Alooooooooohaaaaa my friends! Kat and I were off in Hawaii last week. You will often hear about Las Vegas as “island #9” and we agree we like all 9 islands! This trip was on Oahu which is one of islands 1 through 8 though I am not sure which number. I suppose it’s #1 since it’s the capitol of Hawaii!? Anyway, we often do a winter getaway to enjoy some sun and warmth. Our five nights in Waikiki did not disappoint! Honestly, you have to agree, a rainy (and 75 or so degrees) in Hawaii is better than 55 and going to work back on the mainland!
First of all I must say that it seems everybody I know goes to Maui. Look, I love Maui like seemingly everybody else. However, I feel like Oahu is badly undervalued. Oahu has everything Maui has plus the benefits of a big city. Yes, Oahu has bad traffic at times but so does Maui at times. Oahu has every possible restaurant and/or type of food just like a big city anywhere. Ok, so this blog is going to be about doing a quickie trip to Hawaii from the west coast. Let’s talk about this….
Recently some friends of ours had money they had to use on Alaska Airlines. They wanted to fly to Nashville and invited us to join them. I was game but pointed out it’s about 9 hours each way, from our little burg, since we have no non-stop but instead would fly through Seattle. It is not very direct to fly from the great state of NorCal to Nashville, TN via Seattle, WA! I said, “hey, for less cost of airfare and far less travel time we could be in Maui” as Alaska Airlines has a non-stop to there from our little village of an airport. They stuck with Nashville, and that’s great, but gosh darn it I’d rather do a winter warm-up in Hawaii! So, putting aside the Nashville trip Kitty Kat and I did our annual winter warm up to the islands. The first time we did it we went for four nights but changed it to five a few years ago. The main reason was because we often stay at a Marriott family hotel (the Royal Hawaiian) and if you use points the 5th night is free so that’s sort of a no-brainer!
So roughly speaking our flight on Hawaiian took off a bit after 8:30 am local time and landed just after 12:00 noon Hawaii time. As Hawaii is two hours behind the west coast that means it took just over 5 and a half hours to get there. Let’s break this down a little further. People think nothing of going to NYC, DC, Florida, Cabo, etc… for 3 nights but Hawaii takes LESS TIME to fly to than the aforementioned as we have very few non-stops from our little airport. Driving to SFO adds at least two hours so that makes it highly impractical just to get a non-stop. So when you focus on what non-stops we have from our airport Hawaii is at the top of the list! Currently, out of Sacramento, we have non-stops on Southwest, Hawaiian and Alaska going to Oahu, Maui and the Big Island! Prices tend to be around $500 in the winter for non-holiday weeks. You just can’t beat that! I will admit, and shhhhhhhh don’t tell the kids, we often fly first class when we don’t have the kids with us. It was an extra $300 per person on this trip and first class on Hawaiian really is first class! We landed, feeling good, and then waited for our luggage as we had decided not to hassle with carry on bags. I will say this is one place to save time as the luggage service is very slow at both ends of the trip but especially in Hawaii. Hey, I love Hawaii, but man they are slow to put out the luggage!
From the airport to the hotel we really like Waikiki as it’s QUICK! It’s 15 minutes no traffic and can take 30 with traffic. That is, from HNL airport to the center of Waikiki. It’s probably ten minutes to the Ala Moana Mall area which is another place to consider staying with a few hotels, a few timeshares and some Airbnb places. We like the Royal Hawaiian as it’s pretty much dead center in Waikiki but it’s “hidden” behind a mall so it’s very private. Even the driveway is hidden next to the Sheraton Waikiki. You can do shuttle bus, cab or Uber. I am telling you now that if you are doing the quick getaway just take the cab. There is usually no line and it costs about $40. It’s not worth saving $5 or $10 with the other options as this is a quick vacation so don’t waste time standing in line, waiting or stopping at other hotels. Cab it!
So we dropped our stuff in our hotel and off we went for lunch. Ok, I need to note that we have focused our hotel purchases on the Marriott family for about 10 years and thus have lifetime Titanium status. This doesn’t mean much but at this hotel it got us: 1) a free breakfast buffet each day, 2) access to the free happy hour, and 3) a suite upgrade in the old building. I’ll blog some other time about earning your hotel status but it can be worth your trouble if you work the system to the fullest. Our suite was a full one bedroom suite, with a side of the building view of the ocean, and was just huge! It’s nice to have space we think… although Kitty Kat did admit she missed having an ocean front balcony so I know what I need to do next year! I really will need to do a separate blog on the suite because it was really sweet and we had roughly the exact same suite two years in a row.
I have a lot more to say about this trip in the coming days. Topics will include comedian Daniel Tosh (who we saw live in Honolulu), John’s encounter with Tua Tagovailoa at our hotel, some restaurant reviews, and how good is the McDonalds tropical iced tea in Hawaii!
Aloha my friends.