Hawaii Day 3 - Waikiki Beach and Chuck E Cheese Pearl City - 2025/07/04

It's day 3 in Hawaii! Let's see what adventures we can get up to today. 

It was another lazy morning of sleeping in and hanging out in the hotel room. I think all of us are appreciating the extra sleep. Going out to our balcony though, there's a big event going on this July 4th. 

So many boats are in Waikiki Bay doing boat races! 

Check it out Pikachu! 

Breakfast was super busy and it was difficult to find a table. 

Many of the reviews Theresa read about the globalist lounge warned about sitting outside, saying that the local birds could be quite aggressive. The workers there tried to stay on top of clearing all the plates from tables as people left, and they were armed with squirt bottles, and even a super soaker water gun to discourage them from hanging around. 

Not a bad breakfast. 

What should we do with our day? 

Let's go to Chuck E Cheese! There's actually 3 Chuck E Cheese locations on this island, but I'm especially excited about going to this one. 

July 4th.

This is why I wanted to come here! They've got the band on stage! Not just a single Chuck E animatronic like at so many other locations we've seen, 

That's pretty cool! 

And how about the games? 

There's Avengers for Theresa. Not as good of a ticket bonus as some other places, but at least it's not broken. 

Since last summer, so many Chuck E Cheese locations removed this claw machine where you can win a ball. I think every single CEC we've been to this year took it away (letting you spend tickets on balls instead at the prize store). 

Alli was happy to spend credits trying to win them and giving them away to other kids (because we don't have lots of room in our luggage to bring them home). 

Ian is becoming quite proficient at Pop the Lock. And 100 tickets is a really good Jackpot! 

Down the Clown is here too, though the entire top row was broken. That made getting 500 points really really difficult since the top row has the highest value targets. I was able to win it once, but then the score jumped to 550, making it too difficult for me. 

Alli has found a new game she likes too. A Spongebob marble game! 
And look who is here! It's Chuck E Cheese himself! 

He came over to watch Alli play, and Chuck E has a special surprise too. He just holds his hand over the credit reader and BOOM you get a free game! It's like magic! 

He was helping Alli with the timing on when to shoot. I asked if he'd played before and was he any good? He motioned so-so. Well show us!

Uh... yeah, he's an expert at this. 

Thanks Chuck E! 

Alli showing us that she won the 100 ticket jackpot! Nice work Alli!

Instead of running to the back after the hourly dance together, this Chuck E Cheese really seemed to like hanging out with everyone. He came to watch Ian play Pop the Lock. 

Ooh. 3 away. So close. 

There we go! Jackpot winner! 

This CEC is pretty retro too. I haven't seen this ride in the longest time. Go ahead and hop on kids!

I told Ian he'll have to hold on tight once it starts getting up to speed and spins him upside down. He thought that would be fun. 

Racing together with Mario Kart. 

Staying out to play and give free credits to more people. 

There's the whole gang on stage! 

Time for the dance number! 

Chuck E was really into it. He's definitely got the dance moves. 

And at the end, something that was new to us! A worker threw a giant handful of the old-school paper tickets into the air and the kids scrambled on the ground to pick them up!

Thanks Chuck E! That was a lot of fun. 

We let Chuck E know that we've been to lots and lots of different CECs, and without a doubt, this was the best. It's because it's got such a great atmosphere and a feeling of fun to it. It's dynamic. It's retro. And nostalgic too. 

I was wondering why they still had the Mr. Munch Ticket Munchers. 

And it's because you can feed the tickets you collected into it for a paper receipt to redeem later! We got one just because, otherwise Ian wanted to hold onto the real paper tickets. 

The prize had all the regular prizes, but that's fine. We don't need to get anything here. What was most disappointing though was the sign that was on the counter. We'd seen it on the way in too, but after having been here, it was sad to see. 

After 30 years of operation, this amazing Chuck E Cheese is closing for good. I looked it up and it was something about the lease agreement with for the property coming up and not being able to come to an agreement going forward. That's such a bummer. 

I'm sure a lot of fun times have been had here. 

Even though it's our first time, we still left a Thank You on their memory wall. 

One last big hug for Chuck E before we leave. We also made sure to write a Yelp and Google Review for the owners, just so they know how much we enjoyed it. 

The morning and afternoon turned out to be a little rainy. It's started to clear up now though. 

Back in the room, we got ready to head out to the beach! Until we started hearing a recurring beeping noise coming from the kids room. A quick call to the front desk and maintenance was up in our room not long after to replace the fire alarm batteries. 

Down at Waikiki Beach, right in front of our hotel! The hotel has free beach chairs and towels. We just needed our boogie boards and the umbrella. 

Let's head to the water kids! 

While Theresa enjoys the sand. 

First time boogie boarding for the kids. The waves were pretty small, and we only caught them while we were in close to the shore, but it was enough to have fun. 

Time to use those new boogie boards! 

One other thing the kids picked up were these mesh nets. Ian's hoping to find some cool shells. 

And he's got a few! 

For dinner, back in the room, Theresa started with Korean greens, kimchi, and rice. 

Then over at the lounge, the rest of us dined on roast beef sandwiches. 

Alli (who just loves vegetables) was amazed by this spread. 

She ate so many carrots, it's a wonder she didn't turn orange. 

To close out the night on this July 4th, we walked over to a nearby shave ice stand. 

Looks yummy! 

We wandered around the sidewalk near the beach after dark, wondering if anyone would be setting off fireworks. Talking to the concierge at the hotel, they didn't know of any places nearby where fireworks would be going off either. We headed back up to our room to look out at the island from the balcony and didn't see any fireworks from there either. Oh well! Tomorrow is another day in paradise. We'll see what all we get up to!