Hawaii Summary

So this is my final review on our Hawaiian Vacation.

Hopefully it will help someone out who is 

planning a trip to Hawaii!

First, I am so glad we chose to do a cruise vs

just flying to one island.

I know cruises aren't for everyone, but if you

have ever priced a trip to Hawaii, then you know

how expensive it can be.

Cruising was much more affordable, and it allowed us 

to visit multiple islands vs just staying on 1.

Plus with cruises, you can make payments over time.

So book early so you have  longer to pay on it.

And since food is included in the price, we saved big time

in not having to pay for 3 meals a day x 4 people!

(A whopper meal at a local Burger King was $9!)

 The downside to a cruise is you don't really get enough time to 

fully explore an entire island.

But, you can still get a lot in if you plan right.

Here was the schedule I had written out for us.

I took this notebook along with all my print outs for

receipts for rental cars, passes, groupons, etc.

This kept us very organized because each night the guys

would ask, so what's next on the agenda. 

Initially they said I had too much planned but we actually ended up with a 

lot of down time to relax.

One major way we saved money was that my brother applied for one of 

those credit cards that give you travel rewards.

So we gave him the cash for the plane tickets and he purchased them on his card.

This racked up lots of points, plus he was able to

pay the card off right away.

We used those points for rental cars in Honolulu, Maui, & Hilo.

We also used the points for our "day hotel" in Honolulu from when we returned from the cruise.

My next very important piece of advice is to use the 

hell out of Google for good deals and research everything.

A lot of people feel safer booking their excursions right through the

cruise line. And I totally understand that logic if we were cruising to 

Mexico maybe, but Hawaii is in the good ol USA so I took my

chances and it paid off wonderfully!

For us, we created a MUST DO list for Hawaii.

We all agreed you can't go to Hawaii without:

Seeing Pearl Harbor

 $39 vs $59+ per person

Going to a Luau

 This was $100 either way but based on 

online reviews, we decided not to book with the cruise bc we

read it would be overcrowded.

Seeing a Volcano 

$10 total vs $100 per person
Rode in our own vehicle and stopped when we wanted

Road to Hana

Free rental car vs $139 per person
Rode in our own car vs being crowded 
in a van with 12 other people for 8+ hours

Going to the Beach

Once we had our list, we compared the prices on the cruise website

to all the various links on the Internet.

For me, 9 times out of 10 we found it was much cheaper 

to book things ourselves.

 Definitely check Groupon.

I can't tell you how many times this website

has saved us money! 

I found great deals for dinner, sails, spa, etc.

For plane tickets, it's really hit or miss.

Flying from the east coast to Hawaii is going to be expensive. Period.

But we downloaded this app called Sky Scanner and we just randomly checked the 

prices every week.

We got our tickets for $550 per person which is still high,

but to us it was low because every other time we checked, the flights were about $900. 

So we were extremely happy to get them for $550.

 If you have any questions let me know!

I'm no expert but I will definitely help if I can.