Food Challenges During a Week Long Condo Stay In Hawaii

During my week long stay in a beautiful condo in Makaha Hawaii, I came across a problem I had not encountered before. My flight landed around 8:30 pm at night and I had about a 45 minute drive from the airport to get to my condo. The drive was not the bad part, I intentionally picked a condo that was as far away from the big city of Waikiki as I could get. I live in Vegas after all, and the last thing I need is a big city atmostphere.

My problem was the fact that I was traveling alone, and wouldn't be arriving to my condo until after 9:30 pm. Not knowing the local area at all, I had no idea where the grocery store was or if it was even open. I wasn't too sure about shopping at the grocery store for food after 10:00 pm at night and I needed to get to the condo first because I was already considered a late check in. I made a quick stop at Taco Bell, and got to the condo as quickly as possible. I figured there would certainly be a small bag of coffee and creamer for the morning, and I could survive the night without anything else to eat. In past experiences at my Timeshare condo in Kauai, there was a small courtesy package of Hawaiian coffee and some sugar and creamer so I expected the same thing here.

Well, I was wrong. There was nothing, nada, zero, zip in the kitchen and when I woke up in the morning, I was seriously needing some coffee. I would have given a limb to be able to have delicious hot coffee to drink as I sat on my balcony enjoying the ocean view.

Obviously, I would need to make a trip to the grocery store and was able to find out what was open on a Sunday when I finally, officially checked in at the front desk.

I don't know if you've ever had the privaledge of shopping for food on any Hawaiian island, but food does not come cheap there. I was only staying for about 5 days so I did my best to shop for small containers of the things I wanted to buy. I did not see the point in buying a large jar of spaghetti sauce, or full size tub of margarine if I was only there for 5 days. I knew I couldn't take it home in my luggage- that could be ugly. Unfortunately, I didn't have much choice if I was going to enjoy several meals I cooked up myself in my condo kitchen. At least spaghetti could be enjoyed twice if I cooked enough, and maybe the cleaning staff would take the margarine home if I left it in the fridge.

I had this same problem with creamer for my coffee (I don't like the powder stuff at all), peanut butter and jelly, garlic salt or salt and pepper to season my food, salad dressing, and laundry soap. I had a washer and dryer in my unit, but needed trial size packages of tide or something.

Now, I did think ahead and I brought some single packages of oatmeal from home because that's not very hard to pack in my suitcase if I took them out of the box. I could not imagine trying to bring all the things I would need with me from home, though. Imagine if something like the salad dressing broke when they launched my suitcase onto the plane.

If you are planning a trip soon, and you have reserved either a condo, timeshare unit, or even hotel room with kitchenette, I highly recommend you think about all the condiments and food items you'll be needing to feed you and your family. Sure, you could eat out, but in case you are traveling on a strict vacation budget and you want to enjoy a good home cooked meal from your vacation home, you might be interested in learning how to go about getting the cheapest trial size grocery items for your trip.

I recently came across a site that provides over 20,000 different types of trial size grocery and misc items. Excerpt from the site:

"We have a full supply of small and lightweight food, personal care, and pharmacy items for camping, backpacking, or hiking. Outfit your desk or office with your favorite salad dressing, tea or snacks. Going on a trip? We've got hundreds of travel accessories, including travel size toothpaste, travel size shaving cream, travel size mouthwash and more. Is your first aid kit lacking? Refill it from our pharmacy aisle. Have a loved one or friend overseas in the military? Send a military care package designed by the troops in Iraq. RVers, keep your vehicle supplied with travel size items."

Maybe you have also been on vacation and realized you were going to throw away several bottles of condiments at the end of a trip, and even thought to yourself, "wouldn't it be great if there was one place you could go for the small packets of condiments and get them sent to where you are staying before you got there

Yes, you could go to a local grocery store or pharmacy for some of the items you need, but they don't always have the best selection, best size, or cheap prices.

This site is fantastic, they state that "our main focus is keeping our customers happy. We believe in being a company that answers emails and phone calls in a timely and personal manner. If a customer has special needs (overnight delivery, custom packaging, special product requests), we see what we can do to make it happen." Now that is customer service at it's best.

Please check out the site, and see the huge supply of items they offer, and place an order for your next vacation.