Beyond excited! Hawaii on a budget!

[cornishfrogboy]

Karen G, all that information is brilliant..

We are absorbing the time zones (partially), by having those 4 days in Vancouver at minus 6 hours and also Seattle coming back.

Re accommodation in Waikiki, we have settled in our heads on this area and are resigned to roughly £1000- £1100 for 4 nights. Condos etc are clearly much cheaper, but we are concerned about legality and also, being let down by cancellation or poor quality.

Re North Shore, we are again looking at around £170 plus per night.

Re Hire Car, we have no intention of getting one until we are leaving Waikiki.
We are looking at Pearl Harbour for a day, a guided day tour to N Shore as a recce for later and a day wandering Waikiki. We don’t think that we will need one.

Re coming up from West, we are open to ideas that will simplify things as I dont intend driving. With two of us instead of Four, the maths change towards public transport. I will study your thoughts in detail with a few dummy bookings.

To be honest, adrenaline and excitement, plus those long stopovers will defray the pain of the time zones. We have done 9 in a single bit to the West Coast before and can stomach it.

Costs? Much lower overall than Orlando in these modern times.. plus only the two of us to feed!

I am really grateful for your advice and am taking it all on board!

[KarenG]

I will come back with more helpful stuff - I’m very unwell with bloody COVID at the moment!

Quick thought - don’t bother doing a recce of the North Shore from Waikiki - you’ll be right there when you’re at Turtle Bay. Unless I’m misunderstanding your intent.

You might think about spending a day in Honolulu doing Iolani Palace, Bishop Museum, Foster Botanical Gardens etc

We found it much easier breaking the journey up with a short west coast stay out, so that should massively help with the jet lag!

[Claudette]

I am going to ride on your coattails if that is ok CFB. We have just booked Hawaii for Christmas.

So far I have booked 4 night at Hyatt Centric on Waikiki. I always thought I would do two Hawaiian islands but I am tempted to just do one due to time we have, I don’t know if I am not making the most of it if I do that though as who knows when we will get to Hawaii again.

Where is Turtle Bay by the way. I tried searching but I only found somewhere in Chelmsford, must be the name of a dining chain as well.

[disneypars]

Sounds like a plan!

[Eeyorefanuk]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

We are not fans of LA and in fact routing back through there was marginally the cheapest option.
We are on the West Coast this October and have plotted a route that starts in SFO and finishes in San Diego… without going within 60-70 miles of greater LA.

Seattle was chosen, simply for the Boeing museum… and because the only major West Coast cities that we haven’t seen were Portland and Seattle.

We are clearly very excited by the whole thing!

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Do you find your prices via sky scanner ?

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Eeyorefanuk

Do you find your prices via sky scanner ?

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I found the prices on American Airlines own site and booked by phone as I had the credit note to use.

I research through Google Flights as I find this the easiest to change search parameters etc etc.

If Idid not have that voucher, I would have searched on BA first as they release at 355 days.. but on this occasion, they were more expensive than AA for exactly the same flights.. a fair bit more expensive.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I am going to ride on your coattails if that is ok CFB. We have just booked Hawaii for Christmas.

So far I have booked 4 night at Hyatt Centric on Waikiki. I always thought I would do two Hawaiian islands but I am tempted to just do one due to time we have, I don’t know if I am not making the most of it if I do that though as who knows when we will get to Hawaii again.

Where is Turtle Bay by the way. I tried searching but I only found somewhere in Chelmsford, must be the name of a dining chain as well.

See more...

We are favouring the Hyatt Place in Waikiki at the moment.

Turtle bay in on the North Eastern corner.

We see it as a base to explore the island from whilst getting away from Waikiki/Honolulu and it’s dense population.

As yet, we have no plans as to what we are doing besides snorkelling. We have our upcoming California Nevada Arizona to concentrate on.

Stay in touch, should you get any ideas. We have not yet even started!

[pompeyboy]

Originally Posted by cornishfrogboy

We see it as a base to explore the island from whilst getting away from Waikiki/Honolulu and it’s dense population!

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I don't want to dampen your excitement and I'm glad you're aware of what to expect in Waikiki. Waikiki was just like any other high rise resort, crowded and full of souvenir shops. You might want to check out parking charges, sure we paid $5 a night 40+ years ago.

Mrs. P used to babysit for an Hawaian couple who were based over here. They sold her the dream of a paradise island, I was honestly expecting it to be me, her and a couple of grass skirted locals

We did the Arizona and a Pearl Harbor cruise which were both well done. Also snorkelling at Hanauma Bay was beautiful as were the other parts of the Island. We hired a car and explored the Island, Wamea Falls was a nice spot and the Polynesian Cultural centre was a good day/evening that we both enjoyed.

This was 40+ years ago now and maybe I was too young to fully appreciate it, or maybe the long flight with a 2 hour layover in LAX took it's toll but I felt it was over-hyped.

[cornishfrogboy]

Originally Posted by pompeyboy

I don't want to dampen your excitement and I'm glad you're aware of what to expect in Waikiki. Waikiki was just like any other high rise resort, crowded and full of souvenir shops. You might want to check out parking charges, sure we paid $5 a night 40+ years ago.

Mrs. P used to babysit for an Hawaian couple who were based over here. They sold her the dream of a paradise island, I was honestly expecting it to be me, her and a couple of grass skirted locals

We did the Arizona and a Pearl Harbor cruise which were both well done. Also snorkelling at Hanauma Bay was beautiful as were the other parts of the Island. We hired a car and explored the Island, Wamea Falls was a nice spot and the Polynesian Cultural centre was a good day/evening that we both enjoyed.

This was 40+ years ago now and maybe I was too young to fully appreciate it, or maybe the long flight with a 2 hour layover in LAX took it's toll but I felt it was over-hyped.

See more...

We intend in Waikiki..
1 day for Pearl H
1 day for a day guided tour on N Shore
1 day around Waikiki.
Then pick up our car as we are leaving. Parking is extortionate.

The next 6 days, we will not be returning to the City! That will be the walks, snorkelling etc that we are yet to research.

I am not expecting much of Waikiki, Honolulu to be honest.

Hanauma Bay is now extremely restricted, I believe just 750 a day due to damage to the reef.

[Eeyorefanuk]

Have you thought about a luau or the Polynesian centre?