Hawaii Wrap-Up - Where we stayed

I thought I'd throw out a few odds and ends of our trip, mostly to hold onto my thoughts about what I'd do differently, should there be a next time


As a couple our approach to this trip was to undertake a survey, getting a wide variety of locations into our plans. With a fairly long trip scheduled I booked lodging with one eye on the budget and one on what we'd do while we were at the location.  With a few exceptions the rooms ran around $200 a night.  To set things straight, I'm a Holiday Inn Express traveler and $200 a night is way more than I'd considering paying for lodging on the mainland anywhere but someplace like New York City.
 After many hours looking at places on Trip Adviser  I came to the conclusion that $200 was what we were going to have to pay to stay in the locations we wanted.

Island of Hawaii 

In general I felt like Hawaii had a wide variety of places to stay.  The island, like all of the Hawaiian islands, has a dry side and a wet side with beaches and developed resorts mostly on the dry side. We were mostly attracted to the nature-outdoor oriented things to do on the wet side of the island, so a long stay at a beachy resort wasn't our top priority.

We flew from Honolulu into the airport at Kailua-Kona.
We departed from the airport in Hilo.

Royal Kona Resort - 

This was our first stop and was on the dry side of the island near the airport at Kona. It had a nice location near an area with many restaurants and shops, not much of a beach, but had a pool. The room was big with a kitchen-bar, but not particularly modern. There was air-conditioning and an on-site restaurant /bar.

It was a nice place to stay our first night on the island even if we did wake up at 3 o'clock in the morning because of the jet lag.

The view from the bar our first night at the Royal Kona.  Our table was right at the breakers and we really felt like we had traveled to someplace a long way from home.

Waipio Rim B & B

Our seconds stop was this remote spot not far from the town of Honokaa on the wet side of the island.  A steep hike into the Waipio Valley takes you to a black sand beach with dramatic waves.

The B&B included a wonderful fruity breakfast and afternoon snack. The studio was nicely furnished.
There wasn't any air conditioning but it wasn't a problem as the rim catches an ocean breeze and it cooled off nicely at night.

The view from the deck made it hard to leave.

Volcano Teapot Cottage

A tea-themed cottage close to Volcano National Park was quaint beyond belief.  It was well appointed, included a washer/dryer, and sat in a location with a wet and cool  climate. It got a little chilly at night, we had the heater on for awhile in the morning.

The arid bleak expanses of the nearby Volcano National park made the cottage in the rain forest very pleasant.

We watched "The Descendants" with George Clooney here. I'd seen the movie before, but never when I was actually in Hawaii.

 Dolphin Bay Motel

Our third spot was this sixties style motel near the seedy but cool downtown area of Hilo. If Seattle were a smaller city in a remote outpost I think it would be like Hilo.  We ate at a couple of good restaurants and visited a big farmer's market that we enjoyed. .

It was warm and muggy here, no A/C, they had a good fan in the room.
If we return to see the green sand beach we will stay here. This was one of the least expensive places we stayed.

The Farmer's Market was fairly large and had a lot of great food.  I bought a small bottle of mango balsamic vinegar and plan on ordering more for presents this Christmas.

Island of Maui - 

We flew into and out of the Kahului Airport on Maui.

Maalea Bay -

The rental agent (we rented this through VRBO) was disorganized, never sent us a receipt, didn't use the VRBO system to take our payment or communicate with us.

The unit was fine, but the A/C on the one-hour timer in 90 degree weather made for an uncomfortable place to stay. It was OK with me until we stayed elsewhere on Maui and then I wasn't so crazy about what otherwise was a nice enough place.

Hana Bay Hale -

This photo shows me filling the bathtub, which did not have running water.

It appeared that this was once what would have been a nice B&B, but has since fallen under different management that just rents the studio out.

Despite the ocean side location it was warm and the unit had a bad fan.

In my opinion this place was overpriced.

The beaches around Hana once you got past the "Road to Hana" area were awesome.

Napilli Bay Resort -

Nice complex, about the same price as Hana Bay Hale but a way better value with running water in the bathroom, several pools, a small but protected beach.
It was warm here, no A/C, the until had a number of fans and louvered doors and it was comfortable at night.

Poor scheduling meant that we had a bike trip in the central part of the island scheduled the day we stayed at Nappili Bay.

Even though Maui isn't a large island we did way too much driving. 

Island of Oahu 

We saw only a small portion of Oahu because of the wedding.

Lanikai Cottage - 

small cottage close to Lanikai Beach.  It was very warm, the unit had A/C.

Compared the the wild Pacific coasts of Hawaii and Maui, the beach here was like a bathtub.

Thoughts for the next trip: 

We stayed 8 different places across our 17 days in the islands. Our good friends Dan and Jeanette have been to Hawaii and we had dinner with them a couple of times to hear about their experiences -it was a good excuse to get together- and at one point Jeannete said she thought that was  a lot of different places to stay.  Looking back I think she had a good point.

We could have varied the pace of our trip by staying longer in some locations, particularly on the Island of Maui.

If I had it to do over again I'd have kept the same itinerary on Hawaii, but booked into a mid-range resort like Napilli Surf on Maui. I'd move around more on Oahu.  Our wedding activities meant we never really got out of Honolulu, and there is a lot more to see.