Hawaii

Pretty sure I'm going In Two weeks. Never been. Oahu or Maui?? No kids. I just want to go to the beach, eat poke and go to a luau where they have the burried pig roast. Any advice would be helpful. Thank you

Re: Hawaii

For how long? Budget? The best luau (although to be honest I don't think they're worth the hype) is on Maui. My favorite beach is on Kauai. The best poke on the islands? That's a hard choice. So many good places but honestly you can get that anywhere on any island (even the Costco on Kauai and Maui).

Our favorite island is Maui. But Kauai is the most beautiful. Oahu has the most to do. Big Island is the most unique. Lanai is super quiet but the four seasons there is awesome.

If you are only going for a short time only Oahu has nonstop flights from ny

Message edited 1/31/2017 8:51:06 PM.

Re: Hawaii

Just so you know:

Favorite beach: Hanalei Bay on Kauai. Followed by Kee beach, Poipu and another beach I don't know the name of but I can tell you how to get there. All on Kauai.

On Maui. Favorite beach is kaanapali followed by another beach I don't know (on the Wailea side)

On Oahu: Waikiki because it's Waikiki. It's crowded and touristy though. Better off going to the north shore

Best luau: old Lahaina luau on Maui. Traditional Hawaiian luau (with pig in ground). No fire / knife dancers which aren't Hawaiian. Tells the history of Hawaii.

Re: Hawaii

I have so much going on that I can't even research and we are planning to leave in like 2 weeks. 8 days in Honolulu?? I'm so lost. We don't have a budget but I don't want to go crazy either. Dh thinks we should rent a car and drive around Honolulu. Thoughts??

Re: Hawaii

Absolutely get a car. People will say you don't need it but you do. 8 days on Oahu is a long time. If you're doing 8 I'd recommend Maui or do 3 days on Oahu (to see Waikiki pearl harbor and diamond head) and fly over to Maui for the rest of the time. You can then fly home from Maui. You will need a car on Maui too. Oahu is very built up and is more like a city. Our first trip we were on the balcony in our hotel in Waikiki and I saw the people in the next hotel having sex in their room!! That's how close everything is on Waikiki! So keep the shades closed.

Re: Hawaii

We are arguing like idiots. I hate this!!! How are the beaches in Oahu ?? He wants to rent a car and drive around and stay in diff hotels. The last thing I want to do is check in and out of hotels all week. I'm in tears

Re: Hawaii

Don't fight! All of Hawaii has beautiful beaches and the beaches are all public. Oahu isn't all that big so I don't think you need to check in and out of places all week. You could split it with 3 or 4 days on the north shore and the rest of the time down in waikiki The north shore has quieter more secluded beaches. There are only a couple of hotels up there though. Turtle Bay resort is up there and gorgeous! Forgetting Sarah Marshall was filmed there. There's also a courtyard but I think that's it. On the south shore Waikiki is on one side of diamond head and Ko Olina is on the other. Ko olina has two big hotels the Disney resort and a Marriott timeshare. Waikiki has tons of hotels and restaurants. You can walk in Waikiki but will need a car for everything else. You can take the bus but we hate the bus!!

Oahu is just way more touristy than the other islands. I don't feel like I'm really in Hawaii when I'm there BUT if it's a choice between Oahu and no Hawaii there's no question - it's still hawaii

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I just don't want to be disappointed. I'd like to avoid tourists as much as possible. I just told him to do whatever he wants. Every single vacation he tells me he wants my
Opinion but in the end he books every single thing. I want to feel like I'm
In Hawaii not south beach

Re: Hawaii

If he wants to drive around and stay in different places Oahu isn't the island. Do that on Maui. You can stay in Wailea, Kaanapali, and even Hana. There is a lot more diversity to the landscape, it's bigger and the beaches are more secluded

Plus it's whale season! It's pretty amazing to be driving down the street and see whales breeching. You won't really see that on Oahu

Re: Hawaii

He wants to avoid another flight. Apparently there's no nonstop Maui to ny?? I'm going to go and play nicey nice and have him work his magic with flights. Lord help me

Hawaii

I'd love to go back to Hawaii. Don't fight, it's all beautiful. On Oahu, Turtle Bay is nice on the North Shore. As someone else mentioned, it's in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. If you've ever watched HawaiI 5-0, they are in Waikiki a lot. I think they're at the Hiton a lot. The Hilton was nice, but a huge convention hotel with smallish beach area.
Kauai and Maui were my favorite islands. Kauai was quieter and Maui had a ton to do. Both very beautiful.
We rented a car on all 3 islands. We did everything kind of last minute too. I'll try to find the name of the guide book I used. I liked it because it showed really well how close to the beach the hotels were.

Re: Hawaii

I've only been to Maui but I think it's worth changing planes (that's correct that there are no direct flights.)

11.5 hours is a long time on a plane anyway - it's kind of nice to get out halfway through and stretch your legs IMO.

It sounds like the bigger issue is that you don't have enough voice about your vacations overall and that's not cool.

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We did Maui first then went to Oahu and HATED it. We woke up at 4am after less than 24hrs there to call our travel agent and spent a lot of money to get us back to Maui because we disliked it compared to Maui that much!

ETA: It's super touristy and definitely more a South Beach feel than a Hawaii feel. We stayed at the Mandarin slightly outside of Waikiki area and still didn't like it. In Maui, we stayed at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea and loved it.

Message edited 2/1/2017 9:41:10 AM.

Re: Hawaii

now we are looking up seychelles.

i have a voice, i just dont have any patience and throw temper tantrums lol hes REALLLLLLLLY good at planning so its nice to take a back seat. I just need to learn how to communicate effectively. poor guy was up til 1 am trying to find ways to make it work. going o Mai will double our airfareand at that point, fiji, maldives, seychelles seem like a bargain

lets see what he comes up with today

Re: Hawaii

While there are no direct east coast flights to Maui, you can do a direct from the west coast with no need to transfer in HNL. It's worth it.

Hawaii

We did Oahu, Maui and Kauai on our trip.

I wouldn't do 8 days in Oahu. It's like a city on the beach.

I liked Maui the best - we stayed in Kanapali Beach and were able to walk around as well as drive around to sightsee.

Kauai was nice too. We were there for a week and we split between Poipu and Princeville.

Taking an extra flight in between islands in Hawaii is nothing - it's getting on a quick shuttle. Well worth checking out other islands if that's where you are going.

Hawaii

I've been a few times. My favorite island is Kauai and then Oahu. Oahu has something for everyone. Waikiki for city life and North Shore for more traditional Hawaii. We stayed at the JW at KoOlina which was halfway between Waikiki and the North Shore and rented a car. Haunonma bay and Lanakai Beach are must sees. The kayak tour in Lanakai is amazing.

We also stayed at the Trump (lol) in Waikiki and had a great time at the beach, shopping, night life etc. If you're a sushi eater Isakaya Gaku in King Street is awesome and authentic. Best sushi I've ever had.

Re: Hawaii

in all honesty.. if we rent a car for 8 days and drive around ad go to diff beaches will i be happy? lol

Re: Hawaii

It depends on where you are staying. North shore yes I think I could stay there for an extended time. Waikiki area - nope. Not for 8 days. 4 max.

Re: Hawaii

I can't post pictures from my phone but can post some in the morning showing Waikiki beach and the north shore to give you an idea

Re: Hawaii

So...we booked Japan instead. We found dirt cheap airfare to Hawaii on random weeks and figured the prices were so high because of Presidents' Day. We will be going to Hawaii just not this month. I am saving this page because I will be going there at some point this year. I need a beach vacation without zika lol

Thank you all so so much !!!

Message edited 2/2/2017 8:16:24 AM.

Re: Hawaii

Re: Hawaii

yes avoid Hawaii during school vacations!!! People from the west coast go there instead of the Caribbean for school vacations.

Enjoy Japan - it's on our bucket list.

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We are only going for a week. My only requests are visiting snow monkeys and dressing up as Mario n luigi and going go kart racing at night in the streets of Tokyo and eating at bohemian. Hot springs sound perfect. Perhaps last day or two. I'm realllllly excited.

Re: Hawaii

I know you said you booked Japan but I would go to Maui over Oahu, just my experience.