Hey Everyone,

I'm in the midst of planning a 9 or 10 night trip to Hawaii in late April and need some suggestions / advice. I've read through nearly every Hawaii thread on the MR forum, and many reviews on Trip Advisor and there is certainly a lot of good information and suggestions, and we have narrowed our hotel choices down to the following three:

1. Kauai Marriott Resort & Beach Club
2. JW Marriott Ihilani Resort & Spa at Ko Olina
3. Waikoloa Beach Marriott Resort & Spa (Kona / Big Island)

Basically, the debate at this point is whether or not we want to try and squeeze all three hotels/islands in on this trip, or do we narrow it down to two.

Our priorities are as follows

1. Nice Beaches; Preferably within close proximity to the hotel (JW and Kauai seem to top this category) We're not really pool lovers, and much prefer beach time to pool time.
2. Good Food; Would prefer not to eat at the hotel every night, as that tends to get very pricey (JW seems to be the worst for this, haven't seen much info of the other two regarding this category)
3. "Adventure" activities; Notably we want to do a Helicopter Ride/Hike around the Volcano and a sailing/boat trip on the Na Pali cost.

I have found award tickets on United arriving in KOA on either Thursday or Friday afternoon and then returning out of LIH the following Sunday evening.

So we would obviously stay at the Waikoloa first in order to fulfill our desire to see the Volcano; but given our priorities; is it better to:

1. Do a 9 night trip, skip the JW and just do 4 nights at the Waikoloa and 5 on Kauai
2. Do a 10 night trip, Short stay in Waikoloa (2-3 nights), head to the JW for 3 nights; and (4-5) nights on Kauai.

Other factors:
-We don't really want to feel rushed, and don't want to kill an entire day island hopping (So we'd best off taking early morning/evening inter-island flights, right?)
-Going from KOA-LIH requires a stop in HNL.
-Beach time is very important to us, and I have not read the best things about the one at Waikoloa, and the ones at the JW seem to be very highly rated.
-Can also fly into/out of HNL, but we were trying to cut down on the number of inter island flights, so figured traveling "one direction" on the islands was the best way to do it.

Your advice and recommendations are greatly appreciated!! If you need any other info; please let me know.