Blue Hawaii Travel Tips & Advice on Planning your Hawaiian Trip

1.  You should always book early - 3 to 6 months in advance (Christmas - 9 months ahead).  Do you ever wonder who pays rack rate for their room?  That's right - the last minute booker!  Hotels and Condo Resorts have many discount programs available, most all of which are capacity controlled.  This means that as the resorts book up these rates, they are closed out at different levels of capacity.  Of course the best deals are closed out first.  That's why when you see "free nights", "free breakfast", and other specials you will see the disclaimer "subject to availability".

2.  Always  be clear on the category of room you are booking.  I believe this is the number one problem in booking a resort in Hawaii.  This is the way I describe room categories.

Standard Room:  No promise of any special view or location, the least desirable views and rooms; also called moderate rooms.

Garden View Room:  Should be a better location, views of property without seeing the ocean.

Partial Ocean View Room:  Major obstructions between room and water; however, you should be able to see some ocean view from the lanai.

Ocean View Room:  Should have good ocean views from the lanai.  These units are usually located on the side of the resort and your ocean view will depend on which side of the resort your room is located.  Also, many resorts that are not located oceanfront and are located  across the street and may be quite a distant away and will call their rooms ocean view, even at a distance.

Oceanfront Rooms:  Should have great ocean views, and they should face directly oceanfront with a minimum of obstructions.  You should  have an ocean view even inside of the unit.

Oceanfront Resort:  These resorts are located on the ocean, but not necessarily on a beach.

Beachfront Resort:  These resorts are located directly on a beach.  You should always ask if their beach is swimable - many beautiful beaches in Hawaii are not.  Always check with the front desk or someone local.  Please be safe.

3.  Condo Rentals: 

4.  Buying Airline Tickets:  Tips on buying airline tickets to Hawaii. The first advice is Hawaii travel is different. A good proportion of seats are sold through consolidators. These consolidators have contracts with certain airlines to sell a set amount of seats at discounted  rate. These rates are usually lower than the published rates for the Airline. A consolidator must sell this tickets as a package with accommodations or in some cases as a fly-drive package. These tickets are referred to as bulk tickets as opposed to published fare tickets. The big advantage to bulk tickets are they are usually refundable with a cancel penalty. Most all published  restricted tickets are non-refundable. Also with bulk tickets many companies will take a small deposit with final payment due about 45 prior to travel. Since the tickets are not ticketed until this time changes can be made without penalty. I always recommend  travel protection to my clients. Since I do not have to protect the full coast of the airline ticket the cost for the travel protection is much lower. This lower cost enables many more clients to take advantage of the peace of mine of travel protection. Even if my client decides against travel protection. I find it much easier to tell my clients they are going to be out a few hundred dollars, instead of a few thousand dollars.

5.  Hawaii Weather: