Since the reviews and comments on this forum were so helpful when planning my own honeymoon, I’ve decided to post my own review. I hope this is helpful to someone. For our honeymoon, we went to Hawaii- Maui, Big Island, and Oahu.We were there for 10 days.
Maui
Royal Lahaina Resort (part of Ka'anapali Beach Resort): Nice hotel. Updated features. Right on a gorgeous beach. Little bit far from Lahaina and the airport.
Dollar car rental: used dollar car rental on each island. Good service. Good cars. We got a Jeep Compass twice and a Dodge Charger. They were even open really late when our plane was delayed at LAX and we didn’t get to Hawaii until around midnight.
Feast at Lele: WONDERFUL! We really enjoyed this luau. Unlike other luaus, you get to sit at your own table. The food was delicious. It was a five course meal with dessert. Each course represented a culture that represents Hawaii (Samoa, New Zealand, etc…). It was amazing food! Loved it! And the drinks were good too! The dancers were fantastic also!
Maui Ocean Center: This was a nice place to spend some time. It isn't very big so it would only take an hour or two to get through it but they had some neat exhibits. It was good.
Road to Hana: Everyone says that this is a “must do” when you’re in Maui. But we didn’t really care for it. We went on a tour bus through Polynesian Adventures. But even if we had done it ourselves, I don’t think it would have been that great. It was pretty and we got some good photos of waterfalls and stuff. But it’s not worth having this take up a whole day when there are more fun things that you could be doing in Maui.
Polynesian Adventure Tours: we used them throughout our trip for a couple of tours. Our first tour was the Road to Hana. Our tour guide was named Lei Lua (or something like that) and we didn’t like her that much. She detracted from the tour with her chatty, brainless nonsense. We also used Polynesian Adventures for the sunrise tour to Haleakala on Maui where our driver was named Stan. He was great! We liked him a lot! He was knowledgeable and a great guy!
Sunset Cruise: our sunset cruise was on the Maui Princess which docks in Lahaina (#3, I believe). This was just okay. The “cruise” wasn’t much of a cruise. We didn’t go that far from the harbor. The dinner was good. I had the Mahi-Mahi. The drinks were okay. For the price ($80), it wasn’t worth it, in my opinion. Although the sunset was beautiful. And it was nice to see a different view of the island.
Sunrise at Haleakala: Loved this!!! We did the tour through Polynesian Adventures, our driver was Stan (great!). We were picked up at the hotel in the middle of the night (3:00ish) and it took a couple of hours to drive up to the summit. We waited an hour or so for the sun to rise. And it was beautiful! We got some excellent pictures! Then after the sun rose, we got to walk around and get some pictures of the crater and mountains. Stan was very knowledgeable about the area and a fun tour guide. Also, it’s cold! They don’t supply coats and gloves so you need to bring your own.
Big Island
Royal Kona Resort: Nice hotel. A little outdated. Our room was right on the ocean and we got amazing views of the sunset. Our photos are fantastic!
Paradise Helicopter Tours: went on a helicopter ride around the Big Island. Saw volcanoes, valleys, ocean, etc… Got some amazing photos! Our pilot was Jesse and he was great! This isn’t a tour to do if you get sick easily. I took two motion sickness pills and I was still got a little bit sick. One downside, I got put in the middle seat in the back which wasn’t so great. I didn’t have the same views as those on the sides and didn’t get as good of pictures. But my husband got to sit up front with the pilot so he got some great pictures!
Volcano National Park: this is a two hour drive from where we stayed on the island, so it was kind of a long drive. We didn’t get to go around the whole park because it got dark pretty quickly after we arrived. But the crater and volcano were really cool. The steam vents all over were neat. And we really liked the lava tube! We went into the dark part of it—you need a flashlight if you go! Got some great pictures!
Mauna Kea Stargazing tour: Wonderful!!! We really liked this! We took a tour through Hawaii Forest and Trail. Our tour guide was Derek and he was great! He was our favorite tour guide of the trip. He’s a good guy, very knowledgeable, with a good sense of humor. He drove us up there and we stopped at an old sheep ranch for a bathroom break and some dinner. While it was still daylight, he drove us up to the summit (13,000 feet!). We got some really awesome pictures of the sunset! And it was neat to see the observatories. When the sun set, Derek took us down the mountain a little ways where it was easier to breathe and took us on a stargazing tour. I’ve never seen so many stars in my life! And Derek had a telescope so we could see the planets, milky way, and all the stars. It was really cool!!! Loved it!!
Atlantis Submarines: This was fun and interesting. It’s only about 90 minutes in length. The office and dock was only a short walk from our hotel in Kona. I’d never been on a submarine before. It was really cool. In total, we went about 107 feet down to the bottom. Saw some cool fish, and a couple of shipwrecks. It was neat.
Manta Night Snorkel: we did this through Fairwind. It was really cool! You need to know how to snorkel and swim to be able to do it. I hadn’t snorkeled before (plus I had a little bit of a cold) so it took me awhile to get the hang of it without hyperventilating! But it was really cool!!! They take you out on a boat in the ocean. You get a wetsuit and snorkel gear. Then they make you swim out to a long floatation frame that everyone hung on to. Lights are connected to it which attracts the mantas. We saw three of them. They come right up to you and almost glide right against you and they are huge!!! But you are not allowed to touch them. It was really awesome!!! We didn’t bring an underwater camera but we should have. They have a man who scuba dives to the bottom and videotapes the whole thing so you can buy a video of it afterwards, which we did. If I go back to Hawaii, I’d like to do this again!
On this island we ate at Bongo Ben’s, Lulu’s, Humpy’s, and Pizza Hut which were all good and reasonably priced.
Oahu
Ohana Waikiki Beachcomber: really nice hotel. Right in the middle of the city. A block from the beach, so there aren’t any good views of the beach. We could see just a sliver of it from our room. Very nice.
Sea Life Park: we had a lot of fun here! It’s a small park so it would only take an hour or two to get through the whole thing. But we did some activities where we got to swim with dolphins and sea lions. That was a ton of fun and we got some great pictures!!! Loved it!! There were some great sightseeing spots, scenic views, and beaches on the drive back to the hotel.
International Market: didn’t care for this. Thought it was all mostly junk. The international food market was kind of neat though.
Waikiki Beach: very busy but a nice beach, particularly since there are breakers. It’s good for swimming.
Pearl Harbor/Honolulu Tour: we did this tour through Roberts Hawaii. Our tour guide was Roy. He was good and knowledgeable. We got some time to wander around and take pictures before getting on the boat to go over to the USS Arizona. It was all very neat and a “must do” if you’re on Oahu. Our tour didn’t include a tour of the USS Missouri which I was bummed about because I didn’t realize that it wasn’t included when I chose that particular tour. But we got to see the main stuff anyway. Roy showed us some neat places around Honolulu and took us through China Town. Got some great pictures!
On this island we ate at Chili’s, Jimmy Buffet’s (in our hotel), Round Table Pizza, and Rainbow Sushi. All were good except for Jimmy Buffet’s. The service was poor.
We used Delta airlines, which were okay until we got to LAX, where we were delayed for five hours while they tried to fix our plane. I would avoid LAX next time, if possible. We flew from Michigan to Minneapolis to LAX to Maui to get there. On the way back we flew from Oahu to Minneapolis to Michigan, which was how we should have done it on the way there to avoid LAX and reduce the time it took to get there.
For the inter-island flights we used Go! Airlines and Island Air which were both fine. It was only an hour flight for both.
Overall, we liked Maui the best, the Big Island second, and Oahu the least. We aren’t city people so we didn’t care for how busy Waikiki was. A lot of the shops are not places we would go and spend our hard earned money. But if you like big time shopping (Chanel, Armani, etc…), then this is the place to go! Maui had beautiful scenery and great beaches! The Big Island was kind of barren or desolate. There is lava rock everywhere but it is still a neat place to go.
We did a lot of activities because this will probably be our only trip to Hawaii. It was a lot of fun and we loved it!!!!
We used a travel agent to book everything. Rhonda from VIP Vacations helped us out a lot. She is very knowledgeable about Hawaii and was able to give us some good advice. She went above and beyond her “duties” and booked us for activities that weren’t part of what her company offers. We corresponded mostly by email. Sometimes it would take her a week or a little more to respond, which we were fine with until it got closer to the honeymoon. Our honeymoon wasn’t finalized until Sept. 9th. Our wedding was the 18th and we left for the honeymoon on the 20th. So that was stressing us out a little bit. But it worked out just fine. Overall, I would recommend her. She did a great job!