ride and 100 minutes on the buses. I believe you only have to validate once and then you are good. You keep the tickets in case they come to randomly check a bus, which happened to us when we came with our luggage to Roma Termini. There were two people who got a fine. Most people we saw didn’t use the validation machine, and that could be due to a monthly pass or a daily passes or they are just risking it. We did ride on two buses one day without buying another pass (we were at the 120 minute mark) and thankfully we did not get checked. 
• Bring a fan and cooling towels. We were the only people we saw with cooling towels, but it was definitely needed at the colosseum and the Roman forum. 
• Absolutely make sure to wear tennis shoes on the day you go to the Roman forum, the cobble stones there are bad. 
• My favorite meal: The lasagna at Saltimbocca near Piazza Novena 
• My favorite souvenir: Truffle oil purchased at Campo de Fiori. Do not purchase shirts at Campo de Fiori, we purchased a shirt that they said they were giving to us in a larger side but it wasn’t. Plus it had a huge rectangle on it from the way they printed it, which looked really bad, and we didn’t notice that until after.
• My favorite shirt was one that I purchased at the colosseum gift shop
• Take advantage of the Nasones, the free water fountains all around Rome.

7/2/22 – Day 5

We checked out of our hotel around 8am and took the RER B down to Dennier- Rochefort to take the Orlybus to the Orly airport. The other option to navigate to Orly is to take a train, but part of the train ride to ORLY doesn’t allow the Navigo Decouverte pass.  Our goal was to arrive 3 hours before our flight since there are currently strikes at the Paris airports due to workers demanding more pay. Thankfully we were not affected by this. After we arrived to the airport we navigated to terminal 3 and went to the security line. They make you take out all of your laptops and iPads and even your bag of liquids. So for our next flight out of Venice we will be making sure to have that liquids bag handy. They do not make you take off your shoes, but they do make you take off a jacket. My parents both got their bags pulled and searched. They threw away the sunscreen my dad had, and didn’t throw anything away from my moms bag. We didn’t know that liquids bags had to be out, but thankfully they don’t make you rush through the line so you can have some time to take it out. After going through security, we had breakfast at Paul’s which is a breakfast chain here. We ranked their croissant as the worst of the four croissants we had eaten in Paris. Then we waited by our gate, E11. When we were 45 mins out from our flight, they made an announcement and people started lining up. We flew with Transavia and I was worried about bringing both our carry on’s onto the plane since their website said they had a maximum weight of 10kg or 20 lbs to put them on the plane. Thankfully they did not weigh them. And they only allow the first 70 bags for the overhead compartments. They put a sticker on the first 70 bags to account for that. Make sure to get in line quickly for them. They sell drinks on the flight, 3 euros for a soda. Seating inside was standard, similar to southwest but lower quality seat coverings, with the same amount of legroom.  I would fly Transavia again, I’m glad we had a good experience. The airport in Rome wasn’t as big as it was in Paris, maybe it was since we arrived from a Schengen area flight. We were able to find bathrooms, and then it was easy to find the exit. There was a person waiting with a sign that said “Bryant” and he took us in a van straight to our hotel. We arranged with our hotel to have a driver pick us up, and the cost was 65 euros. This service was really nice to have. We went down a highway, and when we got closer to our hotel the streets were tiny and filled with people. We eventually made it to our hotel and checked in. Our hotel was Navona Residenza de Charme, located by Piazza Novena. Our room was on the 3rd floor (4th floor in US). They took our luggage up the stairs for me and my mom, and then we settled into our room. We were in a room right next to my parents. Initially our air conditioner wasn’t working which was not good, but we eventually found a turbo button that worked great.

We rested for a short time in our room and then packed up our laundry. I had an extra packable bag that I had brought in case I purchased too many souvenirs, and this bag was great for me to use for taking all of my laundry to the laundromat. On the 15 minute walk over to the self service laundry included a stop at a panini place called “PanDivino – Focacceria Taperia”, which was pretty good. Joseph and my mom waited for the sandwiches to be made, and me and my dad headed over to do our laundry. The place we did laundry at was called “Lavanderia Self-Service”. This place was I believe 6 euros for the washer, which dispensed its own laundry detergent, and I think it was about 50 minutes for the cycle. For the dry cycle it only took 10 minutes for most clothes (longer for jeans). The only negative was that it was really hot inside the laundromat.

After we had a new batch of fresh clothes, we headed back to our hotel to rest briefly before going to the Vatican Museum. We walked over to the Vatican Museum around 7:15pm for our 7:30pm entrance time to the museum. We arrived around 7:45pm, but that turned out to be fine. The museum wasn’t very crowded which was nice. We did our Rick Steves audio guide through the Vatican Museum, and we enjoyed seeing all of the art here including the Sistine Chapel at the end. The Vatican Museum closes at 10:30pm, and we were doing our final shopping in the gift shop at the end by 9:50pm. Note, towards the end of the Vatican Museum there are some small vendors, but at the very end there is a larger gift shop to browse through. Then we walked back through St. Peter’s Square for some photos and then back to our hotel.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant that was super close to our hotel called Mastrociccia Osteria Bistrot. I had cacio e pepe which was delicious, and I noted it as my favorite meal on the trip so far. We finished dinner around 11:30pm, and I think we were the last guests in that restaurant. All the shops were closed, so we headed back to the hotel and went to bed. 

7/3/22 – Day 6

We aimed to leave the hotel at 9:45am but ended up running behind schedule. This was the day of our Cooking class that we had booked on Get Your Guide, here is a link to their official website: https://www.romepizzaschool.com, we did the four hour pasta and pizza class. The hotel staff was very nice and let us have breakfast at the hotel, they have a beautiful terrace. We had coffee and a croissant, and headed to the bus stop after getting directions from Jean from the hotel. We purchased the bus tickets from a tobacco shop and had some difficulties identifying which bus stop to go to, but eventually figured it out. But at this point we were already late for our cooking class. We took the 40 bus to Roma Termini and then took the metro to Laurentina. We contemplated an Uber but we were already late, and seemed like a train would be faster. We arrived to the station and saw a group with a sign that said “cooking class”. We thought maybe they had waited for us, but it turned out it was the next class session. They told us to go take a taxi, so we headed to find a taxi but had difficulties. We eventually got one and ended up getting to the class at the same time as the group that had been waiting outside the train station. We had to pay the taxi 20 euros for the 13 minute drive to the class.  The timing ended up working out perfectly, we made pizza with the other group and we all fit together at the two tables. First was pizza, the dough we used was after it had been resting for 18 hours. We patted down the dough and then used the tops of our hands to stretch it out about four times. Then you put the sauce, cheese, some salt, and the toppings.  For cheese, they used a buffalo cheese which he said had five times more milk than regular cheese. He said if we make pizza at home to use a ball of Parmaggiano  if we can find that, but to absolutely not use pizza cheese. And if we are using a conventional oven to put sauce and put the pizza in the oven for a bit (7 mins?), then take it out and add more sauce. The class was in an enclosed outdoor space that had fans and misters but it was still very warm. My mom ended up heading back to the hotel after making the pizza, since she was over heated. The same thing happened to another member of the class as well. Overall, I didn’t care for how far we had to travel for this class, nor did I care for how hot it was, but the pizza we had here was the best on our trip. Also Mersad, one of the instructors, was hilarious and we really enjoyed all of our interactions with him and the female instructor. We did also enjoy learning how to make pasta, but again it was very hot, we were using the spray bottle for the pasta on ourselves. Luckily I had my personal fan that I was also using. Oh and they had free water plus bottled water for purchase–the free water had a weird taste. Overall, if you want to do this experience, don’t do it in the summer.

We left the cooking class in a tiny car (I hit my head hard getting into that car) driven by one of the instructors around 3:15pm and headed back to the Laurentina metro station. We took the metro back to Roma Termini and took a bus back to the hotel.  Around 4:30 pm we got back to the hotel area, and picked up some gelato at the Frigidarium. The gelato was okay, which ended up being my main experience with gelato in Italy. I definitely preferred the sorbet fruity flavors to the milk flavors. I asked for the most popular flavors and got that one, which was a flavor that had some pieces of cookie in it. I got my parents strawberry and lemon. We walked back to the hotel with dripping gelato, it melts so fast even though we weren’t that far from the hotel. We rested at the hotel, and around 7pm we went to check out Piazza Navona.

We tried to go eat at Saltimbocca and Ponte Parione but both were packed and both asked if we had reservations, but we didn’t. We ended up making reservations at both restaurants for the following two days. Then we went back to the same restaurant that we ate at the night before. They also didn’t really want to take us, they wanted us to sit outside but it was hot, and we said we would wait for one inside. After about 10 mins we got in and I ordered spaghettone alla carbonara. This was okay, it was mixed with egg, but I preferred cacio e pepe. We also tried suppli, which were fried rice balls, and they were very good. Joseph got a little grilled beef dish which was okay. We ate around 9:22pm, walked to get water at a nasone, then headed back to the hotel for bed. 

7/4/22 – Day 7

We left the hotel around 6:15 am and headed to a place on the way for breakfast. Google maps said the place would be open that early, but we have often found google maps to be wrong, at least in Paris that was the case. On the way there we found another spot that was open, so we got croissants (cornottes) and coffee there. Joseph and I had cappuccinos, those have been good with some sugar. The croissants were not very good, they were like store bought quality. We continued our walk and saw that the place we had originally planned to go to was indeed open, and the croissants looked like a similar quality. We continued our walk and arrived at St. Peter’s Square. We got some nice photos without crowds. Then we grabbed some water from a nasone (public water fountain) and headed to the security line.

The line was short, we were in line around 7:15am. We got through the security line in under 10 minutes and went into St Peters basilica. It was a “wow” moment to walk in there, it was very grand and beautiful. We listened to our Rick Steve’s audio guide and walked around. The Bernini altar and behind that with the dove was beautiful.

Then we headed to the dome. We paid 10 euros per person to get the elevator ride. My mom waited in the dome and we continued the 200 or so steps that remained. I had to rest at one point but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The worst part was the very end with a narrow spiral staircase. But again, overall it was not bad. We had a beautiful view of the Vatican form the top.

Then we headed down the stairs and used the restrooms. The women’s bathroom did not have a toilet seat, and the men’s bathrooms just had a hole in the ground. After that, we went to a gift shop, and then headed out of the basilica after the elevator ride back down. It was really nice to do that all first thing in the morning, because by the time we got out around 9:55am there was a long line in the heat. After that we headed to the right and I checked a gift shop that had good reviews that said it was open but it turned out that was incorrect. Then we did about a 10-15 minute walk to the metro. We took the metro to the Capuchin Crypt exit. We started to get hungry, so we went to a nearby cafe that had breakfast and pizza. It had 3 stars but ended up being good, it was called Pepy’s bar. We got some water and Joseph and I got a pizza to share. My parents got a sandwich to share. Then we walked over to the Capuchin Crypt and purchased the tickets along with an audio guide for 10 euros each. We did the tour through the crypt, which started with a museum. It was cool to see some relics from Padre Pio. Then the last few rooms had the crypt which was pretty creepy. One area had a sign that said “We are now what you will become” in Italian. After the crypt, we debated going to the Spanish steps but we were hot and tired, so decided to take the bus back to the hotel. By this time our 100 minutes was up, we were at about the 120 minute mark, but decided to risk it and take the bus anyways. The first bus wasn’t arriving according to the timetable, so we took another bus which led to a different bus to get to our hotel. Thankfully our tickets weren’t checked and we got back to our hotel fine. Then it was rest and nap time. That evening we headed out to the Pantheon and arrived around 6:30pm. We took some photos and got in line, this place was free admission.

It was packed inside of the Pantheon. We did our Rick Steves audio tour, and by the time we came out around 6:50pm, they were no longer allowing anyone in even though the closing time was 7:30pm.  Then we went to a nearby church called Sant’Ignazio of Loyola which has a beautiful ceiling.

Then we headed over to our restaurant reservation at Saltimbocca, we were early but they still took us. This was our favorite meal in Rome. We started with an appetizer that had all the sauces to try out, which we enjoyed. I had a sangria which was okay. My mom had a mojito which was good. My husband ordered the lasagna which was the best lasagna I have ever had. He also ordered potatoes which I could not stop eating, they were so good. I can’t remember the name of the dish I ordered, but I much preferred the lasagna. I highly recommend visiting here, just make sure to make a reservation.

7/5/22 – Day 8

We started the morning around 7:15 and then we headed over to La Casa del Caffè Tazza d’Oro right by the Pantheon. We got in line and ordered and paid, and then gave our receipt to a worker who gave us our food. Joseph and I got two cappuccinos and two pastries. I chose a croissant and Joseph chose a croissant with chocolate chips that had some cream inside. Joseph’s pastry definitely tasted better, I didn’t care for mine. The cappuccino was delicious though. We got it in a to-go cup and it didn’t have any usual coffee “bite” to it, very smooth and yummy. Then walked over to the Trevi fountain, arriving close to 8am. There was a good amount of people there but still room for us to sit and take photos plus eat our breakfast. Ideally it would be better to get there earlier.

After photos, we walked over to the Roman Forum (11 minute walk).  On the walk you pass by Piazza Venezia which was nice.  We took some photos with the colosseum on the way to it, which in retrospect were a good idea to have a farther view photo.

The entrance to the Colosseum was facing the Roman forum. We were waiting out there around 8:45 am. There was a line that was barely starting to form, maybe 35 people or so in line and others sitting around like us.

They opened at 9am, and we decided to get in line to, to try to get in even though our time slot was 9:35. They still let us in with no problem even though we were early. We got an orange sticker for our arena access and went through security. We stopped by the bathrooms (note, no toilet seats in womens bathroom. Joseph said he found one in the mens that did have a toilet seat). We barely beat a tour group, so try to get to the bathrooms fast. Then we looked at a view from near bathrooms of the colosseum. We were also near a water spout so we refilled our water and wet our cooling towels. Then we headed over towards the elevator for our arena access. I definitely recommend going here first, to try and beat the tour groups and take advantage of some shade before it disappears. We took some photos on the arena floor, then sat in the shade and listened to our Rick Steve’s audio guide.

The colosseum was very grand, and I was glad I had just watched Gladiator too for that perspective. The shade disappeared and the area became busier with a tour group, so we headed out of the arena and went up the stairs. We continued our audio guide and then arrived at a bookstore, but for some reason there was no entrance on our side. The lady didn’t want to let us pass her to the store, but eventually she let us after she let a tour group through. I liked the merchandise they had here with cool designs, I got a shirt.  Then we headed over to the Roman forum.  This was a very hot day (97 F was the high) and it was sure starting to feel uncomfortable. The walk over to the Roman forum had these rock cobblestones that you really had to pay attention to when walking over. I was so glad I had worn tennis shoes. I almost tripped. We went through security again and did our Rick Steves audio tour. The Roman forum was filled with ruins and pieces of temples. About 20 mins in or so, my mom found a shaded place to sit and waited for us as we continued the audio tour. Once we were done, we headed back to the entrance and went through the exit that was right next to it.

I routed us on google maps back to our hotel and we looked into two options—take the metro plus a bus or a bus that went pretty close to our hotel. We got on a bus, which was to the right of the arch that was located in between the Colosseum and Roman forum.

We left around 11:06am, so we only needed 2 hours for the Colosseum and Roman forum, if it wasn’t so hot then we could’ve spent some more time at the Roman forum. We took the 81 bus back to our hotel. We came back to our hotel room and rested for a bit. Then we got together our dirty clothes and researched a place to eat. We decided on Trappizino in Trastevere. It was a 13 minute walk away, and the halfway point was the laundry place.  We walked through campo de fiori and started our load of laundry, then headed to Trappizino. We crossed the bridge and didn’t have to wait long to get a table at the restaurant. We ordered the meatball, chicken, stewed beef, and tounge. We also ordered two of the suppli which were pretty big compared to the others we had eaten so far. The food was good, I liked the stewed beef the best (Joseph too).

Then we headed over to alla fonte d’oro to get some shaved ice, and my dad headed back to the laundry place to put the clothes in the dryer. My mom and I got the lemon coco in shaved ice, and Joseph got pineapple and coconut. We also had pieces of coconut and cherry on our desserts. My mom and I thought ours was okay, Joseph’s was better (like a virgin pina colada). If I were to go back I would try watermelon, but it was just an okay place.  Then we walked back to the laundry place and our clothes was ready. We stopped by campo de fiori and purchased some truffle olive oil and a small case of truffle olive oil along with bruschetta toppings. Then we also purchased a shirt but that didn’t go well. We saw a sign that said 10 euro shirts so we decided to look since most shops sold them for twelve. We found one for Joseph but the XL looked too small (souvenir shirts have been smaller than US sizes), so we asked for XXL. They grabbed another and said “okay 15 euros” then we said no and were leaving and they said “okay we will give to you for 12”. So we bought it but when we brought it back to the hotel we saw they gave us an XL so it did not fit.  We also later discovered it had a huge rectangle on it that made it unwearable because that looked bad. We took a 2 hour nap after returning to the hotel. Then we went back out for some shopping by the hotel. I looked at dresses but didn’t find anything, and then we got some gelato at Gelateria La Romana. It was okay, I got stratacelli and a biscotti flavor on a cone, and Joseph got a marscapone coffee and hazelnut flavors. We regretted this, when we walked outside it immediately started melting on all sides. We went back into the gelato shop and finished it there but it was messy. We came back to the hotel and hung out until it was time for our 8pm dinner. We ate at Ponte e Parione, but this turned out to be our least favorite meal. We ordered a artichoke dish, a tripas dish, and bruschetta. For mains we got lasagna, cacio e Pepe, and my mom got a chicken salad. The beer here was huge which was good for my dad and I had a glass of wine that tasted fine. The food was not good, we hardly ate our artichoke appetizer since it included and antico romana little salad that was super salty. My lasagna paled in comparison to last night’s dinner, and the cacio e Pepe was much better our first night in Rome. It was also super slow service, I don’t know how that place had so many good reviews. Saltimbocca was the gem of our dining in Rome. 

7/6/22 – Day 9

We left our hotel around 7:15 am and decided to go back to Caffe Tazza del oro. I had this Roman bun that was filled with cream (looked like a birote) and it was soooo yummy. I also loved my cappuccino. 

We went back to the hotel and checked out. We walked to the bus stop, purchased tickets at a cafe, and then got on the 40 bus along with other tourists with luggage. The bus was very full once we got on. We validated our tickets and rode for the seven stops. As we were arriving to Termini, the bus was slowing down and two men popped on and started asking to see all of our tickets. The day prior I had done some research to see what the consequences were to not having a ticket, which was a fine. So I was glad that we had bought out 1.50 euro ticket and validated it for that ride. There was a family and another individual that got in trouble for not having validated their ticket. I heard one ask if they could validate it now, but I’m sure the answer was no. We went inside Roma Termini and checked the board, but we were early. We arrived 1 hour before our train departure. 

We didn’t get our platform until about 10 minutes before.  When we finally got our platform, we scanned our tickets to enter the platform areas and went to our platform and onto the train. The train left less than 10 minutes after that. We went to our seats in business class and had a table. We had an area for our luggage overhead and below our seats. Our seats slightly reclined and there was a good amount of room. After a while they came by with drinks (soda, water, juice, or coffee) and offered a snack (sweet or salty). I tried both, I got the sweet and my dad got the salty, both were good (I preferred the salty). Later they came to check our tickets.  We had left around 10:40am and arrived by 12:11pm to Florence. We had some nice countryside views along the way. I researched Florence food and tried to make dinner reservations on the train ride over. The wifi did not work, but thankfully my LTE did.  We wanted to try florentine steak, so we found Trattoria Osteria dall’Oste, and I made reservations online. I first made a reservation near our hotel but they responded saying they were fully booked. Then I made one at the location by the train station and they accepted that one. After we arrived in Florence, we did the 7 minute walk with our luggage to our hotel—Hotel Centrale. It was cobblestoned on some points of our walk, but not as bad as Rome. We arrived to the hotel around 12:30pm, and they said we would have to wait until check in time (2pm) to get our room. So we gave them our bags to store and sat in the lobby to look for lunch. After about 5-10 minutes they told us our rooms were ready, so we got to go settle in to our rooms early.  After settling in, we walked 5 minutes over to Mercato Centrale. There is a glass market in the center of all the outdoor stalls. When you go in the building and go upstairs you will find the places to eat. Joseph got in line for pizza while I got in line for dumplings. My parents got in line for a combo meal of food to share. Joseph finished first and got a place to sit in the corner of the second floor.  When I was done getting my food, I walked around to find him and my parents already had a spot for 4 people. They stayed in their spot and I went to find Jospeh. I found Joseph in a table for 6 in the corner and there was a girl sitting at his table as well. We ate our food, Joseph chose a pizza that was good (it had onions, tomato, and more) and I thought the dumplings were okay.  We eventually started talking to the girl sitting next to us, and it turned out she was a solo traveler who was finishing up her fourth week in Europe. Her name was Andrea and we had a good chat about our travels.  She walked with us over to the Uffizi gallery. We went all the way up to the Uffizi and there was an information booth. I asked for our tickets, but it turned out there was another place to get the tickets that we had passed along the way. We went back past Piazza del Signore and went to the church that had the ticketing office inside. We picked up our tickets for the Uffizi and the Accademia. Then we headed back to the Uffizi and went inside. The Uffizi was very very crowded. We did the Rick Steves audio tour and the highlight for me was the Botticelli paintings. There was La Primavera and the Birth of Venus. Both absolutely stunning.  Overall, I enjoyed this gallery, the ceilings were beautiful in the hallways. After we left, we went to the nearby All’Antico Vinaio. We got in the line on the left and didn’t have to wait too long to order.  Joseph got La Favolosa, a sandwich that at one point he made the top sandwiches in the world list. I ordered di Manolo. After we ordered there was an area to sit and eat the sandwich, and a bar at the back to pay at. Both sandwiches were good but not “best sandwich ever” status.  But, of the two we preferred the La Favolosa sandwich. After, we went back to the hotel to rest (around 6pm). We took an 1.5 hour or so nap. That evening we went back out around 8pm. We tried to go to Gelateria dei Neri, but it was closed. A lot of places were closed except for restaurants. We ended up finding another gelato place around the corner that was still good. I ordered a small gelato with a milk favor and a honeycomb flavor, and the honeycomb was yummy. Then we went to the nearby bridge and took some photos with Ponte Vecchio (a pretty bridge).  Then we went back to the hotel and went to the supermarket but it was closed. I found another market that said it was open and we bought some water. Most places were closed around town, it was mostly restaurants that were still open at this time (9pm). We went to bed around 10 pm.

Notes to self for our next trip to Rome someday

• Visit Bonci’s Pizzarium by the Vatican for supposedly the best pizza in Rome
• Make another visit to La Casa del Caffè Tazza d’Oro, get a cappuccino and the roman cream filed pastry

January 2020 was when we booked a 3-week trip to Europe in May 2020, but of course that was canceled.

In June 2021, as restrictions started to lift we started to think about booking a vacation. We debated between Hawaii and Costa Rica, but decided on Hawaii since we wouldn’t have to a take a test to get home. We booked a last minute trip to Oahu for the end of July.

This trip was 8 nights, and some of the main things we wanted to do included the following:

• Luau
• Polynesian Cultural Center
• Tour around the island
• Pearl Harbor
• Iolani Palace
• Dole Plantation

When booking a hotel, we debated between a budget hotel and a beachfront hotel. The budget hotel we were contemplating was the Holiday Inn Express Waikiki since it included breakfast. But we decided to book a beachfront hotel, and we chose Sheraton Waikiki. The pricing for a beachfront room was $3,122.95 for 8 nights. For reference, our trip for 8 nights in total was around $6,200 for the two of us, not including airfare. Our airfare was covered using travel points and the Southwest Companion pass. Our flights were 61,941 points for one person, but thanks to the companion pass we can add another person for free.

Here was our itinerary:

Recommendations

• If you plan to go to the Aloha stadium flea market, make sure to go there first thing in the morning. You can reserve Pearl Harbor for an afternoon time.
• If you aren’t able to go to the swap meet early in the morning, then just check out Ross, Duke’s lane marketplace, and the other surrounding souvenir shops (We found great deals at a souvenir shop across from Tommy Bahamas)
  • We went to the swap meet around 11am or so, and it was too hot and humid.  Plus there weren’t many drink vendors, so we had difficulty finding a cool drink.  We eventually found the shaved ice, and some Thai iced tea that helped cool us down.  
  • For comparison in prices, the dresses ranged from $20 – $30 depending on the style.  We saw the same dresses at places in Waikiki for $40 – $60.  But I did find a store across from Tommy Bahama that had prices around $30, and $13 kids dresses.  
• Make reservations in advance for the following restaurant’s: Duke’s (lunch or dinner) reservation on OpenTable, Tonkatsu Ginza Barin reservation on Yelp, Roy’s Waikiki reservation on OpenTable
• We enjoyed our tour with Hi5 Hawaii, it’s a private tour and is fully customized to what your group wants to do
• Must do a Luau – We did Chief’s Luau and went to the Polynesian Cultural Center the following day. We enjoyed both experiences, I will detail that more below. But out of the 4 of us, 2 of us preferred Chief’s, and 2 of us preferred PCC.
• Schedule surfing lessons in advance
• Water shoes are a MUST
  • Since we had packed flip flops, walking sandals, and tennis shoes, we didn’t think we would really need water shoes.  After we experienced the water then we did want to hang out in the ocean, but the rocks were sharp and we had to go to Walmart to purchase water shoes.

Day 1 – July 23rd, 2021

We finished up our packing throughout the morning, and took our Byron and the luggage to my parents house around 10:00am. We headed to FAT and checked in our luggage, each couple brought a large suitcase and carry-on suitcase. The security lines were very long, and my parents barely made it with only 15 minutes to spare before boarding. We flew from Fresno to Vegas, had a 5 hour layover and our flight was delayed. We ate dinner at the PGA golf tour restaurant in the LAS airport. We obtained out wristbands for entrance into Hawaii before our flight, after showing our barcodes from Safe Travels on our phones. We uploaded photos of our vaccine records before the trip and they verified our actual cards to the uploads before giving us our wristbands. We arrived in Hawaii at 11pm Hawaii time, 2am PST.

Day 2 – July 24th, 2021

We started our morning with a breakfast reservation at Hula Grill, which is located directly above Duke’s Waikiki. The food was not amazing, but it was a nice place. After breakfast, we walked around the area but most shops weren’t open this early. We did get nice photos with the Banyan trees at the International Market Place.

After that we hung out at our hotel, and went to the infinity pool in the afternoon.

We continued to explore in the afternoon, and found the nearby food court, up the escalator near island vintage shaved ice. We had a “Shaka Boom” from Kokoro Cafe, which was a nice snack for the warm weather.

In the evening we headed to Tonkatsu Ginza Barin for our dinner reservation. Here was my Yelp review for our visit:

I had the Bairin Special Pork Tenderloin Katsu-Don and my husband had the specialty Kurobata. They only serve 10 of the specialty kurobata everyday, and we were still able to order one with our 5:30pm dinner reservation. We also ordered the beer that comes discounted with the specialty kurobata for $1.30 (discounted beer for the first drink only). Both of our orders were delicious! I loved the egg on my pork tenderloin katsu, and my husband enjoyed his dish. We loved the sesame dressing for the slaw. The servers were very nice. Make sure to make a reservation! This place only has a few tables, and when we arrived they had a sign that said they were doing reservations only and there wasn’t an option to walk in.  I also recommend checking out the video  on YouTube that Yellow Productions made on eating here.

Day 3 – July 25th, 2021

We started our morning by meeting in the front of our hotel at 7:10am. We were going to try and switch out breakfast plans to açaí bowls, but the place was closed, so we stuck with our original plan of eating at Kono’s. We walked to Kono’s Northshore and ordered our breakfast burritos. While waiting, I got pooped on by a pidgeon on my left thumb, but thankfully I was able to easily get cleaned with wipes. My parents’ burrito took a while but the burritos were good (but not amazing). I texted Kurt, our driver, that we would be a little late and wanted to change our pickup time to 8:15am. We got back to our hotel, went to go use the restroom, and came back down and met with Kurt. Kurt drove us to the Pearl Harbor memorial and dropped us off around 9am. We paid $6 to have our bag stored in a locker. Then we went to check out the gift shop, and then went to the museum. At 9:35am we were able to get in line for our 9:45am reservation. We made our reservation in advance, the month prior, on Recreation.gov for $1 each. They weren’t showing the film due to covid, so we went straight onto the boat. Once we arrived to the memorial for the USS Arizona, we walked around and saw what was left below of the ship. There was also a wall of the names of the lives that were lost, and the survivors who were now buried there now.

We were there for about 15 minutes, and then took a boat back. We got Brandon a shirt, and Dad Sue a hat at the gift shop. Then we took a 15 minute walk to the Aloha stadium swap meet. It was in the mid 80s and humid, but not bad yet. We paid for our entrance to the swap meet and turned left to check out the vendors. We got many souvenirs, including a matching dress and Hawaiian shirt for our luau. After spending some time shopping we started looking for a cool drink or shaved ice. We walked for a while and couldn’t find anything, and eventually turned back. We ended up getting some Thai iced tea, water, and spring rolls and felt better after that. My mom decided to stay seated at the table since the heat was getting to her. My dad was at a shop getting a ukulele. Joseph and I kept walking, and found the shaved ice that we had missed. We shared one and continued shopping. We got to one stand where they had shirts that were 7 for $20 and we ended up buying many souvenirs there. Then we met with Kurt at 1:10pm. He drove us back and took us through Chinatown and showed us some places to eat. We got back to the hotel and rested a bit, and then went to the food court at the Royal Hawaiian Center for lunch. We shared a loco moco burger and it was good. Then we walked over to Henry’s place and got ice cream. Joseph and I got the pineapple coconut ice cream, and my mom got the pineapple coconut sorbet. We determined that the sorbet had a fruitier taste, but both were very good. Then we went back to rest at the hotel. We met again around 6pm to go checkout ABC store #38 which is the largest one in the area. My mom and I got earrings, and I also got a bracelet. Then we headed over to Longs Drugs to check out their souvenirs. After, we went to RumFire in the hotel for drinks. I ordered a lava flow, and my mom and Joseph got a pina colada, and my dad got a longboard. We also ordered edamame and fried chicken with chips as snacks, they were good. We enjoyed sitting in a cabana by the ocean. 

Day 4 – July 26th, 2021

We started our morning early at Island Vintage Coffee, here was my yelp review:

We got in line at 6:25am and there was only a few people in front of us. I believe they started opening at 6am, even though the official hours say 6:30. By 6:30 there was a good amount of people arriving to get in line, so I’m glad we got there 5 minutes early. We ordered the island latte hot, the original acai bowl, and the haupia Moana bowl. We were able to get tables (there’s only about 10 or so small tables here), and waited about 15-20 mins or so to get our bowls.  They were both delicious, I loved the cream in the haupia Moana bowl. I loved the coffee, it was a little too sweet for my husband. We finished before 7, and there was already a significant line. I definitely recommend getting here before 6:30am.

We spent time after breakfast hanging out at our hotel, and then my mom and I did some shopping. We went to Duke’s for lunch, and checked in for our reservation. We asked for a table with a view, and they said it would take extra time, but we decided to wait. Thankfully we waited less than 5 minutes and were seated with a semi-view (mostly of the pool, but still nice). Joseph got the nachos with Kalua pork and I got the burger. We had to try the desert, which was a hula pie. We loved the food at Duke’s.

In the evening was our luau at Chief’s Luau. This luau is at a water park, which is located approximately 40 minutes from our area in Waikiki. Our pickup time was 4:20pm at the Ross by our hotel. I believe we arrived around 5:30pm to Wet N Wild Hawaii. When we arrived, there was a huge line, and I was worried about how long it would take to get in. Thankfully, since we had arranged transportation with Chief’s luau, they let us go through the line and directly in. After we arrived we got our tickets and table number, took a photo with some of the performers, picked up our welcome drink, and we were directed to our seats. We paid extra for the “Royal Experience”, and we were very glad we did because we had great seats. I would definitely recommend paying the extra money for this just for the view.

Day 5 – 7 – July 27th, 2021 through July 29th, 2021

I did not take detailed notes for these days, so the notes below are based off memories with help from reviewing the itinerary and photos.

We started our morning with breakfast at Eggs n’ Things, and then met up at Ross for pickup for the Polynesian Cultural Center. The Polynesian Cultural Center had various islands to visit with activities at each one along with some shows. We started off with taking the boat ride to the end, and then made our way back through each island. At the end of the day we went to a buffet, and then went to a show after that. The Polynesian Cultural center show, and Chief’s Luau had very different vibes from each other. PCC was more of a big performance, Chief’s Luau felt more intimate. Of our group of four, two of us preferred Chief’s Luau and the other two preferred PCC. I personally preferred Chief’s Luau.

On one of the evenings, there was a tsunami alert which was very concerning while staying in a hotel right on the water. But thankfully the alert ended up being called off.

The following day we did Iolani Palace which was cool to see, I enjoyed seeing the dresses there. We also learned a lot about the history there, which was sad.

After the Palace, we walked over to Walmart. We purchased multiple souvenirs here, including some food items such as a jar of jam. We waited a while for Kurt, and after he picked us up he took us to Rainbow Drive-in for Hawaiian food.

The following day was our Hi5 Hawaii tour. Here was my tripadvisor review:

We had our tour on Thursday, July 29th 2021 with Kevin and Eric. Our tour started off with a lei greeting from Kevin. We told him about all of the things that we wanted to see which included the dole plantation, North shore, snorkeling, photos near kualoa ranch, and the Byodo-in temple. Kevin was able to quickly come up with the perfect itinerary for our day. We started off with a visit to Tantalus Lookout. We got some amazing photos from these beautiful views of Waikiki. Next we went to the Byodo-in temple. Kevin came with us and gave us our Malasadas here, they were yummy. Keep in mind that it is a $5 fee per person to enter here. Next was photos with the mountains near Kualoa ranch. These were taken at a park right by China man’s hat. Next we went to the Banzai pipeline and took some photos in the water. After that, we went to eat lunch at the north shore food trucks across from Shark’s cove. We ate at the Aji limo truck, I had the teriyaki chicken which was delicious. After lunch, we grabbed snorkels from the truck and walked across the street to Shark’s Cove. Water shoes are a must here, and they did have bathrooms and a small changing area. Snorkeling at Shark’s cove was the highlight of our day, we loved it. After that, we went on a quick visit to see the turtles, and we got to see some turtles in the water. But it was very warm, and we were glad we were only here for a short time. Lastly, we went to the Dole plantation. There was a long line in front, and we went to the back and shared a dole whip. We got back to our hotel around 5pm. Throughout the trip we loved chatting with Kevin who was very personable and easy to talk to, and who gave us information about the island throughout the whole trip. We booked with Hi5 after seeing them mentioned many times on the Hawaii Facebook groups that I joined in preparation for the trip. We are very glad that we decided to do a private tour instead of a bus tour. Thanks so much to Kevin and Eric for an amazing day!! We do recommend booking a trip with Hi5, and you will love Kevin if you get him as your guide!

Day 8 – July 30th, 2021

We woke up early, around 5:45am, since today was golf day.  My dad brought us up coffee around 6:20am.  Kurt arrived around 6:30am, and Joseph made it down by around 6:40am.  They headed over on the 40 minute drive to Ewa Golf Club.  I headed to my parents room (822) around 6:55am, and we checked in to our Southwest flight at 7:05am.  My mom and I just hung out for a bit in the room, while I listened to the Costume College lectures that started early that morning at 6am (9am PST).  Around 8:30am, we walked over to the Moana Surfrider to check out the lobby.  It had a beautiful banyan tree in its courtyard.  Then we walked over to an ABC store to look at face masks, but they didn’t have the best selection.  We headed over to Ross since that store opened early.  We looked around, but didn’t find anything new to buy.  We headed to Duke’s lane marketplace, which is multiple stands that sell various souvenirs and purchased a few souvenirs.

Here was a sunset view from our hotel room.

Day 9 – July 31st, 2021

Kurt picked us up around 4:30am to go to the airport, he also gifted us with chocolate covered macadamia nuts.  When we arrived we had to go through the agriculture inspection, and decided to check in all of our bags.  We were able to get through security pretty fast, and lined up at Starbucks.  We had originally planned to leave our hotel at 5am, but I’m glad we ended up doing 4:30 instead since there were still a good amount of people at the airport that early in the morning. 

Overall thoughts on Oahu–we went during a very crowded time, and it was hot at times as well. Some thoughts we had included our preference towards Playa del Carmen, which doesn’t have as many crowds, has all-inclusive options, and is much less expensive. This was a good trip, but we aren’t in a rush to go back to Oahu. We would like to try visiting the other islands.