Weatherboy

The big difference is people are staying at the resorts and not leaving those "bubbles" as much as they did before. Perhaps its a perceived safety thing, but someone staying at a resort now may have 3 meals/day there over a week... whereas before, they'd venture out and explore the island and save meals at the marquis resort eateries for a special occasion. There's also less grab and go; resorts that have coffee stands that offer some breakfast breads in the AM are finding them used less and less now, with demand for full service breakfast way up. --so much so that the resort restaurants weren't designed to serve breakfast to every single in house guest there and they're being crunched. That was explained to me that's because the "novelty" of sitting down in a restaurant isn't something many have had a chance to enjoy on the mainland...combined with the perception that its safe because everyone tests to get in, people are "living it up" and eating out in the restaurants more than before.

The other change is the shift from hotels to rentals. There's an additional perceived safety benefit of having your own place with few strangers, so families that would typically book adjoining/adjacent rooms are now giving condos/timeshares/rentals a try moreso than ever before.

MCO Flyer

For my upcoming trip to Kona, I booked a vacation rental via Kona Cost Vacations and asked one of their agents on the phone if they’ve had any issues with any of their guest testing positive on the post-arrival test at the airport and she told me no. The only issue they said they’ve seen people run into is showing up on the island with a non-approved COVID test and being forced to quarantine so they are now asking their guest to send them their COVID test results as soon as they come back so they can verify that they took the correct test before they leave. She also told me that KOA has officially reduced the post-arrival testing and they now are only randomly testing 25-50% of arriving mainland pax.

1KChinito

Thank you for sharing. With upcoming mandatory screening upon arrival at OGG, it should be even safer for all.

FlyerBeek

How exactly is that? Especially if (as rumored) travelers are allowed to proceed to their hotels before even receiving the OGG administered test results. Why not require daily COVID tests for all Maui visitors? How else will you be able to screen out all the COVID transmissions that happened on the plane en route to OGG, since there is clearly such a concern about all the COVID-positive travelers arriving in OGG?

-FlyerBeek

hawaii-bound

Case in point - this was from a review on tripadvisor where a guest states someone died in room while quarantining:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...i.html?m=19905

BlueZebra

We were there across Easter. In fact, we are in one of the pictures the poster put on TA. Of the 20 or 30 allegations made in that review I can attest to maybe 2. Lines were horrible, and we addressed that with the management. I know nothing about a death in a room. But there are a lot of very suspicious issues on the topic...I can't figure out why someone that sick with Covid wasn't taken to a hospital. Covid typically doesn't go from little to no symptoms to death that quickly. There is far too much fact free accusations here...

The hotel absolutely checked QR Code and approved status. The hotel absolutely had hand sanitizers spread all over the place. Masks were handed out at various gathering places (did the poster not think they had to bring masks for themselves?), but I don't know if you could just go to the front desk and ask for some. Lounge chair spacing was deliberately done to allow for not wearing masks while on chairs. Did some people flaunt the rules while walking around...absolutely.

If the manager actually gave that info on a person to someone not related to the deceased, a HIPAA violation is quite likely. The hotel is not required to give ANY info on a medical incident to a non-related person. Again...that whole situation smells very strongly of fish.

I read the text chain posted in TA. Somebody sounds very demanding. I would take this review quoted with a dump truck load of salt.

dhuey

My thoughts and situation as well. I'm not sure I can convince my family to return to Maui right now, but I'm not even going to make the sales pitch while testing is a requirement (much less 2x testing).

I shake my head at these policies, but it's no biggie for me. My heart goes out, though, to those who are unemployed in this industry. Hawaii currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation, and these dumb policies will help keep it that way.

hawaii-bound

Point Taken - I do not count on TA reviews but thought it was worth putting out there. I am sure if it was true, it would have made it into a local news cycle.

BlueZebra

According to the Hawaii state website, there was only one Covid death in the entire state between April 2 and April 9. Can't tell where the death was. Doesn't prove or disprove anything.

azepine00

Quite possibly they want to temporarily reduce tourism - it was a lovely place over xmas but according to a couple folks who went over spring break it was overrun beyond still restricted capacity creating all sorts of challenges...

Weatherboy

Not much news out of Maui yet, so I can't imagine this testing program launching in less than a week, but there was interesting blurb out;

Maui County spokesman Brian Perry said exempting vaccinated Maui visitors from the new requirement is "under consideration.''

So while being vaccinated won't help with getting out of the statewide testing and quarantine requirement, you may be able to skip the second test at the airport.

gaobest

A friend stayed at fairmount in big island or somewhere in Hawaii with a fairmount and he said that they were severely understaffed. Are hotels not rehiring due to uncertainty with guest numbers? My friend mentioned severe lack of cleaning up in food areas and the difficulty to get room service.

I definitely hoped for some 4/17-18 updates to this great thread!!

hawaii-bound

Weatherboy

Hotels are slow to re-hire and employees are slow to return; people have become hooked sitting at home on PUA checks, so it's a perfect storm in the hospitality sector. On Maui and Hawaii Island, numbers for the first 2 weeks of April were shockingly high and greater than pre-COVID numbers. But the hotels have also said they are having a very hard time forecast actual visitors even with reservation data: one resort GM told me with changeable/cancelable air and room rates, they can't get a handle on who will actually show until they do. And they're unable to over-sell the resort due to COVID capacity constraints, so they're in a tough spot. But they're appreciative of the high volumes that did show up for Spring Break.

As far as the second airport test, there's rumblings it will roll out around April 26, but nothing confirmed/published from the Mayor's office yet. The Governor is supposed to issue new tweaks to the Safe Travels program this week, so it wouldn't surprise me if Maui was waiting (or the governor asked Maui to wait) to say anything until those changes are made public. The communication waters got muddied when Hawaii Island announced presenting a vaccine card gets you out of airport testing there last week and we're back again to inconsistent testing and more importantly, messaging, through the island.

MCO Flyer

The Big Island 2nd test exemption for vaccinated passengers only last through April 30th so Maui won’t have to worry about inconsistent messaging for long.