O’ahu Useful Information

We took a trip to O’ahu Hawaii and stayed in Honolulu in July of 2024. Our kids were 12, 10 & 5 at the time.

The best parts:

Snorkeling with sea turtles! Sea Life Luau (not Sea Life; just their luau)

Rainy jungle hikes Dole whip

The kid’s joy playing on the beaches Beautiful plants, trees and flowers

Seeing a rainbow almost daily

I wish I had known: 

How much traffic there would be.  How hard it would be to park a car.

How long it took to get anywhere.  That there would be so many chickens wandering around.

How much laundry I’d be handwashing each night. Swim suites & muddy hiking clothes.

That panchos would have been smart to have for the hikes.

We knew food would be more expensive; but wow. We were not prepared for $20 hamburgers at a food truck kind of expensive.

Transportation:

We rented a car. Getting the rental car from the airport took over an hour. It wasn’t a minivan, but more of a big SUV. We didn’t even feel like we were on an island the first day; just like we were stuck in traffic in a big city.

There is only one main road around the island and everyone wants to drive on it. We were stuck in traffic forever the day we tried to drive around the island. We couldn’t even see most of what we tried to see because there was very limited parking. 

We hated parking in Honolulu. Our hotel said they had parking. They had a few spots. We were told to try a garage down the street. It was a nightmare. Parking was good for 24 hours and we couldn’t buy more than one day at a time. So each day we had to make sure we were at the garage at the right time to buy parking for the next day…if there were any spots left. It was so stressful. Then a little over half way through our trip we managed to get a spot at a garage that allowed buying parking for a week. We paid for the whole week even though we didn’t need that long; just to stop being so stressed out about having parking each day. We were so lucky to get that spot. It was the only time we saw a sign up that they had open spots during our whole trip. 

It always took longer to get places than we thought it would. Traffic was just insane while we were there.

Tips:

We got a hotel that was about a 10 minute walk from the beach and it was much cheaper than the ones closer to beaches.

We use ROAD iD to order wristbands when our kids aren’t old enough to know our phone numbers by heart. We put their name, our names and numbers and where they’re from on them. It gives us a little more peace of mind while we’re traveling.

Laundry: 

We took laundry soap sheets for washing out swim suits each night. We also bought hangers while we were there so we could hang them on the shower curtain rod. It worked out well for washing out muddy hiking clothes too.

Shopping: 

One of my favorite things to do is to go to local grocery stores to get our snacks. It is so fun to try foods that are popular where we are. It is always a good idea to take reusable bags. Some places will have you buy a reusable bag if you do not have one.

We found the ABC stores to be good for things like sunscreen, bug spray and some souvenirs. 

We found the Foodland grocery store to be a good place to get snacks.

We got our youngest a life jacket at Walmart. We also got some beach toys and hangers (to dry hand washed swim suits)

Random Things:

We were a muddy mess after most hikes. We found taking a change of clothes for everyone, baby wipes (lots of baby wipes), a big trash bag to put dirty clothes in and another for the muddy shoes was a game changer. So we wore sandals most of the time; set our dirty shoes on our balcony to dry each night and then washed out the dirty clothes in the sink with laundry soap. Oh! Having baseball hats for the rainy hikes kept the rain off our faces (and my glasses). We also always carry first aid kits with us when we travel or hike. 

We literally saw a chicken cross the road.

The hotel we stayed at: Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach

Pros:

They had a really nice breakfast! It was buffet style and each day there was a different bread option like pancakes, waffles, French toast etc. They also rotated the meat of the day like bacon and sausage. They always had cereal, milk, juice, coffee, eggs, pineapple and such. My husband said the coffee at breakfast was awesome. The picture I took of the container says Hawaiian Paradise Coffee. They even had nice trays to carry everything on.

Water refill stations! They gave us 2 reusable water bottles at check in. Then they had a couple of water bottle refill stations. That was fantastic and I wish every hotel had them!

We had a room with 2 queen beds and a pull out couch. It was a nice big room with a big desk to put things on. We had our things spread out and still felt like we had enough room.

They had beach towels. At check in we each got a card for a towel. When we wanted towels for the beach; we gave them our cards and they gave us towels. When we brought the towels back then we got the cards back for the next time. It worked out so nicely.

Cons:

Breakfast was outside on a 3rd floor rooftop. Most days we were there (July) it was either sprinkling, chilly, windy or even one day it was flat out raining.

Parking (see above)