This will be a running commentary on the Best of Hawaii.
First, we have been to Hawaii several times over the years, the first time together was 51 years ago for our honeymoon (we were originally booked for 2024 but a surgery got in the way. I typically post many photos with my narrative, but if the first two days are any indication, there won’t be all that many this time.
We fly out of east coast airports so, had to start very early, We chose an alternate routing- rather than flying to the west coast first, we flew to Atlanta then had a non-stop flight to Honolulu with lay-flat sleeper seats. We left RDU at 0630 and since we were chasing the sun, got to HNL a little after one in the afternoon. We were the only travelers (in an Escalade) for the Tauck transfer to the Royal Hawaiian. The driver was very pleasant and informative. We remarked at how things had changed since we were last there 10+ years ago. There were a lot of people in town for the festival that runs all week. That evening Kakakaua was blocked for several blocks and filled with street vendors (mostly food) and wall to wall people.
Check-in went smoothly, though we had to wait about 30 min for our room to be ready. I need to check with our TD, but we were handed a piece of paper with bag # to ensure our bags were delivered to our room - printed on the form, it said porter gratuity not included and would be charged to our room bill. I think it was a scam but it wasn’t worth arguing about at the time, we were tired! An envelope with Tauck info and forms was waiting. We also received an email from our TD a few days earlier- only about the third time in nearly 20 tours that has happened
Our room was nice enough, though nothing special, like a room at a Hampton Inn, except for the fantastic view of the beach and Diamond Head and the Toto bidet-like toilet seat in the bathroom. Breakfast was included with the pre-stay, but if we had to pay it would have cost $93 for the two eggs, potatoes, sausage, and Coke my wife had and the bagel w/cream cheese, sausage, and OJ I had! 
The welcome dinner is tomorrow.
View from our room:
The spot on Ft Derussy where the room we stayed in on our honeymoon was located- it was an old WWII wood building for visiting officers. It came with open spring metal frame beds, anoles on the walls, etc. The Hale Koa, the military R&R hotel was under construction.
