|
Hey guys. My wedding is next month, and with all the ceremony and reception planning craziness, we haven't had a chance to actually book/plan the honeymoon yet. We want to leave a couple days after the wedding and spend 10 days in Hawaii (effectively 8 days to do stuff since the first and last would mostly be travel). Neither of us have been there before, so we could really use some help figuring out how many/which island(s) to visit, where to stay, how to get around, etc. In general, we like doing touristy things when we visit a place for the first time. We've been getting into hiking on our last couple trips to national parks, so we'd definitely like to go hiking in Hawaii as well, and see great views and waterfalls and such in the process. No camping overnight or anything, just medium to short hikes (under 10 miles). I'd also really like to see a volcano, with or without actual lava. We're not big beach fans, but we'd probably want a beach day just because we're there. We also might be interested in some lighter water activities like kayaking or snorkeling; not much beyond that since she's not the greatest swimmer. And of course, we like good food. In terms of accommodations, usually we try to find the most reasonably priced hotels/bed & breakfasts around, but this being a honeymoon, we'd like to splurge a bit and spend maybe 3-5 nights in a more expensive, fancy hotel or resort. We know very little about those since we haven't stayed in one before. Thanks for any recommendations or advice to help save our trip and sanity!
|
#
¿
Aug 12, 2015 21:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 14:31 |
|
|
Taima posted:Have you considered not going to Hawaii if you don't like the ocean or the beach...? I mean seriously, what the hell? Um, as far as I know, it's perfectly valid to go to Hawaii and only spend a part of the time on beaches or in the water. It sure looks to me like the parks and hikes and such are pretty nice. I just don't know which islands are most ideal for that or whether we can feasibly do more than one island given the length of our trip.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 13, 2015 23:43
|
|
|
Well, thanks for the somewhat surprising responses. We do actually have future plans to visit both Peru and Costa Rica, but not this time around.Taima posted:you honestly sound like someone who knows of Hawaii as a stereotypically nice place to honeymoon so you just kinda went for it, which I would not recommend. Try to figure out what you want to do, and THEN figure out the best place to do it, not the other way around. For what it's worth, I have acquaintances who have had a great time in Hawaii without spending much time on the beach; I know it can be done, I'm just light on details. Yes, it might be more ideal to do these things elsewhere, but we'll go to those places too if we haven't been already. We made our choice this time around, so I'll guess we'll figure something out. runawayturtles fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Aug 19, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2015 02:28
|
|
|
Thanks!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2015 21:02
|
|
|
Now there are the posts I was hoping for. Extremely helpful, thanks guys. Definitely enough info to plan a good trip, guess I know what I'm doing most of the day tomorrow.Zachack posted:or what the weather will be like for you (because it was loving dire last week): Sure hope it gets nice again soon, because the 10 day forecast is just about entirely rain.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 23, 2015 05:15
|
|
|
Thanks again for the post, we have everything booked at this point and we're doing the majority of your suggestions. Should be awesome. Also, mangosteen is my fiancee's favorite fruit, she's going to be so excited to see them for sale.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2015 00:54
|
|
|
Ghetto SuperCzar posted:Coming from someone who previously hated swimming at beaches before going to Hawaii: give it a shot with snorkeling stuff. The sand there is somehow softer, the water warm. You see lots of cool poo poo pretty much anywhere. I went from hating being in the ocean to pretty much making it my hobby. My honeymoon plans of hiking went out the window and we just snorkeled the whole time. Yeah, we're back from the trip, and did enjoy snorkeling a couple times. Aside from the awesome manta ray snorkeling, we spent most of our "relax on the beach" day snorkeling with rented gear. Never got tired of following turtles around.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 1, 2015 16:31
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 14:31 |
|
|
STOPpre posted:Since I'm in the same position, but with plenty more time to plan a trip I don't feel like starting a parallel thread, I hope everyone can continue their recommendations: You can't go wrong with anything mentioned in this thread, it was all great. Going to Pearl Harbor during the airport layover turned out well. It's a quick 15 minute cab ride away, and there's paid luggage storage while you're walking around. But, if you want to take the small ferry to the USS Arizona, you need to get there early enough (the last trip is at 3pm), and you need to reserve your tickets online as early as possible, because they do sell out quickly. Five days was a pretty good amount of time for us on the big island. One day to see a coffee plantation, walk around town, and do the manta ray night snorkel, one day to go down the Kona coast to various beaches, one day for Mauna Kea, one day to drive to and hike in Volcanoes National Park, and one day to drive up through Hilo and see some waterfalls and the botanical gardens. The one caveat is that we ran out of time at Volcanoes by an hour or two (couldn't finish a hike because the sun set), but it would have been perfectly timed with an earlier start. For you I might recommend adding another day for beaches, or replacing the Mauna Kea day. I personally enjoyed it a lot, and sunset from the top is pretty incredible, but the value of the trip also depends on whether you're also going up Haleakala (we did), you've seen similar views of the stars before (we had), and whether you stay awake during the bus ride to hear the interesting history of the island (my wife did not). For Maui, we did the full Hana circle drive in a day, which was nice, but a bit of a rush. We stopped at a bunch of waterfalls along the way, but didn't have quite enough time for the full hike we planned at Kipahulu. The red sand beach in Hilo was cool to see, it seemed like a secret cove that most people couldn't figure out how to find. If you go around the back roads like we did, you definitely need a car/truck with a decent suspension, there's approximately a million potholes and it wasn't easy to get ours (a station wagon I think?) through. The drive is probably a bit overrated, but we didn't regret doing it. We didn't find too much to do over on the west side, there are mostly a lot of resorts, beaches, and people. We had some extra time to walk along a beach and see the whaling museum, but it's not a necessary visit by any means. The Haleakala summit is pretty awesome, though we didn't do the sunrise so I can't speak to that. I would have liked to hike down into the crater if we had more time there. We did bike all the way down though, and that was a lot of fun. Can't speak about Kauai at all, but otherwise if you have any more specific questions I'll definitely try to help.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 2, 2016 23:57
|
|