Obama and family returning to isles next week

President Barack Obama and his family will travel to Honolulu on Friday for his final Hawaii holiday vacation as commander in chief.

Obama is expected to attend meetings at the White House that day and then depart with his family for the islands that evening, the White House announced Friday.

If the visit is like his previous trips, Obama will play lots of golf, hit the beach, dine at some of Honolulu’s finest restaurants and visit friends and family over a two-week period.

But it won’t be all fun and games because he’s scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Dec. 27 at Pearl Harbor.

Abe, the first Japanese leader to visit the memorial marking the surprise Japanese attack 75 years ago, said he would visit Hawaii on Dec. 26-27 to pray for the war dead and to hold a final summit meeting with the president.

The visit will occur six months after Obama became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the memorial in Hiroshima for victims of the U.S. atomic bombing of that city at the end of World War II.

As for Obama’s eighth holiday visit to Hawaii, his last vacation before he leaves office in January, he will likely stay in the same Kailua oceanfront rental home where his family has stayed previously.

Last year the president played seven rounds of golf, hiked at Koko Crater, snorkeled at Hanauma Bay and toured the Honolulu Zoo, in addition to making his usual stops at the gym at Marine Corps Base Hawaii in Kaneohe and Kailua’s Island Snow for shave ice.

The annual trip to the islands usually draws criticism for its expense, and last year was no exception.

In fact, Judicial Watch, a conservative Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, announced earlier this week that the 2015 Hawaiian vacation cost taxpayers $1.2 million, in addition to another $3.5 million for the use of Air Force One and another aircraft.

The costs, calculated using records obtained from the U.S. Secret Service, included hotel and lodging costs of more than $1 million, car rental expenses totaling nearly $166,000 and other transportation costs of nearly $68,000, the group said.

The records indicated that the Secret Service rented several Kailua homes for 19 nights, paid for rooms at the Hawaii Prince Hotel Waikiki and reserved additional rooms at the Moana Surfrider and Ala Moana Hotel, according to the group.

In addition, the Secret Service rented 103 cars from Avis, Alamo and Hertz for the duration of the trip, Judicial Watch said.

“The Secret Service and the Air Force are being abused by unnecessary travel,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a news release. “Unnecessary presidential travel for fundraising and luxury vacations on the taxpayers’ dime would be a good target for reform for the incoming Trump administration.”