Help with rental car selection?

We'll be doing the POA cruise, then Aulani. Two adults, two kids (teens, but pretty small) so renting our own car will be much less expensive than any excursions. Right now, I'm planning on a car in every port except Kona and the partial Kauai day, plus all Aulani days. Planning the Captain Zodiac tour (on our own) and Kona Brewery, so think we don't need a car. And probably poke around and do some fishing at the pier on the half Kauai day, so I'm thinking that works too. My question is really what kind of car do we need? On Maui I want a big Jeep, because we'll be doing a lot of curvy driving and I want the kids to be able to see well. Thinking the same in Hilo (volcanoes). But I'm thinking the small jeep might be ok the rest of the time...what do you guys think??

Jeep rental all around sounds perfect! The cruise is definitely the way to see all the islands and Aulani is the best! We just got back this week from Aulani such a spectacular place!! Enjoy

We had a jeep two years ago. The parking garage at Aulani is great, but the spaces are, I feel, tight! In fact, it seems to me like parking is tight everywhere on the island. Anyhow, I hated parking that thing. Usually just parked in the top level of the garage or far end of a lot to be away from the other cars. We opted for a convertible for our upcoming stay instead. I'm thinking it's going to be a little easier to park.

Soccerluvinmama said:

We had a jeep two years ago. The parking garage at Aulani is great, but the spaces are, I feel, tight! In fact, it seems to me like parking is tight everywhere on the island. Anyhow, I hated parking that thing. Usually just parked in the top level of the garage or far end of a lot to be away from the other cars. We opted for a convertible for our upcoming stay instead. I'm thinking it's going to be a little easier to park.

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Well, I drive a 4WD Tahoe or Suburban every day, so I'm used to wrangling into parking spots I was more wondering if folks thought I could get away with the small jeep (could the kids still see out ok) since its significantly cheaper. But we might change it up and get a convertible on one of the single day rentals. Any suggestions on which island might be ideal??

On paper, we chose "small SUV" from Alamo via the discount Hawaii car rental site (it was cheaper than Costco rates for us). We could have gotten a convertible for about the same rate, but we didn't think we would easily get our luggage to fit to/from the airport since the site said it only held 2 suitcases. We were expecting a Ford, I think. When we got there, they told us to pick anything from a certain section, most of which were Jeep Wranglers. DH thought that sounded fun, so we went with it. It had a removable roof, so almost convertible-like! It actually did come in handy on the day we left, b/c some fire hydrants (I am guessing) burst and flooded the roads near the airport. No way would we have gotten through them in anything else, although of course we only *had* to drive through the flooded roads b/c we hadn't bothered to get the tank filled up until we were right by the airport. Otherwise, I can't say there was any advantage to having that vehicle, and we went all over Oahu. Everything is pretty developed. If you're thinking you want to do some kind of off-roading thing, we didn't encounter any opportunities for that. Maybe one of the less-populated islands would be better for that?

I'm no car expert, so maybe that's not the small Jeep you're talking about? But if it is, my 7yo saw just fine out of the windows. He's very tall for his age, but I wouldn't think he's taller than your teens.