SF, LA and Hawaii advice

[cheekytink]

Next July, after DS has finished his A levels we are planning an epic 3 week trip away as a family (Leaving LHR 9th July)
It will be me, DH, DS (18) and DD (8).
We so far have early thoughts of -
LHR - SFO
3/4 days in San Fransisco area
drive to LA area

4/5 days for Disneyland / Anaheim/ LA

Fly LAX - Hawaii (not sure where yet)
8-9 days in Hawaii

Fly Hawaii - JFK
Stay with family in NY for 4/5 days
Fly JFK - LHR.

So.. Dibbers with info/experience, we need advice on places we HAVE to visit (bearing in mind the age of DD), if you have been to Hawaii, which islands to visit (currently thinking 4 days Maui and 4 days Oahu, probably Aulani), and anything else you think I may not have considered!
All info very gratefully recieved.

[d1gger]

We're thinking of doing similar, however to save time, we're thinking of doing SF 1st, then flying out to Hawaii from SFO and coming back from HNL to LAX - flights seemed much better times and saves the drive down from SF to LA.
We've done the drive before which is nice, but if time is against you, something to consider..

[grant_w]

You need to consider its a long drive from SF to LA, plus there are a lot of things to see and do on the way down, if you weren't planning on stopping at any of these then you might as well fly down and save the long drive

[KarenG]

I would think carefully about splitting an eight day stay into two islands - you lose most of a day with inter island travel - sounds mad but true - and also I suspect if anything it will take longer and post COVID.

You could spend eight days on Oahu and not begin to do everything. Maui is my favourite though

[cheekytink]

Originally Posted by KarenG

I would think carefully about splitting an eight day stay into two islands - you lose most of a day with inter island travel - sounds mad but true - and also I suspect if anything it will take longer and post COVID.

You could spend eight days on Oahu and not begin to do everything. Maui is my favourite though

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Thank you- this is the helpful stuff I need. We all have a different favourite island we want to visit and it’s unlikely we are going to be going again in a hurry so absolutely want to see as much as we can, but not at the expense of an amazing trip.

[KarenG]

Originally Posted by cheekytink

Thank you- this is the helpful stuff I need. We all have a different favourite island we want to visit and it’s unlikely we are going to be going again in a hurry so absolutely want to see as much as we can, but not at the expense of an amazing trip.

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Cool so I totally understand where you’re coming from!

We’ve done two trips over the last few years and one was a nine night trip (from the West Coast, it was sandwiched between Seattle (two nights) and Disneyland (six nights) then San Diego (three nights) where we had six nights Oahu and three Maui. We had another trip the year after and did three solid weeks on Hawaii but my rough timings below are roughly what we experienced on those trips with inter island flights:

Check out
Head to car rental return
Return car
Wait for shuttle
Take shuttle
Check in bags
Go through security / scanning (it has always taken ages at Honolulu for some reason)
Arrive in departures
Wait for flight to board
Board and fly (flight time usually 30 mins only!)
Arrive
Wait for bags
Shuttle to car rental
Get car
Drive to new accommodation
Check in from 4pm
Grocery shopping etc if you need it

Basically for a half hour flight you’re going to spend probably six hours actually transiting (there are ways to cut this down, taxis rather than car rental for example but it would be hard in Maui without driving). Plus there may be temperature checks and stuff for even inter island travel (?) though hopefully that will have gone away?

I do not in the slightest bit regret my six nights Oahu and three nights Maui split but it was just me and DH travelling and we travel quite light. I’m not sure I would have done it with a bigger group and I’m definitely not sure I would do it for eight nights (you’re basically writing off a whole day more or less). On our nine nights we arrived very early on day one (9am Hawaii time) and left late on the last day (10pm Hawaii time) so we had almost ten ‘days’ too.

Sorry that was such a waffle but trying to explain a bit more clearly that it does take more time than you might think 🤔

[KarenG]

Are your favourite island Oahu and Maui? What do your children like to do?

[shenzy]

This is fab, we're thinking of doing the same next July.
We were thinking of going to SF 1st, having 4 days there, then Oahu for a week, then flying from Oahu to LA for 9/10 days, not sure if we should spend more time in Oahu and less in LA though. We've 2 kids aswell (dd15) (ds 13).
Have you done the SF / LA drive before ? xx

[orlandoamber]

Next year we are doing (hopefully):

3 nights LA including universal studios
4 nights Maui
9 nights Oahu splitting between Aulani and Waikiki
5 nights Disneyland

We initially thought we didn’t need so much time but after advice from KarenG and other lovely dibbers we realised we needed to split our time wisely I wish we could fit more time on Maui but we can’t in order to fit everything into three weeks, but I’m really grateful we can spend 9 days on Oahu so the time travelling between Maui and Oahu shouldn’t feel as significant.

I hope you have a great trip whatever you decide

[jdouds]

Monterey and the PCH , fantastic and for us not to be missed.