Originally Posted by hauteboy

I've just returned from a 12-day trip on the Continental island hopper route, visiting Kauai, Palau, Guam, Saipan and Micronesia.

This trip changed itineraries several times in planning.. the original plan was for us to visit Wake Island, Guam, Fiji, Kiribati, Samoa, and Bora Bora. Then the Wake Island trip was cancelled but luckily before I had purchased all the flights. So I then changed our dates and itinerary to a stopover in Kauai. Mrs hauteboy would then fly to the Big Island for a few days while I went off visiting Palau, Guam, Saipan and Micronesia on the Continental island hopper.

The roundtrip fare from Austin to Palau allowed two stopovers; I picked Honolulu and Guam. I then found there was a late Sunday evening flight from Guam to Pohnpei; this would allow me 13 hrs in Micronesia before connecting to the island hopper flight to Honolulu the next day, this didn't count as a stopover but allowed me just enough time to visit the ruins at Nan Madol. I also bought side roundtrips to Kauai and Saipan.

I didn't have any status on Continental, and didn't relish such a long set of flights without lounge access or priority boarding. I was able to status match my AA PLT status to CO *A Gold.

So here are the flights (whew):
Here's links to some of my other trip blogs
Peru/Galapagos 2005: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...agos-trip.html
Mongolia/Caucasus 2005: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-mtskheta.html

Andaman Islands (India) 2007: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-ixz-maa.html
Guianas (South America) 2007: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...h-guianas.html
North Korea 2007: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...oryo-trip.html

Ethiopia 2008: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...-airlines.html
Central America 2008: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-managua.html

St. Petersburg, Baltics and Belarus 2009: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...d-st-pete.html
Canadian Rockies 2009: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...n-rockies.html

West Africa 2010: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ir-france.html

Originally Posted by dswalen

I've done Palau twice (Yap on the way one time) and one time spent a couple of days on Peleliu island one time and a couple of days way up at the northern end of Babeldaob the other (we did the monoliths as well). It's totally different being at a resort with no air conditioning when trying to get to sleep.

I haven't done the bargain rate route for lodging because it's almost impossible to find any information on the cheap hotels like the DW on the web. They tend not to have full websites but stub sites with one page that has a phone number and an email address. So I read with great interest your review of the DW. Do they have any queen sized beds?

On the first trip, I stayed part of the time at the Rose Garden Inn which was okay though they need some de-aglae-fication on the concrete steps because when it drizzles, which is just about every day practically, the incline makes it slip and fall prone very easily. The rest of the time I was at Caroline's resort up in the hills. My second time out I stayed at the Sea Passion Resort, which is a pretty good bang for the cost and is located walking distance form Sam's, and Caroline's resort.

I read on another thread someone complaining about doing an internet search finding so few hotels on the beach. Well...yeah...Palau is mostly rocks and little beach, especially on Koror, so you're not going to get many hotels on the beach because there isn't much beach to put hotels on. Even the "beach" at the Sea Passion is man made...and quite a bit shorter now than the website pictures showed last I looked. The one resort with a beach is the Palau Pacific Resort and it's probably the most expensive resort in the country. But for non-guests there's a "backdoor" to the use of the private beach and the facilities of the Palau Pacific Resort if you know where to go.

I'm just stunned to hear you say you only dived Palau one day. I know you were island hopping and all but diving 1 day in Palau is like going to the Indy 500, showing up in the middle of the race, and leaving after a couple of laps have elapsed. You missed SO much...

Originally Posted by hauteboy

The airfare was the biggest chunk.. and the incidental costs at the hotels in Hawaii. Hawaii overall was a big chunk of the rest of the costs.

My airfare = $2100 (high season)
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Hotel costs averaged $47/night but I used points or points+cash at hotels in Hawaii and Saipan, so that kept costs down.

For the western Pacific part of the trip, I spent under $800 in a week and $200 of that was for diving.

Originally Posted by me4tux

Thanks for the excellent write-up.

Can you share how you booked all the flights? Was it via Continental online and executed all in one day? The $2100 fare is amazing really, for all the stops listed there.