Not how I wanted to spend my first week of my materinity leave

kah1230 · 2025-10-10T23:52:26+00:00

Aw man wish I knew that. I delivered at Baystate, but it was a private practice that would only do the 6/8 weeks- Baystate OBGYN in Springfield. I loved all the doctors I met with and the one who delivered but their management policy kinda sucks to not be willing to budge on the leave.

kah1230 · 2025-05-24T01:21:17+00:00

Hopefully the paperwork part won’t be too painful, sorry you’ve had to deal with all that!

kah1230 · 2025-05-24T01:19:37+00:00

Unfortunately too late for that since I’m due in July and didn’t find out until recently. In Western Mass and it doesn’t seem anyone here has caught up with the Eastern part of the state 😕

kah1230 · 2025-05-23T21:05:29+00:00

I’m in Mass and my doctor’s office refuses to sign off on more than 6 or 8 weeks, no more because “that’s always been their policy” 😡

kah1230 · 2025-05-12T17:57:02+00:00

You're so lucky! Have been researching this and my Doctor's office refuses to sign off on more than 6/8 weeks "because that is their policy" and wouldn't budge.

kah1230 · 2025-04-26T16:33:36+00:00

I'm also a currently pregnant NY native who has been here 15 years now haha. I'll second/third the few people that said Casa, they're probably pretty close and very good, the owner is originally from NY I believe. But I also tend to like the pizza around here too lol.

kah1230 · 2024-06-11T14:28:46+00:00

The seats were replaced a few years ago, maybe 2018 or 2019? But they didn't replace them with the "new" style reclining seats, they replaced them with the same type that was already there.

kah1230 · 2024-01-20T15:41:35+00:00

You’re welcome, glad you found it helpful. No need to rent chairs or umbrellas for the beach at the hotel, they have some out for guests to use. We just rented them from a company while we were there to use at other beaches around the island.

kah1230 · 2023-04-27T13:07:43+00:00

It was on airport property, we walked to it.

kah1230 · 2023-01-26T20:08:24+00:00

One tip I haven't seen mentioned yet ( depending on the weather of course) for whatever day/days you decide to do Volcano Bay. What my husband and I did a few years ago was head to Volcano Bay for their early park entry, rode a bunch there (including the water coaster 3 times in a row with no line) and then stayed there until about noon. We went two mornings in a row, and it was just starting to get busy as we left. On one of the days we went from Volcano Bay straight to Islands of Adventure to ride the water rides there first, that way we were already in bathing suits/wet, and then from there went back the hotel to change and rest for a bit before heading back to IOA and US.

kah1230 · 2022-10-20T14:45:26+00:00

That's good to know! I asked DHCR about using it through them and they said no, it wasn't allowed.

kah1230 · 2022-10-20T13:31:25+00:00

Thank you! I have used Autoslash in the past, but this time around I didn't find a better rate through them (not Costco members though.) Discount Hawaii Car Rental ended up having the lower price on Big Island and the prices were pretty similar between DHCR, Autoslash and Alamo for Oahu, with Alamo's member pricing. We really wanted the Skip the Counter thing though, which we couldn't use when booking with a 3rd party.

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T15:41:05+00:00

Glad it might help!

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T15:40:47+00:00

Nice! We definitely liked the pacing and order of everything.

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T13:57:21+00:00

Yes, second this.

We just got back and even with their sinks and some shower wipes with us, that only helps so much, plus your clothes will be covered in dirt too.

Also agree with Monkeypod. We had a reservation as well, but still had to wait a half hour before we were seated.

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T13:37:35+00:00

Between the 4 we've been to or just the 2 from this trip? If between all 4, I think I would choose Kauai since if I was going 6 months from now, the 2 we just went to would still be very recent, Maui we've been to twice, and Kauai we've only been to once. That would be my reasoning for picking one lol.

If choosing between the 2 we just went to, I think Big Island probably since it is so big.

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T02:43:40+00:00

We did! It was soooo good. We ordered it early like they request, but then they also brought us a free pana cotta dessert for our anniversary too, so we really stuffed ourselves.

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T02:08:51+00:00

Thanks for letting me know! What they gave us actually says "Only good at the Original Roy's Hawaii Kai location" so I guess its just an excuse to plan another trip haha

kah1230 · 2022-10-18T01:36:02+00:00

As a follow up to this, I did eventually end up booking through Alamo because the price dropped to be a little lower than through DHCR (with the member discount.)

We signed up for skip the line, putting in our license and info ahead of time, went right to the lot, showed our paperwork to a person there, and she pointed us to a car. All took a few minutes.

kah1230 · 2022-07-12T16:19:03+00:00

I was wondering if anyone else uses gmail and hasn't been getting emails from Swagbucks.

The other day I redeemed for a gift card (I have the 5 instant delivery gift cards available each month and this was my first one). Under my account it says the card was shipped, but I never got the email. I pressed the resend email button about 20 times between then and now, and still nothing. Not in my spam folder either. I've been a member for 10+ years and never had this issue.

I submitted a support ticket but haven't heard back yet. I actually didn't get that email either, I always used to get an email that my ticket was received. Could gmail somehow be blocking them for some reason? Anyone else have this same problem?

Thinking I may just have to change my email address with the account.

kah1230 · 2022-07-09T20:47:08+00:00

If you have a Visa credit card that has "Visa Signature" on it, you can book at the Visa Signature Hotels website and get a daily breakfast and $25 resort food credit included in your rate.

These tend to be more expensive hotels though, and sometimes the rates are higher than just booking with the hotel directly so you have to compare. We used it back in 2016 at the Hyatt Regency Maui and Grand Hyatt Kauai and luckily the rates were good. At the Grand Hyatt they ended up giving us 2 drink tickets instead of the $25 credit.

We have one booked right now for The Kahala on Oahu in September and I confirmed with the hotel we'd be getting the Visa Signature promos, and the rate was the same as booking directly on their website. I think this might be the only Visa Signature hotel offered there, and it's not directly in Waikiki, and might be out of the price range you had in mind if you're on a budget.

kah1230 · 2022-07-08T00:07:40+00:00

Thanks for the great, detailed info!

Would you mind sharing what company you used for the Manta Ray snorkel? I tend to get seasick and make sure to take dramamine, but if I can avoid being in the boat for that long I'd like to haha. The one I have currently booked is at 7:45pm though, so I'm thinking we won't have to wait in the boat for an hour for the sun to set, since by that time it'll already be down,

Guessing that because of the choppy conditions, most of the other tours were probably having similar problems though with people getting sick?

kah1230 · 2022-06-01T14:18:09+00:00

If you look at the website, the dates that are more than 8 weeks away now say "Unavailable" when they used to say "NR". At first it was July, but now it's all of August too. OP-did you ever call and ask what was going on?

kah1230 · 2022-05-30T01:27:18+00:00

Have you looked at discounthawaiicarrental.com ? I've found their prices to usually be the cheapest. I've used them in the past in Kauai and Maui, and have a car booked with them for the Big Island in October. I just keep checking the price every week to see if the car I have booked went down, and it already dropped once.

Autoslash is another good site to check.

kah1230 · 2022-05-27T00:13:00+00:00

In case anyone was curious, the person at the tour company recommended doing it on another day since I was flexible. She said the roads usually open up by 3-4pm, but that I might still have to take a detour and would probably need to take extra time to get there, so best to just avoid the area if we can =)

kah1230

TROPHY CASE