Texas Road Trip: Sidelined

In an effort to travel more within the state of Texas (see posts about our trips to Amarillo, Jellystone,  Victoria,  Galveston, Wichita Falls and San Antonio), we had planned to take another Texas road trip during this 3-day Memorial Day weekend. We had lined up a pet sitter and reserved a hotel in Glen Rose, Texas (about 2 hours from our house). We have been wanting to visit Glen Rose for the past few years. Our weekend plans included:

Dinosaur Valley State Park--with hiking trails and real dinosaur footprints:

Dinosaur World:

 

Fossil Rim Wildlife Center (a drive-thru safari park):

And Big Rocks Park:

However, our plans were derailed because of the heavy rain and flooding throughout Texas. The trails at Dinosaur Valley State Park were closed, Dinosaur World would be too muddy, Big Rocks Park would be too dangerous with the flood waters and we wanted to see all of those things while we were in Glen Rose. So we canceled our hotel and pet sitter and decided to have some fun in the DFW area.

We started driving to Fort Worth (in the rain, of course).

Our first stop was an early lunch at Joe T. Garcia's. Yummy, yummy Mexican food (open since 1935!) This restaurant is near the Fort Work Historic Stockyards, and it gets very crowded. Warning: the restaurant does not accept credit cards (only cash or checks).

Next, we headed to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Since we are members of the Perot Museum in Dallas, we were able to get reciprocal free entry here (although the employee said we didn't have the right level of membership but let us in anyway...your miles may vary). Parking is in a garage to the side of the museum and runs $10 for 4 or more hours.

The last and only time we had been to this museum was back in September 2010 when my boys were 6 and 2 and I was 8 months pregnant.

September 2010

Walking from the parking garage, we ran across this large T-Rex:

As well as a whole line of Dr. Seuss statues:

We walked around to the front of the museum to enter.

Once inside, we ran into one of my husband's college friend and her family. Everyone was looking for some fun indoor activity during the rain.

The kids had a blast at many interactive exhibits:

There is an outdoor water section:

And an indoor kids museum section geared for kids 8 and under:

The kids enjoyed this horseback riding simulator where the goal was to see how many bulls you could round up in the pen:

Roller coaster design center:

This museum has a planetarium attached that is free with admission. There were different shows playing all day, but we just went to one show that talked about all of the planets. There is a Sesame Street planetarium show that plays earlier in the day (which we saw in 2010--it's a great one for younger kids).

Before we left, the kids went down the slide in the gift shop. Beware, it's super fast!

The rain had let up for a little bit, so they played in the fountain in front for a while:

We don't drive to Fort Worth often (it's farther from our home than most people think), but I'm glad we got to experience a different museum and awesome Mexican food.

So the rain and storms continued all weekend...and the next day, we made a trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart. It's a GIANT furniture/electronics store that opened not far from us last month.

The parking garage is high-tech with green lights for vacant spots and red lights for occupied spots. You can look down the aisle and see if there are any open spaces. (And on Saturday afternoon, the signs on the highway said that all parking was full for the store. Cars were waiting to enter the parking garage like it was Disneyland).

Walking through this store was very entertaining for all of us. Sounds weird, but there was so much to look at and touch and try.

And of course the kids found the video game area with games to play:

We also spent time at our local mall which had the Lego Americana Roadshow. This proved to be way more entertaining than I thought it would be. There were maps and trivia questions at various locations, and the Lego displays were dispersed throughout the mall. Upstairs there were several smaller displays that were not even listed on the map.

We saw many U.S. landmarks made out of Legos. Each model had a board explaining the landmark and how many bricks and hours it took to build it.

The U.S. Capitol Building was the most impressive model:

There was also a Lego interactive play area. The kids could have spent hours here!

Just like at the Legoland Discovery Center, there were race tracks to test your creations.

The Lego Americana Roadshow is at Stonebriar Centre in Frisco through June 7 (and it's free).

So while our weekend didn't end up being anything like we originally planned, we still had some fun family time and managed to entertain ourselves cheaply during the wet weather. Sometimes it's just nice to have a change of scenery.

Did your weekend plans get sidelined by the weather? What did you do?

Another Southwest Companion Pass!

Last December, my husband earned his Southwest Airlines companion pass, or what I call the Golden Ticket. The Southwest companion pass is one of the most beneficial travel benefits, and it recently won the TPG Travel Rewards 2015 tournament. I earned one back in 2013, but it expired at the end of 2014. I'm excited to say that I just earned another companion pass that is good through the end of 2016!

So what does this mean? A Southwest companion pass allows you to designate a companion that can always fly with you for free, whether you paid cash for a ticket or you used miles/points. Since my husband and I both have a companion pass for this year, it means that two of our kids will fly for free on Southwest. And that's huge for a family of 5!

How did I get this companion pass? I applied for 2 Chase Southwest Rapid Reward Premier credit cards (a business and a personal card). Through our regular spending, I met the minimum spending on each card to earn 50,000 bonus miles (100,000 total). We kept charging our monthly bills on these cards (and paying off the balances each month) until my miles totaled 110,000 (the threshold for the companion pass). Each credit card has a $99 annual fee, so technically the companion pass and the 110,000 miles cost me $198. But I plan on using the pass and miles for 4 to 5 trips before the end of 2016, so I think the cost is more than worth it.

A few days at this beach in Florida

This summer, we are flying to Colorado and Florida on two separate trips. We only need to use our miles for 3 tickets since 2 of our kids now travel free. Our Colorado trip only cost us 18,345 miles for 5 round-trip tickets because of our companion passes. To put that in perspective, the same trip on American Airlines miles would cost us 125,000 miles.

Denver

We plan to fly 2 or 3 domestic trips on Southwest in 2016, but we haven't yet solidified our plans.

If you think that Southwest miles and a companion pass could be useful to your family, make sure you wait to apply for the credit card when the bonus is at 50,000 miles. Currently, the bonus is 25,000 miles, but it fluctuates throughout the year. I also recommend cancelling the card after the first year to avoid paying another year of the annual fee. Flyertalk reports that you can apply for the same card again 24 months after receiving the bonus miles.

Hawaii Trip Report Part 11: Last Day in Hawaii

Trip Report so far:

Vacation Video
Part 1: Getting There
Part 2: Hiking Diamond Head Crater
Part 3: First Day at Aulani 
Part 4: Tuesday in Hawaii (Girls Version)
Part 5: Tuesday in Hawaii (Boys Version)
Part 6: Dole Plantation and the North Shore
Part 7: Out to Sea
Part 8: Friday at Aulani
Part 9: Kualoa Ranch
Part 10: Picnic on the Beach and Waikiki

Part 11: Last Day in Hawaii

Sunday, March 15, 2015

Our flight didn't leave until 3:10 p.m., so we still had a good chunk of the day to spend in Waikiki. We requested a late check-out and got it. We had $40 of hotel credit that we could use towards breakfast, and we were able to get all of us fed for that amount at the Starbucks in the lobby of our tower.

What to do on our last day in Hawaii? I really wanted to take the Hawaii Duck Tour or visit the Bishop Museum (it would be free for us since we were members of the Perot Museum in Dallas). But we decided to just enjoy the pools and beach near our hotel.

We definitely did not want to go back to the freezing pool from yesterday, so we walked a few blocks (still in our hotel "village") and went to the Paradise Pool. This pool is the kid-friendly pool with water slides.

The kids posed for a few photos on our way to the pool:

We asked at the front desk for the hours of the pool and the slides, and the employee told us that both opened at 8:00 a.m. We arrived at 8:00 a.m. since of course we had already been up for a few hours.

Unfortunately, the front desk was wrong, and the slides didn't open until 10:00 a.m. The pool was also not heated and was very cold.

So we enjoyed the hot tub for a bit:

The employee at the towel check booth at this pool told us that our middle son was too short to ride the slides unless he had arm bands or a life vest. He said the slides dumped into 8 to 10 feet deep water. They didn't have any life vests to rent or borrow, we had to buy him some arm bands. Which is why in subsequent photos he is wearing those.

Also, the pool towel attendant was really stoned and was smoking weed in the hut by the pool. Nice.

Brian went to check out the "super pool" in a different location to see if it would be better for the kids, but it didn't seem to be. We got bored waiting for the slides to open so we walked to the beach. We walked around Duke's Lagoon.

I was surprised it had fish in it!

And we spent some time at the beach:

Around 10 a.m., we went back to the pool so that the boys could try the slides. And at the end of the slides it was only 4 feet deep. This enclosed tunnel slide was the most fun since it was faster.

More hot tub time after the cold water:

We headed back to our room around 10:30 so that we could shower and change and check out by noon. It took us a while to get back to our room because an employee gave us wrong directions. Honestly, we were not overly impressed with the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Compared to Aulani, it was much less kid-friendly (no zero-entry pools, longer walk to other towers for food and pools). And we much preferred other parts of Oahu over the Waikiki/Honolulu area. But the hotel had a lot of amenities compared to other hotels in the Waikiki area.

We made it to the airport on time and had no issues with our flight. Our return tickets were on Hawaiian Airlines. Our plane was so much more comfortable than our American Airlines airplane that we had going to Oahu. The Hawaiian Airlines plane had more legroom, we were served a meal and each seat had a video screen with on-demand movies. I paid $4.99 for Alyssa to have the keiki movie package, which included several Disney movies and shows.

We had a good view of the island as we departed:

Farewell, Hawaii! Until next time!

We had a layover in Las Vegas. Our flight landed around midnight, but our luggage was delayed due to airport issues. Alyssa fell asleep while we waited for our luggage.

We took a taxi to a nearby Hyatt Place that I reserved on Hyatt points. It was a big room for the 5 of us, and it had a free breakfast. Our final flight from Las Vegas to Dallas was on Southwest.

On this final 3 hour flight, Alyssa finally slept on the plane.

Sigh....I guess this vacation is really over, now that I've finished the trip report. :(
I think I have the post-vacation blues. I spent so much time and effort to make this trip happen--the miles and points strategy, researching what we should do with our limited time on Oahu, etc. And the anticipation from my entire family of traveling somewhere new to all of us--it's hard to adjust to the current time when we don't have a big trip to Hawaii to look forward to!

During one of our date dinners, Brian and I discussed how we now understand what attracts people to Hawaii. It's beautiful (stunning, actually), has a lot of diverse activities, the locals are super friendly...and it has the familiarity of being part of the USA (same traffic laws, language, money, no passports required, etc.). Before our trip, we didn't really "get it."

We'd like to go back to Hawaii in 3-5 years. My ideal Hawaii trip would be 5-6 days in Maui (for a smaller-town feel) followed by 4-5 days on Oahu (at Aulani).


Thanks for reading about our Hawaiian vacation, and let me know if you have any questions about our trip. :)