We just did Hawaii this summer, also coming from NC! We flew SW (yay points and companion pass), so we had to stop in CA both ways because of SW’s flight schedules. Having also flown all the way to Hawaii and back in one slog a few years ago, we all (me,DH and two teen boys) all GREATLY preferred stopping in CA. Not having to take a red eye on the way home was particularly lovely. I did a bunch of pretty detailed reviews/trip reports from our trip - if you search my username in this thread you should find them (they are from July of this year).
Two general comments - I concur with what someone else said about doing maui and kauai and skipping Oahu. We’ve now down all of the main islands and Oahu was by far our least favorite. If you really want to see Pearl Harbor, that’s worth a visit, but tack on one night at the beginning or end (and fly into or home from HNL) and otherwise skip Oahu. Kauai was hands down the favorite island for all 4 of us, and the one we would all most likely return to. We stayed at the Marriott villas resort in Poipu and absolutely loved it.
Second, book anything and everything that you can ASAP. We found almost everything (excursion/activity-wise) to be fully refundable. Car rentals especially, although hopefully the car rental insanity will have passed by next fall. Autoslash is a great tool for finding good car rental rates if you haven’t used it before. Otherwise, Costco Travel is my favorite place to book car rentals.
I’m a spreadsheet freak and have spreadsheets for both of our trips - feel free to PM me if you want to check them out!
