It’s been a long time since Val and I went on vacation. In fact it was when we went to Bermuda back in September of 2020. We’ve been trying to get back to Hawaii for several years and of course Covid has been a major concern.
This trip was delayed 3 times. Twice in 2020 and then again once in 2021, all due to Covid. But after lots of planning and re-planning we finally made our trip in October of 2021. We visited 3 islands, Kauai, Molokai, and The Big Island of Hawaii. I’ll be reviewing the flights, cars, and hotels, Val will handle the activities, meals, and how-to guides. That’s how we divide our booking responsibility and that’s how we’ll divide our blogging.
In This Trip
1 :Introduction: Hawaii Vacation
1.1: Places we visited
1.2: Flights I’ll be writing about
1.3: Hotels I’ll be writing about
1.4: Final Thoughts
Places we visited
We flew into Kauai from the mainland. We rented a car and stayed here for 5 nights. This was our 2nd trip to the island and prior to this trip, it’s been Val’s favorite. I love the island and it’s my type of place.
We then visited Molokai. Getting to Molokai from Kauai is a bit of an adventure that I’ll detail in a flight trip report that includes Hawaiian Airlines and Mokulele Airlines. On Molokai we rented a Jeep and stayed at the only hotel on the island. It was a fascinating place and completely different from what I was expecting. Val and I will both talk about that in our future posts.
We then flew down to The Big Island. This will be our 3rd visit to the island and we both really enjoy it. We stayed at a hotel we’ve been to before and would still choose it again. We had another Jeep rental and loved using it to explore the island.
Flights I’ll be writing about
We flew Delta to LIH from GSP. This involved 3 flights with 2 layovers, all in economy stopping in Atlanta and Seattle. This was made up of a Delta 717, Delta 757, and another(same) Delta 757.
We flew Hawaiian Airlines Economy from LIH to HNL, this was on there interisland 717. We connected to a Mokulele Cessna 208 for our HNL to MKK trip.
We next flew another Mokulele Cessna 208 from MKK to OGG. We then connected to a Southwest Airlines 737-800 for our trip to KOA.
Our last interisland flight was again on Hawaiian Airline’s 717, but this time in first class. This trip was KOA-HNL.
We flew back to the mainland from HNL on Delta Air Lines. This again was 3 flights with 2 layovers, again stopping in SEA and ATL. Our flights were flown by an A330neo, Boeing 767-300, and Boeing 737-900. All of this was in first class. There is some reason behind this madness and I’ll cover that.
Hotels I’ll be writing about
On Kauai we stayed 5 nights at The Hilton Garden Inn Kauai Wailua Bay in Kapaʻa. I booked this using Hilton Honors points that I rack up during the year traveling for work.
On Molokai we stayed at The Hotel Molokai. This is the only true hotel on the island. There are some condo rentals, but Hotel Molokai is the only actual hotel property. We paid cash for this as it’s a small private hotel.
On The Big Island we stayed at the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Kailua-Kona. We’ve stayed at this hotel twice before. Nothing super fancy but we’ve enjoyed it every time we’ve visited. This I again paid cash as the rate was good and not really worth the IHG points.
Final Thoughts
This was a long needed trip. We’re very fortunate that we’re able to take such nice vacations to interesting places like Hawaii. We also very much got off the beaten path during this trip, literally(Val will talk about this).
Going to Hawaii is special to us as we spent our honeymoon their, we’re much better travelers now and it’s funny to look back at old trips. This was a great trip and I got to ride on some super cool planes and see some amazing sights.
As we publish our reports, I’ll keep this post up to date with links!