It's been a long time since I've posted anything but I've been busy! My husband and I took a 2 week (much needed) vacation to Hawaii and are now currently planning our first cruise to the Caribbean!
I'm so excited to share with you guys our trip to Hawaii and hopefully share some helpful tips so you guys can also take a trip of a lifetime!
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| Polly the Pineapple |
I don't know about y'all but I've been dreaming of a tropical Hawaiian vacation since I was a girl and watched the episode of #Saved by the Bell where the gang went to Hawaii. Pineapples, mai tai's, sun, sand, and blue water has been calling my name!
Nick and I did not take a honeymoon when we got married so for our 1st Anniversary, we decided to take a belated honeymoon/anniversary trip. Let me say this: There is NO problem taking a belated honeymoon trip. We actually were able to save up more money (since we spent a lot on a wedding) and plan our trip with ease (and not planning a wedding and a honeymoon at once). I highly recommend waiting. The pressure is not there!
Our honeymoon/anniversary was a blissful 2 weeks of tropical paradise. We stayed on the island of Oahu and Hawaii (known locally as Big Island). Island hopping was rather easy and I'll provide how we were able to accommodate both later. Nick was begging to see the volcanoes and I wanted to relax on a beach so we compromised... thus two islands :)
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| Hawaii is calling and I must go! |
Booking our Flights
When we started planning our honeymoon, the first thing we did was checked flights using Google Flights* to see when the cheapest dates were to fly in June. We didn't have a set date on when we wanted to go, other than June (our anniversary) so we were pretty open on catching a good deal. The cheapest flights, according to Google Flights was a 2 week span so we had to make a decision, stay 2 weeks in Hawaii or stay one week. We ended up staying 11 days!Our flight to Oahu for the two of us together was only $700 and coming back was $900. This actually was a pretty good deal flying out of Kentucky. ***We found it was cheaper to buy one way tickets there and back instead of buying roundtrip airfare. This isn't always the case but it worked out cheaper for us this time*** Island jumping to Big Island was $140 round trip per person. Our flight was pretty cheap flying to Oahu because, and I'll admit, we had an overnight layover in Portland, so we slept in the airport. Flying home we had 2 layovers but no overnight flights.
I highly recommend flying on flexible dates but if you can't, make sure to check out Google Flights here: https://www.google.com/flights/
*See my blog on how to use Google Flights here: http://bultenafamilytravels.blogspot.com/2016/08/google-flights.html
Booking our Hotel
Finding a hotel was a bit more time consuming than booking our flights. After we knew what days we'd be in Hawaii, we started the task of researching different hotels' prices. We knew we wanted to stay in the Waikiki Beach area, with easy access to the beach and a beach view. However, there are probably 20 hotels in Waikiki Beach that fit this criteria. So we had to start asking ourselves other questions than beach view such as:- How much did we want to spend a night?
- Did we want a hotel with a pool or not? (I mean, the beach is right there....)
- Did we want food to be close by?
- Did we want a view of the beach and Diamond Head? (volcano crater)
- Where we worried about amenities when we planned on exploring the island?
We decided we wanted a hotel that was less than $300 a night, beach access and beach views. We also wanted a hotel that had food close- by (either walking or driving), and that offered free beach towels.
I started the task of looking for hotels on Expedia.com. I knew I could search by price, average customer review, and by location on Expedia. What I do though is then take 2 or 3 at a time that looks like a contender and review them on Trip Advisor ( https://www.tripadvisor.com/ ). If you do not use Trip Advisor, I strongly suggest checking it out for your next vacation! Not only can you book a hotel but you get access to other traveler's real reviews and photos. It's amazing.
This helped me check hotels off and decide which I wanted to research a little more. Again, Trip Advisor's community is awesome! After I narrowed down my list to 5 hotels, I really started researching on Trip Advisor, comparing customer reviews and traveler photos (not the ones that hotels lure you in with). After that, I started looking at each hotel's own website to see if they offered any specials or discounts that Trip Advisor or Expedia wasn't offering. Hey, every penny counts! What I found was a smaller hotel on the Waikiki Beach strip that was offering a summer promotion of $199 a night for Beach Front view rooms! YES! Book, please! $199 is actually an AWESOME deal for Waikiki Beach as the other hotels were $299 and up! Oh, and our hotel we stayed at was called Park Shore Waikiki. http://www.parkshorewaikiki.com/
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| Park Shore Waikiki Views |
Airbnb? Yes, do it!
BUT this was only our hotel in Oahu. We also island jumped at the end of our stay in Oahu to Big Island for 2 nights. For our stay on the Big Island, I decided to use AirBnb. Why? Because the side of the island we wanted to stay on was the Volcano National Park side and not so much a resort area. All the nice hotels were on the opposite side of the island... and Big Island is huge compared to Oahu. My initial thought was, we'd fly in and out the same day on Big Island but after seeing how much there was to see and do other than the Volcano, we decided 3 days and 2 nights were a better idea. I'll admit, this was my first time using AirBnb and it did not disappoint. First, the rentals were extremely cheaper than a hotel room. Second, there were SO many options in the area we wanted! The AirBnb we picked was darling and quaint and only $100 a night for the 2 of us! PERFECT!https://www.airbnb.com/
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| Our AirBnb on Big Island |
Other Tidbits for booking a vacation to Hawaii:
Other things to remember that go into expenses that you should budget for:- Rent a car. Now, I know some people who have gone to Hawaii and never rented a car. Especially with Uber and Lyft now days. However, Nick and I rented a car on both Oahu and Big Island from Hertz at the airport. We opted for renting a car because we wanted to see a lot of the islands and it was easier to rent a car this way. It cost us about $250 for a week and a half on Oahu and actually about the same for 3 days on Big Island. Big Island you definitely should rent a car because the island is so big, Uber and Lyft would cost a fortune just driving to the Volcano National Park and back.
- Food and Drinks. This is a no brainer lol. You could either spend a fortune on food at upscale restaurants or go on the cheaper side with fast food and a nice dinner or lunch once a day and it still be nice. We probably did fast food for lunch every day and dinner at a nice restaurant that was still within $10-20 a person. You can do it! Food was not that much different than the main land prices. Thankfully, they weren't jacked up just because of tourism. You don't have to spend a lot to eat good. Nick and I aren't heavy drinkers, but I will say this, alcohol is much more expensive than we're use to paying. Beware.
*I highly recommend Aloha Tours one day. They're amazing and you'll see a lot!
https://www.groupon.com/
https://www.alohahawaiitours.com/
***GUYS! Our friend and tour guide from Aloha Hawaii Tours has started his own tour company called Hi5 Hawaii Tours. Check it out, I'm sure it's great! https://www.hi5hawaii.com/
I hope these links help you plan your trip to Hawaii! I'll post separate blogs about more in depth what we did on Oahu and Big Island!
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| Polynesian Cultural Center |
Ashley
