Aqua Waikiki Wave

The View from our room

So I booked us in the Aqua Waikiki Wave for 10 nights pre cruise and 4 nights post cruise. The location of the hotel is amazing. Right in the middle of the action. Walk to everything basically. ABC shop a few steps to the left and the right, Chinese restaurant in the lobby, The Bus right at the door, International Marketplace next door, food places everywhere. See what i'm getting at? Really awesome location.



I booked us in the partial ocean room. That was a waste. During our first stay we were on the top floor (level 15) The tiny speck of the ocean was just visible, however were were at the back of the hotel was from Kuhio ave. The noise was not a problem for us. Yes it was noisy, but you are in a city. Were were  woken up once during the whole stay because of a fight in Dukes Lane. But that was interesting to watch and added to the enjoyment of the holiday.

During the second stay we must have annoyed someone was we were put on the 14th floor towards the front of the hotel. The room felt smaller, but was a different layout to the original room so maybe that had something to do with it. Noise again was no problem for us.

The staff were pleasant enough, however it was very annoying as they didn't clean your room at a specific time everyday. We often came back to the room at 4pm to find the room still hadn't been made up. Other times it was done by 10am! Not good enough if you wanted to have a sleep in the afternoon!

The whole hotel is smoke free and there are numerous signs around to remind the guests. I love how people don't think this includes them in these rules. I was sitting in the room one afternoon when i smelt smoke and burning. I looked towards the hairdryer and all the powerpoints thinking something was on fire. nothing. I then ran out to the balcony thinking maybe the building was on fire. No, just the rude individual who was leaning so far onto my balcony he was practically smoking onto our door. A quick call to the front desk sent security up to his room to tell him it was not allowed. The smell was so bad I had to leave the room for a few hours and when I returned I found they had sprayed air fresher to try and get the smell out.

The only real negative that we had that did impact the stay was the elevators. 10 days of using only 1 elevator for the whole hotel was ridiculous. One morning the one lift was out of order and we were forced to walk down 15 levels of stairs. During our second stay they did manage to fix both lifts and we didn't really have a problem.

I'm back!

Wow! Its been ages but I have returned from Hawaii!

I loved the whole feel of Hawaii, it reminded me a lot of Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast with bits of Vanuatu and New Caledonia.



Oahu- So diverse- the mountains, the beaches, the city, the countryside. My favourite island.

Maui- I imagined it way differently. The Hana Highway is really beautiful and the views are amazing.

The Big Island- I was surprised how much I liked this island. I was surprised how fascinating the Volacano National Park was and seeing the lava flow was a real highlight.

Kauai- I loved spending a day and a half on this island. I would love to return to Kauai for a few more days to really explore the island more.

Shortly I will be posting a review of all the tours and activities I did. I will also be posting about the shopping from an Aussies perspective.

Getting Around: Waikiki

We are not renting a car for our trip to Hawaii. This shocks many people on Cruise Critic and Tripadvisor. Yes its probably much cheaper to rent a car plus you get to stop whenever and go wherever. But the simple reason is in America they drive on the other side of the road and its much too confusing for us! Also that means the driver would probably miss half the sights and the added stress of not knowing where we are going.

So with all that being said we have decided to use The Bus, booking tours and shuttles and using the trolley buses.

There are many trolleys to choose from in Waikiki. The Aloha bus is a double-decker bus that runs 3 different loops. I have used a similar service ( in fact it could be this company) when I travelled to Sydney last Easter. The second story is open meaning you can take photos and videos without the pesky glass reflection.

Another trolley is the Waikiki Trolley this does a similar trip to the Aloha Bus in in a smaller bus. They have a great deal for a 7 day pass where you get entry into the Aquarium and Zoo included. We were planning on going to those places anyway so it works out very cheap even if we don't use the service everyday.

One thing I love about these sorts of buses is you can essentially sit on the bus for an hour or so and see all the sites, then get off at the places that interest you. A 7 day pass goes for about $50 which is amazing value as the one in Sydney charged $39 for 1 day!!

Saving Money

As I've mention before we are on a pretty tight budget for this trip. While we are not one of those families that you see splashing money around on useless junk on holidays, we are also not those cheap people who wont even spend a dollar. We like to have fun but in a responsible way lol

Here are some money saving tips that we have found to be very useful.

Before your holiday

Save coins

As soon as I've booked a trip I start to collect my coins. At the end of the week by purse is usually full of coins. I used to only collect $1 and $2 but i found out the silver coins were adding up much faster. In about a year since I booked my cruise I saved over $450 in coins. 

Swap currency when you get 'extra money'

As we are venturing overseas we are going to have to swap our Aussie money for USA dollars. I like to travel with a bit of cash as I can track it better than credit card purchases ( and no nasty bill to pay off at the end of the holiday) So to take advantage of the excellent exchange rate I have been swapping a bit of money as I get it. I had a friend owe me about $150 and instead of spending it on stuff I swapped it into US dollars. This will prevent me from spending it before hand and I wont need to rush about nearer to the trip.

Look for deals and Groupons

The whole buying a voucher online is quite a new thing so I haven't used it on a trip before. At the moment I am looking for voucher for activities. There's heaps of food and drink vouchers that you can purchase. I know that in Australia we had some trouble with businesses not honoring the voucher so I wouldn't spend a lot of money on them. But for reputable businesses I wouldn't hesitate. 

During the trip

Eat out less

Eating out is nice on holidays but can add up fast. We like to go to a local supermarket and stock up on breakfast things like milk, yougurt and muffins. This only costs a fraction at the supermarket compared to a cafe or restaurant. We do like to go to nice restraints so we limit ourselves to either a nice lunch or dinner. Some places are cheaper if you have dinner before a certain time so make sure you know when that is so you can plan your day. 

BYO snacks and drinks

Bottled water or cans of soda are cheaper when you buy in bulk. We like to get those 24 packs of water and 20 cans of coda boxes and keep them in our room. When we go out on tour of walking about we just bring a bottle with us for when we get thirsty. This saves us at least $4 per drink and saves us getting ripped off in touristy places. Same goes for snacks. Those little packet of chips are a great little snack that takes up hardly any space in your bag. Its great for when you are in  between meals or your not hungry enough for a full meal. We also get some bags of lollies to eat during long drives or tours.

Planning and Planning : Oahu

There is so much to think about! The planning for this trip has been left up to me. My mother had one job to do. Book a simple 1 hour flight that we've done about 10 times in the past 5 years and somehow she managed to muck that up! So now i'm in charge!

We are in Oahu for 10 nights before our cruise and 3 nights after. I think. So many dates going around in my head right now! But anyways, we are there for quite a while. Now that i'm in charge I have been given a free range in planning the days activities which is awesome and horrible. I loved the tour i research for days in Melbourne, but my parents hated it. hhhmmm... My only constraint is budget. We are in a bit of a limited budget. Our wonderful jobs are cutting hours like crazy in this unstable economic time. Yay. But we wont be missing out! Even if we have to eat sandwiches in our hotel rooms every night I plan on making the most of our time in Hawaii!





So far on my list of things to do in Oahu is

• The Zoo

• The aquarium

• Peal Harbour ( and for me a photo tour instead)

• Round Island Tour ( potentially 2 with different companies as they both go to slightly different places)

• North Shore ( either tour or catch The Bus)

• Ala Moana ( shopping!!)

• Outlet Mall ( a must for Aussies so i've heard)

• Stand Up Paddle Boarding/surfing ( Typical touristy things lol)

• Diamond Head Hike

• Pali Lookout

• Eat Shave Ice

• Swap Meet

Airport Transfers

So now we've figured out where we are staying the next part is wondering how we will get there!

We are not renting a car at all this trip ( confusing left hand drive plus driving on the other side of the road- no thanks!) so getting ourselves to the hotel is out. Initially I was thinking a shuttlebus or transfer service but I asked my workmate his thoughts and he recommended just taking a taxi.

I thought about this for several days weighing up the pros and cons before deciding to go for a shuttlebus.

Pro
Taxi: It will just be us and will head straight to the hotel
Shuttle: I think Roberts only goes to 5 different hotels in 1 trip
Taxi: Take our time through customs
Shuttle: Price is know and paid for upfront ( no surprises!)

Con
Taxi: Apparently we arrive at peak time
Taxi: Trying to find a taxi
Taxi: Trying to get change immediately for the taxi ( will be swapping Au$ for US$ and the smallest note they'll give is $50)

 I discovered Roberts were not only very highly recommended but extremely reasonable. Its only $20 each return from the hotel to the airport which we thought was fantastic value. It will give us piece of mind knowing that the service is waiting for us and I think we'll be very tired/jetlagged after a 10 hour flight.

We've also decided to book Roberts to take us to the cruise terminal and back. Its only $7 each way!

Where to Stay: Waikiki

Having never been to Hawaii we had no idea on where to stay. We don't plan on hiring a car so close to public transport is very important. We also wanted to be close to the nightlife so we wouldn't need a taxi to go out. We weren't terrible fussed on being close to the beach or a hotel with a nice pool area. We knew we needed two hotel rooms and one had to have 2 beds. We started looking around at prices and deals and got completely confused!

I started looking at hotels then considered renting a condo, but after some interesting reviews I went back to hotels. The condo option would have us all in the one place sharing 1 bathroom which is a recipe for disaster!

Luckily an old friend from school had just returned from a week long trip to Honolulu and I was able to pick her brain! I got some great advice and finally settled on the Aqua Waikiki Wave. There's two queen beds in each room and a nice balcony. With the great exchange rate ( at the time) I splurged and booked us a partial oceanview room.

Some of the reviews said it was a bit noisy at night as there is a night club underneath. In March I had a weekend away with my friend in Sydney. We stayed in a nice hotel above a pub in the heart of Sydney. Yes it was noisy even though we were on the 12th floor but so worth it for the convenience of not having to rent a car, plus it meant we didn't sleep late and could get an early start!

We have booked the Aqua Waikiki Wave for both portions of the land holiday. Initially I wanted to book somewhere else but we couldn't decide where and we figured that we'd probably know our way around after 10 nights there and it would just be easier.

After booking I got onto Google Maps and had a look at the area. Nice and close to Mc Donalds (yes we are super keen on trying American McDonalds), the Apple store (massive geeks), the International Marketplace, a thousand ABC shops and the bus.

As I said before we are not fussed on a pool as we have one in our backyard and it hardly ever gets used or the beach ( sand-yuck!) but we would like to have a look at it and possibly get into the water. So long as no one looks at our pale skin in our swimwear!