Trip to Hawaii to include the Big Island, staying in Waimanalo Beach area, and Aulani

[halfmonkey]

We are starting our early planning of our Hawaii trip in 2018. I know this is super early but we're not trying to finalize everything now. We're just starting to plan some of the basic things like how long, when, where and those kind of things. We're planning to go at the end of Sept 2018 because our kids are in a year round school so they actually get a little over 2 weeks off for fall break. It works out nice for us because kids are usually just starting school earlier in the month of Sept and with kids in school, rates and cost is usually a lot less and crowds are usually a lot less too.

So we're thinking of going at the end of Sept 2018 for 14 days. We're flying in from SoCal. I'd like to lay out our preliminary plans and get some feedback. We'll be traveling with a total of 7 people. DH, DW, DS11, DS9, DD4, DGrandama x2.

Our thought so far is to fly to the Big Island on the first leg of our trip. I don't believe you can fly direct to the Big Island from SoCal so I think we need to fly to Oahu and then take a connecting flight to the Big Island. We would fly out on Saturday so that day is gone to traveling. We're thinking of staying on the Big Island for 2 full days, so Sunday and Monday will be open to enjoying the island. The main thing that we want to do is check out the volcano/lava flow and lava tubes. I'd like to book a boat tour for 7 of us. That may take at least half a day to full day and then the other full day would be to explore the island. We would then fly out of the Big Island to Oahu on Tuesday.

Our current plan is to rent a VRBO/AIRBNB property in the Waimanalo Beach area for our second leg of the trip. So we would fly to Oahu on Tuesday morning and stay at this VRBO/AIRBNB rental until Monday and check out to go to Aulani. During our time here at the rental, we would do all of our tourist things like visit the Dole maze, go to Waikiki, check out Pearl Harbor, do Paradise Cove luau, etc. We would rent a car to get around the island while staying at this rental. This would give us 5 full days to tour the island of Oahu and do all of the touristy things.

Then on Monday, we would check out of the rental and go to Aulani and stay there until Saturday when we would check out and fly home. So far, we're planning our time at Aulani to be 4 full days. When we check into Aulani, we would also return the rental car because with our time at Aulani, we plan to not go anywhere and enjoy the resort since we would have already done all of the touristy things while staying at the VRBO/AIRBNB rental.

I'd like to get your feedback on our preliminary plan and if you can offer any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

A couple of random notes in case it matters in reading my post and offering some suggestions. My mother-in-law is not super mobile so we can't necessarily hike Diamond Head but we can still drive to the area and check it out if not from the base. DS11 loves to snorkel. DS9 does't care for snorkeling too much. DD5 is beginning to learn to swim and is not a strong swimmer. This will be our first time Hawaii together as a family. My wife and I have been to Hawaii before but it was to Maui. We also plan on purchasing snorkeling equipment from Costco and bringing it with us. We'll just use one suitcase to pack the snorkel gear in. This would also be our fist time to Aulani.

We also want to set up a photo shoot while we stay on Oahu. We previously used a service called Flytographer when we did a trip to Las Vegas and it turned out awesome. We were thinking of doing the same for an afternoon on Oahu. Besides using Flytographer again, does anybody have recommendations of local photographers that can spend about 2 hours or so to take some family pictures. We're also looking for someone that can recommend some unique hidden gems as far as location goes to take some really scenic pictures. We don't necessarily want to take the picture in the city such as in Waikiki. We prefer somewhere off the beaten path.

As far as car rentals goes, I understand that some of these super unique places requires a 4wd drive to access or it's much easier to use a vehicle to access rather than hiking the many or few miles. I've read that some car rental companies don't allow the vehicles to be taken "off-road." Is that true? Does anybody know of any car rental company that does allow the vehicle to be taken "off-road?" I'd like to stick with Alamo only because Aulani has an Alamo rental booth so when we arrive on Oahu, I'd like to rent from Alamo at the airport and use their car while we stay at our VRBO/AIRBNB rental and then when we drive over to Aulani, I'd like to just return the rental at Aulani rather than drive back to the airport and then have to figure out a ride back to Aulani.

Thanks for reading this far. Looking forward to your opinions and suggestions.

 

[wanderlust7]

You can fly direct from SoCal to Kona Airport (KOA) but not to Hilo (ITO). If you only want to see the Volcano, then flying into Hilo probably makes sense. There is lots to do on the Big Island though. The snorkeling at Captain Cook Monument (Kealakekua Bay) is awesome and bathtub calm when we were there. If you decide to stay a few more days, you can fly direct into Kona and then out of Hilo to HNL.

We haven't done the boat tour, but we saw them from Volcanoes National Park and the sea looked VERY rough. It would be a very cool experience though. I thought about doing it, but with little kids I was too worried about the inherent risks - but then I tend to be an overly cautious person.

The Costcos in Hawaii have snorkeling gear, so I would just get it there instead of lugging it from home.

 

[halfmonkey]

You can fly direct from SoCal to Kona Airport (KOA) but not to Hilo (ITO). If you only want to see the Volcano, then flying into Hilo probably makes sense. There is lots to do on the Big Island though. The snorkeling at Captain Cook Monument (Kealakekua Bay) is awesome and bathtub calm when we were there. If you decide to stay a few more days, you can fly direct into Kona and then out of Hilo to HNL.

We haven't done the boat tour, but we saw them from Volcanoes National Park and the sea looked VERY rough. It would be a very cool experience though. I thought about doing it, but with little kids I was too worried about the inherent risks - but then I tend to be an overly cautious person.

The Costcos in Hawaii have snorkeling gear, so I would just get it there instead of lugging it from home.

Didn't know you can fly into Kona from SoCal. I think we'll do that instead of flying to HNL and then connecting to KOA or ITO. I prefer direct flights whenever possible.

I'm sure we could plan a whole vacation around just staying on the Big Island but our trip is mainly for Oahu and the Big Island is only a secondary side trip because of the volcano. I did see some you tube footage of the sea being quite rough but since we have the grandmas with us, we can't do super long hikes so we really don't have any other choice because I think a hell ride for 7 is really cost prohibitive. This is the next best thing. We'll just use our sea bands and take some dramamine the night before or an hour before whichever the instructions say.

I purchased some travel book on Oahu and the Big Island and I did read about some snorkeling place on the Big Island that is protected from the open ocean. I don't remember what it's called but I would like to visit it on the second day and check out the rest of the island too. We'll see how much time we have because if not, we'll just call it done after viewing the volcano on Sunday and head to Oahu on Monday and scrap touring the Big Island.

BTW, I'm reading your write up from another post. Great write up. I appreciate the time and effort you spent to put that together.

 

[wanderlust7]

a hell ride for 7

That took me a minute.

If you decide to go snorkeling at Kealakekua Bay (boat tour would be best for your group), you might want to stay in Kona that first night, go to Kealakekua Bay the next day, then move to the Volcano side and fly out of Hilo. That'll save a lot of driving and backtracking.

Just a note, the lava doesn't always flow into the ocean. Hopefully, it's still going when you go next year.

Glad you found my TR.

 

[Midoria]

Our thought so far is to fly to the Big Island on the first leg of our trip. I don't believe you can fly direct to the Big Island from SoCal so I think we need to fly to Oahu and then take a connecting flight to the Big Island. We would fly out on Saturday so that day is gone to traveling. We're thinking of staying on the Big Island for 2 full days, so Sunday and Monday will be open to enjoying the island. The main thing that we want to do is check out the volcano/lava flow and lava tubes. I'd like to book a boat tour for 7 of us. That may take at least half a day to full day and then the other full day would be to explore the island. We would then fly out of the Big Island to Oahu on Tuesday.

I'd keep in mind that Hawaii is so large that Oahu, Lanai, Molokai, Maui, and Kauai can all fit inside. Two days isn't very much for one of the biggest islands in Polynesia. Considering skipping Kona because it's mainly filled with generic activities that can be done on any island (non-manta snorkeling, non-lava oriented boat rides, etc). Since your time is so limited, I'd focus on things only the BI can offer - the VNP, Hilo, and Mauna Kea.