HawaiiMagazine.com: A Web site for winners

Last January, subscriber Karen De La Vina of Phoenix, Ariz., read in HAWAII Magazine that we’d redone our Web site.

Propped up in bed with her laptop, she decided to check us out. On the Web site, she took note of a chance to enter our “Shop A Le’a” sweepstakes, celebrating the opening of a whole new retail area in Ala Moana Center, including Hawaii’s first full-service Nordstrom department store.

The sweepstakes prize? Round-trip tickets from Hawaiian Airlines, seven nights in oceanview room at the Ala Moana Hotel, and a $500 shopping spree at Ala Moana Center.

More than 7,300 people entered. Karen was the winner.

“I can’t believe I won,” said Karen, when we caught up with her last night at one of the opening parties.  “I love Hawaii, I love shopping, I was just here last November, when I subscribed to HAWAII Magazine.”

Karen had been in the Islands since Monday—and had spent everyday shopping, except for some time she took for a lomilomi massage. “I needed it because I’d been on my feet and carrying lots of shopping bags,” she laughed.

The party last night was a chance to shop first in a dozen or so new stores, complete with special Shop a Le’a martinis made with Ocean vodka, desserts from award-winning Honolulu restaurants and special offers from the stores. It was a great night, even if you weren’t shopping. But I may have been the only one not doing that.

Congratulations Karen.