Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Programs: MR LT Titanium, IHG Plat.,UA Premier Silver, & PA/OH Turnpike Million Miler
Posts: 2,320
Are you truly set on doing 3 Islands? My wife and I will be making our 6th trip to Hawaii this summer. We recently became a family of 3 and it will be our 1 year old daughter’s first trip to Hawaii. Our trips are typically 11 to 13 nights. Our first trip was short on Oahu and tacked on to the end of my business trip. On our second trip we did 3 Islands (Maui, Big Island, and Kauai). We found we lost way too much time on Inter-island travel. On our third trip we did Two Islands (Kauai and Oahu) and that worked out much better. Fourth and Fifth trips we have stuck to one Island (Maui or Big Island) and just split our time between different parts of the island. We have liked that best of all since we maximize the amount of time spent on vacation and minimize pure travel time. It is easy to plan some nice driving itineraries between different parts of island where you really don't feel like your losing time to transit. Inter-island travel always feels like lost time to us. If you're trying to do all of your lodging on points this strategy may be hard to execute. We usually wind up splitting our time between a hotel and a vacation rental. Just offering another perspective to consider…
If you do stick with the three island itinerary, I would second the recommendation to go with an open jaw itinerary which would allow you to cut down to only two (hopefully direct) inter-island segments. OGG and HNL have the most flight options from the mainland. So perhaps do the Big Island in the middle of your stay. Regardless of what you do, it is very hard not to have a good time in Hawaii.
--Jon
P.S. Sixth trip will also be one island (Kauai) for 12 nights (7 Nights at the Marriott and 5 Nights at a TBD Vacation Rental in Princeville).
Last edited by Jon Maiman; May 24, 2007 at 11:21 am