Aulani - Day trips to other islands?

[Minnie824]

Has anyone taken day trips to other islands from Aulani/Oahu? Originally I thought when we go to HI, since its a big trip we'd stay on Oahu a few nights and Maui a few nights. But pricing it out, I think we could stay 8 nights with our points at Aulani which would save a ton of money for a hotel on Maui. But, I'd still like to see at least Maui and maybe another island. I know there are day trips that can be done, but wondering if anyone has done them? Or do you think it would be better to just stay there a few nights? Thanks.

 

[Anal Annie]

This summer will be my 5th trip to Hawaii (but first to Aulani). We always island hop and usually go for at least 10 days. It is too far and too expensive to go for less time. The only time we did "day trips" was on my 2nd trip. This was back in the mid-90's before airfare got so crazy expensive and before security got so time consuming. I would NOT do a day trip now. It is an inefficient use of time and the round trip airfare will cost you as much as a hotel room (depending on how many ppl you have). Back when we did it you could basically just show up at the airport and grab the next flight (they are hourly) and they used to be like $90 roundtrip. Now you will be lucky to get it for $140.

This summer we are spending a week at Aulani then moving to Maui for 3 nights and booked our return flight home from Maui so we don't have to return to HNL and we only have to pay for a one-way tix inter-island. We booked our hotel on Maui with Starwood points that we converted from Amex. Reward points. Make sure you look into deals like that. We have used Costco Travel b4 to book too (sometimes they have good deals on airfare and car pkgs if you book it with them as a pkg.). Since we only have 3 nights there we are flying over fairly early (9:30 or 9:45ish I think) and I got an early check-in (noon) at our hotel (the Sheraton Ka'anapali at Black Rock). Our flight home isn't until 9:45 pm so we can maximize our last day too.

If you DO go with the day trip plan make sure to go EARLY so you can maximize your time. The best plan tho is to island hop for at least 3 or 4 nights.