Kauai, HI Master Thread

[Dan]

Lol, that's an awesome upgrade for the route!
Never seen it lie-flat when I've searched in the past.

If there's lie-flat F space go for it!

LAX-LIH route downgraded from sCO 752 to sCO 739 effective 1/9/17

[@Yehuda]

What in the world is this?

Saw something similar right next to Queen's Bath.

[wonderlust]

Been dragging my feet finishing off my TR so maybe if I start posting it will get me to finish it off:


Flights:
Ever since I went to Maui last summer and got a taste of Hawaii I really wanted to go to Kauai. As it turns out, we had a family simcha in LA so I figured that was a perfect opportunity since we were already going to be half way there and the jet lag will be  a little less brutal. We made a deal with my SIL, my wife watched her kids in June when she went away with her husband, and in turn she would fly back from LA with our infant son after shabbos and watch him while we went to Kauai.  I Booked BWI to LAX nonstop for 7k on southwest with cp for Thursday night. On Southwest a lap child is free you just need to get a boarding pass. If the flight isn't full they allow you to bring the car seat on the flight effectively allowing him to fly free. Since you can always cancel a flight up until departure you could book him a seat and if the flight isn't full you can just cancel his ticket and have him go as a "lap child". Alas,I didn't realize all this until the flight was all sold out but thankfully even though the fight was officcally full there was one seat open and they allowed us to bring on the car seat. I sold a bunch of LH miles  & had exactly 20k which was perfect for 1 return of HNL-IAD nonstop on United & used 5k AA for the LIH-HNL leg on Hawaiian. For my wife I booked her on the same flights but with 28k United. Even though I get a free luggage with both legs of my flight it requires picking it up -in HNL and rechecking it in & with only 1.5 hrs time in between flights I opted to check both bags under my wife's name which would go straight thru to IAD for $60. I was told by check-in to email United to get the baggage refunded since it was an award booking and wife has United card to boot, but I'm still working on that.. the outbound flight from Lax to LIH was the tough one. Since we were only staying till Thur I really didn't want to lose Sunday but the AA flight for Sunday morning from lax didn't have any saver availability so I coughed up the $400 per flight.  It was very frustrating though to see saver open up about 2 months before booking  but when I made the booking in March (don't ask!) I didn't want to risk the flight selling out or going up any more in price so  after monitoring it for a few weeks I threw in the 'miles towel' & paid for it ( the flight also dropped in price about a month before booking down to $350).I was able to mitigate it with a 150$ voucher from justfly for a previously screwed up booking for 1 flight & some AA gift cards for the other flight. Flying to Hawaii you go against air current so the outbound from LA to LIH which is only 2,600 miles is a 6hrs flight  while the HNL to IAD is 4,800 miles but only a 8.5 hr flight- go figure!

Total cost : 7K-southwest   20K-LH   5K-AA  28K-United   $60-Baggage (we’ll see about that)   LAX-LIH: $270 & $400 in AA gift cards which I bought for $325.

Food:
 POM meals worked out last yr in Maui so we ordered again. We amazon primed a toaster to the hotel for like 25$ but it wasn't really able to hold more than one Pom meal at a time. We packed them all in one cooler & they stayed frozen in the cooler for about 12 hrs twice- for the bwi-lax & lax-Lih portions of the trip.It  was a bit of a tight squeeze but we got it all in our cooler which since everything was frozen was allowed thru security (no dry ice) & we gate checked it for the lax-LIH flight without issue. When we got to the hotel we took out food until Tuesday and  they took our frozen meals to the freezer & we did the same on Tuesdays & Wednesday for no extra charge. Few pointers on POM meals: we learned from last year to bring/buy extra aluminum foil to re-wrap since tears can happen plus the stickers with the heating instructions will melt in an oven (found out the hard way). Also, POM didn't pack the blintzes or eggplant parm in tin foil (despite our instructions) so it was good that we had the ability to re-wrap.. We also individually wrapped each item in zip-locks so if there is some leakage/melting it won't affect the rest of the food. In general we found the most of the fried food kind of lousy ( fried cutlet, wings & sesame chicken) while the rest of it was great (ribs, eggplant parm, stuffed cabbage,meatballs, veg soup, blintzes, salmon) also the honey mustard cornbeef was so fatty that there was  hardly an edible part to it but still overall we were very happy and full. On the return flight I brought a POM meal and after the drink service was done I asked a flight attendant if she could warm the meal for me which she kindly agreed. When I brought her the meal though, the head flight attendant didn't want to let her warm my food but the other flight attendants stood up to her  and in the end she thankfully allowed it. The other flight attendants were super nice and they brought me my food and plastic utensils and kept coming over to ask if it was good. It was a little embarrassing the whole ordeal but thankfully it was night time so most ppl were sleeping and didn’t notice.(Side point:  the food was completely defrosted so it was a good thing that I had new aluminum foil to cover over the wrapping or there is no way they would of done it). At the GHK we had diamond status we got free access to the club along with bagels from Chabad from Honolulu. The bagels we had to order a few days in advance and ask the kitchen staff to reserve for us  but as  it turned out they were nothing great (shocker) so after the first day we weren't really interested in bothering with them. Meanwhile the staff said they might not have anymore for the last 2 days so we played an awkward game of avoiding each other;We were trying to avoid them since we didn't want them to fuss over the bagels we didn't like while they were avoiding us since they were out of the bagels we didn't want! lol..Instead we just loaded up on fruit, milk & cereals (they have decent selection of small boxes) for breakfast. At Walmart we bought drinks, snacks, beer & plastics which technically we could of gotten from the club room but we wanted our own stash without dealing with it. I found that the tourist items in walmart are expensive (17$ for  a beach towel?!) but the regular food items & clothing (wife bought water shoes for like $5) were well priced.

Total cost $270-POM  $30-Toaster $60- Walmart

Hotel:
 we booked 4 nights at the Grand Hyatt with C&P & I used a DSU for the garden suite room. The cash total comes out to $201 a night after all fees & tax. I bought Hyatt gift cards from Cardcash at a discount of between 15%-18% add the 5x chase miles on ink that you used to get (it recently changed) and it was close to a 25% savings in total. Tip: Cardcash only guarantees gift cards for 45 days and Hyatt cards- especially the high denominations (above $100) have a high delinquency rate so only buy them close to your trip. I know the hotel has been covered a dozen times but here is my 2 cents: 1- the room is gorgeous and very spacious. I have two words for the toilet- game changer! I know what I want for my next birthday present… The actual bed was only a queen size & wasn't amazingly comfortable & I wasn’t crazy about the small pillows .The hotel grounds are really stunning and it's easy to see why celebrities come flocking there  (Justin Beiver & Britney Spears were there this season). The pictures posted on the forums honestly don't do it justice. The only thing I have experienced that is  comparable to the pools would be the Tabacon hot springs in Costa Rica but that isn't by the beach like this is. I did find that it didn't have as dramatic a setting as the hotels in Maui (supposedly you need to go to the St Regis in Princeville for that). We stayed last year in the Marriott in Walea and were spoiled by sunsets from the Infiniti pool that would make you cry- none of that at the Hyatt. If there is one big drawback to the hotel it's the long walk to get anywhere. It's bad enough how spread out everything is but it seems like there was no logic in how it was set up- nothing seems to connect to each other so your constantly walking around instead of being able to cut thru.. They gave us a room that was at the absolute end of the resort and it literally took 10min to walk to the pool or lobby which can be a huge drag.. I would be very mindful when checking in to find out exactly where in the resort they put you and what the access points are. In our case the service elevator  was  out which made a long walk even longer. The wifi and cell phone service wasn't good in our room but not sure if that's the case for everyone. Over all though the hotel is absolutely amazing. The hardest part of the trip was deciding to leave the grounds to explore the beautiful island of Kauai. Supposedly the hotel was swarming with from ppl the week before ( seems zika was a factor in a lot of ppl choosing Hawaii over the much cheaper and closer Caribbean) Thankfully we only noticed one or two during our stay. I don't mind meeting the occasional frum person on vacation but we flew halfway around the world to get away from it all and spend time with each other- not to hang out poolside playing jewish geography with half the east coast...

Total cost:  50K Chase & $805 which came out to about $600/650 with giftcards& Ink points

Car Rental:
In LA I used my Hertz Gold points (I have a ton from my dating days) which you get better value out of for weekend rentals than midweek (Was I the only person in the world that was bugging out when they devalued their points?) for Kauai I opted to go with National since I have Executive aisle from my canceled Amex Plat. With the help of some nice Corp Rates I got a rental for $170. When I called the branch originally to find out about getting a convertible the agent acted as if I was asking about renting a snowmobile- “very very rarely do we have them in stock…” but when I arrived at the branch and I asked about convertibles  the guy told me they have a bunch and I can choose from Camaro or Mustang.  I opted for silver mustang and we had a great time with it. I put all my rentals on Amex which I signed up for their premium primary coverage and just swap them out to my arrival card at the end of the rental to use my arrival points to cover the cost ( You didn’t actually think I was going to pay for it:). When I returned the car the lady didn’t want to let me swap it out (she didn’t understand the concept of a business cc which my amex was) but the manager who was an awesome guy did it for me without an issue. We were schmoozing about the mustang and I mentioned how the back windows didn’t go up once and he launched in to a whole speech how they are waiting for a recall on them and handed me  a bunch of vouchers for the non-existent trouble..I Used Uber from IAD to Baltimore which even though is 70 miles away and 1.5 hr drive was only $85 plus a $30 Uber coupon-  I am now an UBERLIEVER!

Total Cost; Hertz- 1400 gold points  National- $170 (plus $50 in vouchers for future)  Uber- $55

TBC..

[Dan]

For anyone with SRP experience:

Did you find it worthwhile? Across TRs and FT everyone seems to pretty much bash the SRP. I believe its mostly due to the restaurant which I don't care about and the fact that it isn't like other SR's which I understand. You seem to pay premium for location over the actual hotel itself.

I am just debating if its worth doing 3 nights there over 7 full nights at GHK. Id assume I save "shlepping time" for activities Id want to do in the north and possibly west.

The best "deal" I am getting is 90k+$625 for a 3 night stay into a Junior Suite.


[Id be Plat by the time I get around to my stay as well as Hyatt Diamond with no confirmed Suite at the GHK]

Off the top of my head:

SRP Pros:
-Stunning setting and views.
-More personal service.
-Luxurious/modern feel.
-Beach chairs and pool service.
-Less kids around than at GHK.
-Betler service if you're into that.

SRP Cons:
-Several elevators required to go from many guest rooms to pools/beach.
-Most rooms have don't have lanais
-Junior suites are just a larger room without any real separation or lanai.
-North shore can be very rainy and buggy in the winter.
-Pools are nothing to write home about.
-Not a great beach
-Service can be a bit too personal.
-Butler required for items like ice, etc.

GHK Pros:
-Beautiful Hawaiian landscaped grounds
-Incredible pools
-Grand Club
-Diamond suite upgrades
-Proximity to Waimea/Polihale
-Kid activities
-Less rain than north shore
-Coco Mango toiletries
-Free laundry facilities
-Anara spa access for diamonds

GHK Cons:
-Very poor beach
-Lack of pool services
-Not modern or luxurious
-Lots of kids in resort

[mochjas]

Off the top of my head:

SRP Pros:
-Stunning setting and views.
-More personal service.
-Luxurious/modern feel.
-Beach chairs and pool service.
-Less kids around than at GHK.
-Betler service if you're into that.

SRP Cons:
-Several elevators required to go from many guest rooms to pools/beach.
-Most rooms have don't have lanais
-Junior suites are just a larger room without any real separation or lanai.
-North shore can be very rainy and buggy in the winter.
-Pools are nothing to write home about.
-Not a great beach
-Service can be a bit too personal.
-Butler required for items like ice, etc.

GHK Pros:
-Beautiful Hawaiian landscaped grounds
-Incredible pools
-Grand Club
-Diamond suite upgrades
-Proximity to Waimea/Polihale
-Kid activities
-Less rain than north shore
-Coco Mango toiletries
-Free laundry facilities
-Anara spa access for diamonds

GHK Cons:
-Very poor beach
-Lack of pool services
-Not modern or luxurious
-Lots of kids in resort

wow the first 3 cons of GHK make it difficult for me to want to stay there.

Also I would add price to the pros and cons

[efflpetzel]

Add the toilet at the ghk today the pro's

[sarahb]

If we book at GHK as diamond members and have an available suite upgrade if we book with cask and points for one night and the remaining 4 nights only points do you think we would be able to keep the suite the entire stay?

[sedge]

If we book at GHK as diamond members and have an available suite upgrade if we book with cask and points for one night and the remaining 4 nights only points do you think we would be able to keep the suite the entire stay?

Book the DSU nights in the beginning of the stay. You are less likely to be asked to move then. It all depends on availability though.

I've done this twice this year and neither time was I asked to move, but I was always told in advance that I might have to.

[mgoldhammer18]

Been dragging my feet finishing off my TR so maybe if I start posting it will get me to finish it off:


Flights:
Ever since I went to Maui last summer and got a taste of Hawaii I really wanted to go to Kauai. As it turns out, we had a family simcha in LA so I figured that was a perfect opportunity since we were already going to be half way there and the jet lag will be  a little less brutal. We made a deal with my SIL, my wife watched her kids in June when she went away with her husband, and in turn she would fly back from LA with our infant son after shabbos and watch him while we went to Kauai.  I Booked BWI to LAX nonstop for 7k on southwest with cp for Thursday night. On Southwest a lap child is free you just need to get a boarding pass. If the flight isn't full they allow you to bring the car seat on the flight effectively allowing him to fly free. Since you can always cancel a flight up until departure you could book him a seat and if the flight isn't full you can just cancel his ticket and have him go as a "lap child". Alas,I didn't realize all this until the flight was all sold out but thankfully even though the fight was officcally full there was one seat open and they allowed us to bring on the car seat. I sold a bunch of LH miles  & had exactly 20k which was perfect for 1 return of HNL-IAD nonstop on United & used 5k AA for the LIH-HNL leg on Hawaiian. For my wife I booked her on the same flights but with 28k United. Even though I get a free luggage with both legs of my flight it requires picking it up -in HNL and rechecking it in & with only 1.5 hrs time in between flights I opted to check both bags under my wife's name which would go straight thru to IAD for $60. I was told by check-in to email United to get the baggage refunded since it was an award booking and wife has United card to boot, but I'm still working on that.. the outbound flight from Lax to LIH was the tough one. Since we were only staying till Thur I really didn't want to lose Sunday but the AA flight for Sunday morning from lax didn't have any saver availability so I coughed up the $400 per flight.  It was very frustrating though to see saver open up about 2 months before booking  but when I made the booking in March (don't ask!) I didn't want to risk the flight selling out or going up any more in price so  after monitoring it for a few weeks I threw in the 'miles towel' & paid for it ( the flight also dropped in price about a month before booking down to $350).I was able to mitigate it with a 150$ voucher from justfly for a previously screwed up booking for 1 flight & some AA gift cards for the other flight. Flying to Hawaii you go against air current so the outbound from LA to LIH which is only 2,600 miles is a 6hrs flight  while the HNL to IAD is 4,800 miles but only a 8.5 hr flight- go figure!

Total cost : 7K-southwest   20K-LH   5K-AA  28K-United   $60-Baggage (we’ll see about that)   LAX-LIH: $270 & $400 in AA gift cards which I bought for $325.

Food:
 POM meals worked out last yr in Maui so we ordered again. We amazon primed a toaster to the hotel for like 25$ but it wasn't really able to hold more than one Pom meal at a time. We packed them all in one cooler & they stayed frozen in the cooler for about 12 hrs twice- for the bwi-lax & lax-Lih portions of the trip.It  was a bit of a tight squeeze but we got it all in our cooler which since everything was frozen was allowed thru security (no dry ice) & we gate checked it for the lax-LIH flight without issue. When we got to the hotel we took out food until Tuesday and  they took our frozen meals to the freezer & we did the same on Tuesdays & Wednesday for no extra charge. Few pointers on POM meals: we learned from last year to bring/buy extra aluminum foil to re-wrap since tears can happen plus the stickers with the heating instructions will melt in an oven (found out the hard way). Also, POM didn't pack the blintzes or eggplant parm in tin foil (despite our instructions) so it was good that we had the ability to re-wrap.. We also individually wrapped each item in zip-locks so if there is some leakage/melting it won't affect the rest of the food. In general we found the most of the fried food kind of lousy ( fried cutlet, wings & sesame chicken) while the rest of it was great (ribs, eggplant parm, stuffed cabbage,meatballs, veg soup, blintzes, salmon) also the honey mustard cornbeef was so fatty that there was  hardly an edible part to it but still overall we were very happy and full. On the return flight I brought a POM meal and after the drink service was done I asked a flight attendant if she could warm the meal for me which she kindly agreed. When I brought her the meal though, the head flight attendant didn't want to let her warm my food but the other flight attendants stood up to her  and in the end she thankfully allowed it. The other flight attendants were super nice and they brought me my food and plastic utensils and kept coming over to ask if it was good. It was a little embarrassing the whole ordeal but thankfully it was night time so most ppl were sleeping and didn’t notice.(Side point:  the food was completely defrosted so it was a good thing that I had new aluminum foil to cover over the wrapping or there is no way they would of done it). At the GHK we had diamond status we got free access to the club along with bagels from Chabad from Honolulu. The bagels we had to order a few days in advance and ask the kitchen staff to reserve for us  but as  it turned out they were nothing great (shocker) so after the first day we weren't really interested in bothering with them. Meanwhile the staff said they might not have anymore for the last 2 days so we played an awkward game of avoiding each other;We were trying to avoid them since we didn't want them to fuss over the bagels we didn't like while they were avoiding us since they were out of the bagels we didn't want! lol..Instead we just loaded up on fruit, milk & cereals (they have decent selection of small boxes) for breakfast. At Walmart we bought drinks, snacks, beer & plastics which technically we could of gotten from the club room but we wanted our own stash without dealing with it. I found that the tourist items in walmart are expensive (17$ for  a beach towel?!) but the regular food items & clothing (wife bought water shoes for like $5) were well priced.

Total cost $270-POM  $30-Toaster $60- Walmart

Hotel:
 we booked 4 nights at the Grand Hyatt with C&P & I used a DSU for the garden suite room. The cash total comes out to $201 a night after all fees & tax. I bought Hyatt gift cards from Cardcash at a discount of between 15%-18% add the 5x chase miles on ink that you used to get (it recently changed) and it was close to a 25% savings in total. Tip: Cardcash only guarantees gift cards for 45 days and Hyatt cards- especially the high denominations (above $100) have a high delinquency rate so only buy them close to your trip. I know the hotel has been covered a dozen times but here is my 2 cents: 1- the room is gorgeous and very spacious. I have two words for the toilet- game changer! I know what I want for my next birthday present… The actual bed was only a queen size & wasn't amazingly comfortable & I wasn’t crazy about the small pillows .The hotel grounds are really stunning and it's easy to see why celebrities come flocking there  (Justin Beiver & Britney Spears were there this season). The pictures posted on the forums honestly don't do it justice. The only thing I have experienced that is  comparable to the pools would be the Tabacon hot springs in Costa Rica but that isn't by the beach like this is. I did find that it didn't have as dramatic a setting as the hotels in Maui (supposedly you need to go to the St Regis in Princeville for that). We stayed last year in the Marriott in Walea and were spoiled by sunsets from the Infiniti pool that would make you cry- none of that at the Hyatt. If there is one big drawback to the hotel it's the long walk to get anywhere. It's bad enough how spread out everything is but it seems like there was no logic in how it was set up- nothing seems to connect to each other so your constantly walking around instead of being able to cut thru.. They gave us a room that was at the absolute end of the resort and it literally took 10min to walk to the pool or lobby which can be a huge drag.. I would be very mindful when checking in to find out exactly where in the resort they put you and what the access points are. In our case the service elevator  was  out which made a long walk even longer. The wifi and cell phone service wasn't good in our room but not sure if that's the case for everyone. Over all though the hotel is absolutely amazing. The hardest part of the trip was deciding to leave the grounds to explore the beautiful island of Kauai. Supposedly the hotel was swarming with from ppl the week before ( seems zika was a factor in a lot of ppl choosing Hawaii over the much cheaper and closer Caribbean) Thankfully we only noticed one or two during our stay. I don't mind meeting the occasional frum person on vacation but we flew halfway around the world to get away from it all and spend time with each other- not to hang out poolside playing jewish geography with half the east coast...

Total cost:  50K Chase & $805 which came out to about $600/650 with giftcards& Ink points

Car Rental:
In LA I used my Hertz Gold points (I have a ton from my dating days) which you get better value out of for weekend rentals than midweek (Was I the only person in the world that was bugging out when they devalued their points?) for Kauai I opted to go with National since I have Executive aisle from my canceled Amex Plat. With the help of some nice Corp Rates I got a rental for $170. When I called the branch originally to find out about getting a convertible the agent acted as if I was asking about renting a snowmobile- “very very rarely do we have them in stock…” but when I arrived at the branch and I asked about convertibles  the guy told me they have a bunch and I can choose from Camaro or Mustang.  I opted for silver mustang and we had a great time with it. I put all my rentals on Amex which I signed up for their premium primary coverage and just swap them out to my arrival card at the end of the rental to use my arrival points to cover the cost ( You didn’t actually think I was going to pay for it:). When I returned the car the lady didn’t want to let me swap it out (she didn’t understand the concept of a business cc which my amex was) but the manager who was an awesome guy did it for me without an issue. We were schmoozing about the mustang and I mentioned how the back windows didn’t go up once and he launched in to a whole speech how they are waiting for a recall on them and handed me  a bunch of vouchers for the non-existent trouble..I Used Uber from IAD to Baltimore which even though is 70 miles away and 1.5 hr drive was only $85 plus a $30 Uber coupon-  I am now an UBERLIEVER!

Total Cost; Hertz- 1400 gold points  National- $170 (plus $50 in vouchers for future)  Uber- $55

TBC..

Nice TR.  Why didn't you put this in the TR section?

[sedge]

Has anyone visited Niihau?

I am thinking about a heli ride, land on island, snorkle and explore, eat lunch on beach

 http://www.niihau.us/heli.html

Bump

[Dan]

Bump

I have tried to go a few times. They've cancelled on me every time.

[sedge]

I have tried to go a few times. They've cancelled on me every time.

Thank you for the reply Dan. Did they give you a reason?

[Dan]

Thank you for the reply Dan. Did they give you a reason?

-Weather was an issue.
-Pilot called in sick.
-Heli needed maintenance work.
-Etc, etc.

Point is, don't count on it.

[mgoldhammer18]

Would I have time to go to all of these sights/do all of these things in 5 full days?

Waimea canyon, spouting horn, poipu beach park,Blue Hawaiin Helicopter tours, polihale beach park, ke'e beach
Maybe-Queens Bath

[benjie1305]

Would I have time to go to all of these sights/do all of these things in 5 full days?

Waimea canyon, spouting horn, poipu beach park,Blue Hawaiin Helicopter tours, polihale beach park, ke'e beach
Maybe-Queens Bath

From reading up extensively and planning this myself this can definitely be done in 5 full days as several items can be done in a single day.

[Dan]

Would I have time to go to all of these sights/do all of these things in 5 full days?

Waimea canyon, spouting horn, poipu beach park,Blue Hawaiin Helicopter tours, polihale beach park, ke'e beach
Maybe-Queens Bath

Yes.

[mgoldhammer18]

Thanks guys.

[Buruch]

Would I have time to go to all of these sights/do all of these things in 5 full days?

Waimea canyon, spouting horn, poipu beach park,Blue Hawaiin Helicopter tours, polihale beach park, ke'e beach
Maybe-Queens Bath

Can be done in 2-3 days. OTOH, you can spend 5 days in Waimea Canyon alone.

[Flying Fish]

There are a few posts in this thread which mention emailing the GHK GM in advance. Can someone please provide the email address? Can PM if its not meant to be public.

[3yummyboys]

There are a few posts in this thread which mention emailing the GHK GM in advance. Can someone please provide the email address? Can PM if its not meant to be public.

I called the hotel and asked for GM's name and email