Cruise lines have banned power strips with surge protectors for years. Recently, some cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean and Celebrity, have banned multi-outlet power plugs. They allow plugs to have multiple USB outlets, but only one power outlet. And even more recently, someone said their large laptop charger wasn't allowed on. You can use the chargers that plug directly into the wall via a single cord, but if you have a charger where the cord goes from the laptop to a power box, with another separate cord to plug into the wall, those aren't allowed. That's what my laptop has, and even if there's a chance they'll let the old, bigger charger through, I don't want to risk not having a way to charge my laptop for two weeks, so I ordered a new charger.
Thankfully, most newer laptops will charge through the USB ports. My laptop is older, but it still works. Barely; if it had an older BIOS, it wouldn't, but at least with my laptop, you can update the BIOS by downloading one through the manufacter's website. Unfortunately, the USB-C 130W GaN charger from Razer, who made my laptop, is quite expensive, $160, and it's really big. However, a normal USB charger won't work, as they have too few watts. Even the higher ones, like 45W or 65W, won't charge most laptops. For that, you need a 100W charger, and Amazon has one from Anker for $85, much cheaper and much smaller than the Razer one. Also, I read that anything over 100W is useless as USB charging is limited to 100W, so I'm not sure why Razer has a 130W one.
Even then, most cords won't charge a laptop; people said you need to get ones that are rated for 100 watts. So I bought some of those, too.
Even with the 100W charger, the laptop still whines that it's not getting enough power.
It still charges, though.
About a quarter of battery in an hour.
And 75% in 2.5 hours.
Let's compare that to the normal charger that came with the laptop.
About a quarter of battery in half an hour (twice as fast as USB charging).
And 75% in 1 hour, again, about twice as fast as USB charging. People said if you're doing heavy computer work, like gaming, you might actually even lose battery power with USB charging, but I'm not going to be doing that on the cruise, so it's fine.
Lightroom has some new AI additions.
A lot of the pprofessional hotographers are actually complaining about them because they can already do most of this on their own and they'd rather have other features.
But it seems Adobe is focusing more on the non-professional users who don't, for example, know how to erase background objects and will appreciate a super-easy way to do it.
We had stopped looking for condos to buy because they were too expensive. However, Ogii came across some condos with two separate entrances, so you can rent out one side as a studio and live in the other one-bedroom side. People always recommend doing that with duplexes so the renter pays the entire mortgage. In Hawaii, the mortgages are so high, that won't work, there's no way the renter would cover the entire mortgage, but it could bring down the monthly price to the point where we would be paying the same amount for a mortgage with a renter as we're paying in rent now. So we decided to look at a few.
Here's the first one's living room. There's no air conditioning, and the windows aren't positioned to let much airflow through, so it's quite hot.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Bedroom.
The studio area.
Second bathroom.
Second kitchen. One problem is the studio side tends to not have a full kitchen. They might have a mini-fridge, but no full-size fridge. They never have an oven and stove; only a microwave and perhaps a hot plate (so we wouldn't want to live on the studio side, as we cook a lot). Some don't even have a kitchen sink, although this one does. If not, I'd be worried about the renter using the bathroom sink for kitchen stuff.
Another issue is if there's a washer and dryer in the unit, if it's in the bedroom side, the renter won't have access to it. The washer was outside and accessible for both sides for this condo.
Also, they generally only have one parking spot, which means the renter wouldn't have one as we'd use it. This spot also looks like it could be a little difficult to get the RAV4 into and out of.
We like the realtor we've had show us some previous locations because she was very good about asking the selling realtor about issues and walking around and looking for them herself. She noticed this water draining outside the property and said we'd want to look into it if we were interested in buying this one. It's nice to have someone we can trust for things like that, rather than someone who only wants to make a sale.
There were actually two separate condos for sale at the same time in this building, both with open houses today. And both have separate entrances.
The first.
And the second.
I dunno about this one; Stephen King wrote a short story titled this about a guy who goes crazy staying in a hotel room with that number (which adds up to 13).
It's in pretty rough shape; the carpet is nasty.
The balcony is a bit scuffed up.
The view isn't very good.
Mostly just buildings.
The kitchen is pretty old and the appliances are rusty.
The bedroom isn't in great shape, with more of the gross carpet.
Same with the bathroom.
The studio area at least doesn't have carpet.
The bathroom there is still quite dirty, though.
The second unit.
The two entrances.
Checking out the studio side first.
And I thought the other unit was in bad shape.
The studio room. I like the tile, and it has its own small balcony. However, it doesn't have any kitchen at all, so you'd have to add that; a counter, a minifridge, a microwave. And no sink.
The main side's living room. More disgusting carpet.
A slightly better view than 1408; this one faces northeast so you can see a bit of the canal and the mountains behind, whereas 1408 faced southwest and couldn't see it at all. Although it's still a lot of buildings.
These doors are nice.
They enclosed the balcony by the kitchen. Some people like doing that as it gives them more interior room.
They're in the middle of tiling the kitchen floor.
The washer and dryer are in the main side, so the renter wouldn't be able to use them.
We'd have to patch the huge hole in this wall.
The main bathroom isn't too nice.
Bedroom.
The sockets look pretty bad.
It does have a small patio on a lower floor with a grill...
... and a pool.
There were a few other nearby open houses we walked by. This agent isn't smiling on the sign; don't all real estate agents smile on their signs? Although her name is Russian, and Russians don't smile as much.
At least she is on the info paper. We're not interested in a 1/1, though.
Another open house.
This one is a 2/2, but I don't think it has a separate entrance. But since we're here, we can check it out.
I like being on a higher floor; this one is 42 out of 44. And then the roof, although I don't know if we can go up there. If so, that's always nice for the view.
Living room.
A nice view of the mountains, golf course, and canal.
The kitchen.
Bedroom.
Nice balcony. You can see the canal and mountains to the right.
And the ocean to the left.
It has A/C, which is nice.
Bathroom. The sign out front said it was a 2/2, but it's actually a 1/1. So much for that.
They do have an on-site convenience store on the bottom floor, though.
Shared laundry.
Outdoor patio.
With a sauna.
Outdoor showers.
And an exercise room.
You have a view of the canal from the patio, too.
The pool is large.
A ton of grills.
The patio is huge and wraps all the way around the building, which is really nice.
I love the amenities here, but the unit was too small. Also, it's a condotel. There are 700 units, 550 of them as condos, and 150 of them as a hotel. And of the 550 condo units, many are also used as vacation rentals.
The Forty Niner restaurant is also on the ground floor here, which is nice.
This other building had sea live on and below the elevator.
Ogii had bought two of these Cloudfield sunglasses with green lenses for us. The screw on one has come loose a few times, so I thought I'd buy another one. However, they're out of stock.
There is one on eBay, although it's double the original price. I really like the glasses, though, so I bought it.
Back to another one with our realtor, this time in the Big Surf building, closer to the ocean.
There's a lot of water in the lower parking lot; I wonder if that's a problem.
The shared laundry only has a few washers and dryers, and it's extremely hot here.
The upper parking lot.
Looking up from there.
There are a ton of key storage lock boxes, which usually means many of the units are shorter-term rentals.
In Hawaii, most areas only allow rentals to be a minimum of 30 days. The city tried to make it 90 days but the federal government overruled them. So the only short-term rentals for under 30 days are in a few small locations, called resort-zoned areas, indicated by the neon yellow areas on this map. One larger area on the far north shore, one on the southwest, one in Honolulu, and a few other tiny areas scattered around.
This is zoomed in on Waikiki, which is the only area in Honolulu that allows short-term rentals. To the upper-left, only the areas close to the ocean can be STRs; the building across the street cannot. Then there is a swath on the right that follows Kalakaua Ave from the canal to the ocean.
You can use another map which designates each building. STR NOV means "notice of violation;" someone rented a unit as a STR when it was not allowed, and the city found out and notified the owner of what corrections they need to make to avoid being fined. STR NOO is "notice of order." After a NOV has been issued, a follow-up inspection is be performed, and if the violations still exist, the owner is fined for each day the violation is not resolved. Approved STR Units are allowed to be rented for under 30 days. NUC Parcels are "Nonconforming Use Certificate." These are grandfathered STRs, which were last issued in 1990. They can still be used at short-term rentals even though they are not in the resort-zoned areas. So you can't strictly go by the neon yellow resort-zoned areas, as there are some NUC buildings outside of it that you can rent as STRs. However, there may be buildings in the resort-zoned areas where the condo board has voted to not allow STRs, or perhaps no more STRs than currently exist are allowed, so while these maps give a general guide, you have to look into each building individually to know for sure. Not to mention, even if STRs are currently allowed, the condo board could vote in the future to not allow them.
If you type in the address of this building, you can see someone received a violation and then a notice of using a unit as an STR when it wasn't allowed. The really confusing part of this map is that if you search for an address, the map indicates it as a dark-blue dot with a neon-blue square around it. That dot looks very similar to the STR dot, so you have to delete the address to searched for to ensure it's not an approved STR unit.
These units are obviously being rented out. Either legally, over 30 days, or illegally, under 30 days.
The unit for sale is the one right above the entrance, which makes it very unique; it's the only unit with this huge balcony, which serves as the roof of the entrance.
Going into the condo.
The kitchen is very nice.
A storage area.
The studio has obviously already been rented out.
A/C.
The bathroom.
Shower.
Mini-fridge and microwave. No separate sink for the kitchen, unfortunately.
It does have it's own small balcony, which is nice, but there's not much for a view, just other buildings.
The other bathroom.
And bedroom.
With it's own A/C.
And it's own small balcony.
The living room.
Which also has its own A/C.
The huge front balcony.
Even more space off to the side. If we could think of a use for all of this, it would be great. Maybe we could put a tent or yurt or two out here and rent them out separately? Although they'd have to walk through our living room to get in and out, and I'm not sure how much weight the balcony can handle, or if the condo board would complain about it. Or perhaps we could put a bunch of storage bins out here and rent them out, although again, anyone wanting access would have to walk through our living room. And any of those would need a front-door keep to our place. We certainly wouldn't use all of this space ourselves.
There is a small semi-outdoor bar connected to a hotel off the left side of the balcony. If we liked what they served, we could send a bucket down on a rope, have them throw in the drinks, and haul it back up.
It's also right above Ala Moana Blvd, which has many noisy cars.
Our realtor pointed out this food truck area across the street.
Even if we don't live here, we'll have to check it out some time.
The two separate entrances.
There are a couple of issues in condos in Hawaii that can be very expensive if they haven't been dealt with yet. The first is the fire system; a recent law required all condos to upgrade to either fire alarms or sprinklers if they hadn't already. A second is pipes, a third is elevators, and a fourth is concrete spalling. All of these could need very expensive updating if they haven't been dealt with recently, too. Some condos get by with low HOA fees because they haven't paid for these and don't have much of a reserve fund, and then when they do need to upgrade or make repairs, the HOA fee spikes up or very-expensive special assessments are levied on all of the owners.
Looking at one more dual-entry condo unit with the realtor today. This one is closer to where we live.
The entrance.
Not nearly as many key lock boxes.
The parking entrance ramp...
... leads right the parking spot for this unit. That would be very convenient for us as it would be very easy to park. However, if some old person mixes up their accelerator and brake pedal, they might ram into our vehicle.
The garbage chute is out of order, and the note about it is very passive aggressive.
The two doors for this unit.
Living room.
The balcony. The washer and dryer are out here, which means the renter wouldn't have access.
Not too much of a view; just a tiny bit of the canal.
They had a window A/C here.
The kitchen is nice.
Hallway to the main bedroom.
Bathroom.
Closet area.
First bedroom.
Hallway and closet area to the second bedroom.
Second bathroom.
Second bedroom. This room doesn't have a balcony and only very tiny windows, so I think any rentor would feel very cramped in here. Even more so if you added in a fridge and microwave somewhere.
So in summary, the first unit seemed OK, especially for the renter as it had a separate sink and private laundry access, but it was quite hot, although we could put in some window A/Cs if allowed by the condo board. The next two were in horrible condition, which is great if you're into fixing them up on your own, but we're not, and didn't have good views. The fourth one at Island Colony had great amenities but it was only a 1/1, so no separate-entrance studio to rent out. The fifth one on Ala Moana Blvd was in very nice condition and had that awesome huge balcony, but I'm not sure we could make good use of it, and while the private bedroom balconies were nice, their views weren't very good, not to mention there was no kitchen sink in the rental studio. The sixth one was very cramped and would be even more so once we put a fridge and microwave in for the renter. So the first and fifth ones we liked, but none of the others.