I have a reservation at Merriman's right now (actually two, one late lunch and one early dinner on the same same day, because I want to be flexible). What are your thoughts on going there straight from a hike? We'd probably have a change of casual clothes and shoes with us, and splash some water on our faces first, but we wouldn't be fresh for going out.

It's a little out of the way for us but might fit in nicely with a day trip to hike in Waipaio Valley.

Questions on the Waipio Valley hike.

I've seen it described on the trip advisor forums as not a fun hike, that it's basically a steep descent the whole time, with the payoff being the black sand beach at the bottom. Is that accurate?

I'm usually not above a challenge, but I'm still trying to get flexibility back in an ankle I broke (broke lower leg and had to reattach ligaments in ankle) skiing, so if it's nothing but a steep descent that may be a bit much.

The same person, and one of the other posters on this thread, mentioned Pololu hike as a similar hike, but less of a straight descent, that ended at the black sand beach.

Thanks for any input.

I was planning on doing Waipo Valley but ended up at Pololu Valley - heard they are similar enough so if you can only do one, you're fine. But definitely do one of them as it really is a great part of the island ( funny - i remember my wife had to pee so bad and after we hiked to the beach she went out into the woods a bit - ha)

be sure to click on my hyperlinks in my itinerary post above - helpful

also use google maps to see where everything is and hit the right places.

White Road Hike was the best thing we did - i have very specific instructions if you want to give it a shot!!

DTP02 said:

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Questions on the Waipio Valley hike.

I've seen it described on the trip advisor forums as not a fun hike, that it's basically a steep descent the whole time, with the payoff being the black sand beach at the bottom. Is that accurate?

I'm usually not above a challenge, but I'm still trying to get flexibility back in an ankle I broke (broke lower leg and had to reattach ligaments in ankle) skiing, so if it's nothing but a steep descent that may be a bit much.

The same person, and one of the other posters on this thread, mentioned Pololu hike as a similar hike, but less of a straight descent, that ended at the black sand beach.

Thanks for any input.

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So, I loved it, but I'm usually up for a good physical challenge.

About 1/2 of the hike is a pretty steep incline (descent, but you've got to climb back up, too). The biggest problem I had was the road was wet, and I kept slipping. Literally, my feet would slide out from under me, and I sat down hard on the ground a few times. It was a little scary, but I stayed close to the edge of the road where the pavement meets the grass, and in some places there is a guardrail that you can use to balance.

I thought the views from every point along the way were just stunning, and the whole experience was one of those bucket list-type items for me.

With that said, the hike is uncomfortable, and you'll have to decide what your level of tolerance is. I would hate for someone to do it and be miserable because that totally defeats the purpose.

With that said, we also did an ATV tour of the Waipio Valley rim which was excellent. Not the same views, but equally as stunning.

I'm not sure if the tour operator is still in business (we used ridetherim.com), but another may have taken its place.

We also ate at Waipio Cookhouse after our hike. It's a little food stand out in the middle of nowhere that does farm-to-table burger, sandwiches, etc. it was delicious. Again, can't say for sure if they are still open, but if they are, I highly recommend eating there.

Actually, Google tells me both are closed. Most of these places were barely making it due to the drop off in tourists during the last eruption. It's an absolute shame what the pandemic has done to these businesses.

Looks like Mauna Kea Summit Adventures is still in operation. I plan to go back to the Big Island someday to do this. We made it to the summit, but it was so foggy, visibility may have been 10 feet, so we immediately had to leave. The tour company refunded 100% of our money, even though we did take part of the tour and ate the dinner that they provided.

Tip: At Merrimans at the table, ask your waiter if they have Opakapaka ( pronounced O-paka-paka). on the menu that night. Do a steak with it. One of my Top 10 meal of all time for me, plus a good Pinot Noir. I love Merrimans!

I'd change shirts at least.

DTP02 said:

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I have a reservation at Merriman's right now (actually two, one late lunch and one early dinner on the same same day, because I want to be flexible). What are your thoughts on going there straight from a hike? We'd probably have a change of casual clothes and shoes with us, and splash some water on our faces first, but we wouldn't be fresh for going out.

It's a little out of the way for us but might fit in nicely with a day trip to hike in Waipaio Valley.

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You want to look "respectable". You can go in shorts, but might want to have a simple short sleeve collar shirt of some kind to change into.

Going to be in Kauai in June for nine days. This thread seems like a solid place to ask for recommendations of things not to miss while there?

The rental car issue could complicate things, but we are going to look into the private rental options and hope it works out.

See my posts above about the Kalalau Trail, and this link: http://www.kalalautrail.com/information/#tab-content-1

I haven't been yet, but most seem to think it's a can't miss hike (I've seen some call it the best hike in the world).If you aren't 30 days out yet, then try to reserve parking and entrance fees on gohaena.com the moment they release them. If you're inside 30 days already, keep checking back for availability due to cancellations.

They sold out for our trip times right away, but I kept checking back and got lucky when they had a cancellation and now have admission vouchers for when we are there. I'm really looking forward to it.

For those of you planning to go before they change the rules re CoVID testing, which looks to be happening around the beginning of July, the IDNow test from Walgreen's is the way to go for your pre-flight testing. It's approved by Hawaii and we got our results back in about an hour. We took the test a little less than 72 hours before our departure, so getting the results back that quickly would have given us time to cancel our expenses for a full refund or credit if one of us had tested positive.

On a separate note, anyone have any dining recommendations for Kauai's north shore area (Princeville, Hanalei, Kileaua)? A lot of the better restaurants (per TripAdvisor) are either out of business or only open the latter part of the week.

DTP02 said:

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On a separate note, anyone have any dining recommendations for Kauai's north shore area (Princeville, Hanalei, Kileaua)? A lot of the better restaurants (per TripAdvisor) are either out of business or only open the latter part of the week.

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Is Bar Acuda open? That's my favorite. The restaurant in the old St Regis is good too. And there's a Thai spot in Princeville Market. Oh, and the pizza place by the Westin is pricey, but good. I have no idea which of those survived the shutdown.

Leaving for Kauai tomorrow - will be following this thread and will post rec's from my experiences.

Checking in from Kauai. Loving it.

For those traveling here in the near future, I can't recommend strongly enough if you're going to be driving between Princeville and Hanalei on Kuhio Hwy to know the schedule for the road closures due to the ongoing landslide remediation. It throws timing off considerably, and can make some things impossible, so you have to plan around it.

As an example: we are about to head out on a hike on the Kalalau Trail. We have to hit our window for going to Ha Ena early this morning. And then we have to hit our midday window for coming back or we will be stranded in Hanalei until the late afternoon window. The timing should work out fine for everything we want to do, but like I said, you have to plan around it.

Soup, this is a great coincidence. I remember when we traded info on Utah and the Mighty Five. Now, I'm taking the family to the big island August 29 and staying 6 days.

Thanks very much for the info. My son's FIL works for Enterprise Leasing so, I am hoping that a rental will not be an issue. He has gotten us deals in the past.

awesome! As you build your plan out, feel free to ask questions. The White Road Hike was so cool.. so many great things you don't want to miss

Looks like testing requirements for inter-island travel is going away June 15 for those who are vaccinated.

https://www.khon2.com/coronavirus/hawaii-says-aloha-to-inter-island-travel-restrictions-june-15/

If anybody has island-hopped under the recent guidelines and is willing to chat, I'd appreciate it! (Email redacted) Many thanks.

I just got back and am happy to give some pointers from our experience. I'll drop the info here for everyone's benefit, but feel free to pm me if you need anything else.

We started in Kauai and our island hopping was to the Big Island. The CoVID-testing option we used for our trip from the mainland (which worked great, as I mentioned above) was the IDNow test at Walgreen's, which wasn't available on Kauai for our flight to the Big Island.

So we started off by asking our concierge prior to traveling to the islands if he knew of a convenient option for in-island testing in the Princeville area and he referred us to a local clinic. We called the clinic, confirmed that they offered a test approved for travel, between islands, that the results would be available in time, and that we wouldn't have to wait for a long time to get tested.

After we got to Kauai we got tested at the clinic and got the results the day before we needed them. We had to create an account with the lab the clinic used in order to access the results. For both the flight to the islands and the flight between islands we were sure to upload our results to the travel Hawaii site, and we also downloaded PDFs of the tests to our phones and printed out hard copies.

The place we stayed on the big island also asked to see the negative result, as did the rental car place on the big island (we got very lucky and found a rental car the night before we would have been locked in on our much more expensive Turo option).

The screening at the Lihue and Kailua-Kona airports were fairly quick and easy, almost laughably so after jumping thru the various hoops in advance. At Lihue, once they viewed your QR code (which you get from the official Hawaii travel site), they handed you a generic "carnival" ticket which you carried to the exit door and gave to someone and that was it.

The bottom line advice is: follow the instructions on the https://travel.hawaii.gov/#/ site closely, make redundant copies of your negative tests, including screen shots of your own and your parties' QR codes and PDFs of your test results, and make sure in advance that the testing place you use is on the approved list for the type of travel you're doing, and that the results will be ready in time for your flight.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Great info. Thanks for the in depth response. I spent some time on the phone with Hawaii today and it sounds like June 15th is the major milestone for inter-island travel. We will definitely use the IdNow that you recommended did our initial flight.

I've only been to Oahu for about 6 nights. We tagged onto another couples trip and they like to revisit previous trips...

Agree w/others re: Oahu. Waikiki - waste of time - nothing but Japanese tourists shopping in the same high-end stores you'll see at the Galleria.

Ko'Olina - very pretty but quickly feels like "Walt Disney does Hawaii" and shocker - there's a Disney Vacation Club resort.

North Shore/Turtle Bay - awesome. Get an Ocean Front Cottage and enjoy. If you've seen "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" they filmed at this resort and stayed in the OFC's.

We went during the qualifying week before the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing tournament. This is for surfers who didn't earn enough points on the tour to make the tournament, a last chance 'play-in'. The waves were mind boggling. No way in Hades I'd try to surf those things.

DTP02 said:

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Checking in from Kauai. Loving it.

For those traveling here in the near future, I can't recommend strongly enough if you're going to be driving between Princeville and Hanalei on Kuhio Hwy to know the schedule for the road closures due to the ongoing landslide remediation. It throws timing off considerably, and can make some things impossible, so you have to plan around it.

As an example: we are about to head out on a hike on the Kalalau Trail. We have to hit our window for going to Ha Ena early this morning. And then we have to hit our midday window for coming back or we will be stranded in Hanalei until the late afternoon window. The timing should work out fine for everything we want to do, but like I said, you have to plan around it.

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Does anyone know when the road closures will be over (for the landslide remediation on Kauai?) We are traveling there in 7 weeks.

I don't. Check this site for updates: https://hidot.hawaii.gov/2021-hanalei-hill-landslide/

All I can say after seeing it in person is that they've made quite a bit of progress since some of the photos from a couple months ago.

I think the last estimate I heard was targeting a mid-August date for full completion, but that doesn't mean that access couldn't increase considerably some time in the interim.

I'm going to put some post-trip observations on here since there is a lot of other good info on this thread and I think it would be helpful to have it all on one place:

First, thanks to all who made suggestions. It definitely helped us have a fantastic trip to Kauai and Hawaii.

Splitting time between Kauai and Hawaii was definitely the right choice for us. We are already talking about going back and the only thing we would probably do differently was plan a couple days more on Kauai and one more day on the big island.

The biggest highlights of the trip in chronological order:

Kauai
First day snorkel at Anini Beach in Princeville. Our Napali Coast snorkel tour got cancelled due to high swells so we went to Anini based on a local recommendation. Easy access, good parking, and it's a great beach for hanging out, with some palms for shade, in addition to the snorkeling. The snorkeling is a big semi-circle of reef which provides great wave protection and lots of snorkeling space. It's always nice to be able to walk in to the water on sand. Some nice live coral but the best things were the 5-6 giant sea turtles we got to see up very close and personal, in addition to some good fish life including a sea horse (quite rare) and a flying gurnard (also rare). Did a second snorkel there after relaxing with some lunch and a beer.

Second day hike on Kalalau Trail. After reading up on this a bit, my expectations were very high and it surpassed them in more ways than one. I can see why some have called this the best hike in the world and we only did around 12 miles round trip instead of the entire 12 miles each way. The views on the first stretch to the beach are spectacular of the rugged coastline and water, and you gain some serious elevation so you can see a long way. The beach itself is a perfect setting, although not safe for swimming. Whether it's because they're limiting hikers so much due to CoVID, or it's because of conservation concerns, we almost had the entire expanse of beach to ourselves. Not many places left in the world you can have a stretch of beach that beautiful without many people on it. Great place to chill and have a snack and a beer earned from the pretty steep ascents/descents on this stretch. The first stretch of trail, to the beach, is very easy to follow and well-maintained. The ascents/descents were a little more strenuous than I thought they'd be, especially on the way back when it was hotter.

After recharging we headed to the waterfall. You have to cross the stream around 9 times on the way, and we chose to switch back and forth between hiking sandals and hiking shoes each time. You could probably do it in hiking sandals, but I need more ankle support after breaking my ankle, and the last third or so of the trail has some iffy parts. The ascent is much more gradual on the waterfall trail, but the trail is not as well-marked and there are some parts which are a little iffy from a traction perspective which not sure I would attempt if it had rained recently. The waterfall itself is amazing, with very cool water making a wide
pool at the bottom you can swim in and stand behind the waterfall as well. I'm not sure if it is or not, but it definitely could have been a scene from Jurassic Park.

The Kalalau Trail is a must-do unless you just physically can't. We ended up spending about 8 hours on it between the hiking and hanging out at beach and waterfall. Note that they make a big deal on the Ha Ena website about your reservation for the park only being for your half-day window, but they don't really enforce that and I'm not sure how they could without causing all kinds of problems. We stayed about 3 hours past our window. We decompressed after the hike with some cold drinks on Hanalei Beach, which was very picturesque and chill.

Dining was a bit of an issue. On the North end of Kauai, several of the better restaurants hadn't opened back up from CoVID, and others had limited hours during the week, with one place shutting down for the night without notice due to lack of staff. But we did have some good meals there: the Bistro in Kilauea had great fresh fish preparations and a casually nice atmosphere, Sam's Ocean View fronts the beach park in Kapaa and is a great place for casual meal with good fresh catch options, or a drink. We also had a good lunch at Duke's in Lihue.

Hawaii
On the Big Island, I can recommend strongly enough the night manta snorkel in Kailua Kona. The grace of these creatures, and how close they get to you, is amazing. It's not really an active experience, you're just floating there while these harmless Mantas repeatedly loop under year to eat plankton attracted by the lights you shine. We were extremely fortunate to have a dolphin come join our little party, literally hanging out with us for about 5 minutes within an arm length as if he was part of the tour group. It was another bucket list type of experience.

There was no volcanic activity going on, so we decided not to go to the volcano after having plenty of exposure to lava fields, channels, and even a lava tube already. Here's a tip for anyone flying into Kailua-Kona. There is a cool lava tube not far from the airport, which we were told about by a local at our hotel. It will actually come up on the iPhone map app if you just type in lava tube.

Here's the tricky part, though. Because it was becoming a problem for traffic because of everyone parking on the roadside, they erected no parking signs on the road for several hundred yards in either direction on bout sides of the Highway. And it's not clear from the road exactly where the lava tube is, so we just guessed that it was roughly in the middle of the no parking signs. And it was.

So we parked on the side of the road past the no parking areas, close to a local park where you can off-road in the lava field if you have the vehicle for it, and walked the 1/4 mile to the lava tube. We realized after the fact that there is a sign posted saying it's off limits, though. But I doubt that's enforced as the main concern is keeping a bunch of people from parking there.

My wife tweaked her knee on our big hike in Kauai, so we opted for the less challenging of the black sand beach hikes.

Great meals for dinner at Kenichi Pacific in Kailua and lunch at Merriman's in Waimea. Both were incredible.

(Will add more later)

The Grinder (99) said:

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We leave for Hawaii on Tuesday. Just got our negative covid test results about 30 min ago! I am very relieved to have those as one kid isn't vaccinated and the other has one shot.

Now that the inter-island tests are gone, I can relax about this trip

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We're going on Tuesday as well. This has been insane to tackle logistically!

We tested on Thursday at 10:00 at CVS and got our test results back at 5:00 on Friday. We uploaded our results into the system and printed them out as well. Got our code emailed to us after we did the 24 hour health screening. Our flight to Maui left Austin at 1:30 Saturday and went through Oakland. Southwest and airport personnel were crazy about masks. When we arrived at Oakland, we went through a special line, showed our code and got a wristband. Was expecting to have to show vaccine card to not have to do another Covid test in Maui. Walked off the plane and didn't have to do anything. It's as of the rules changed over night. Got to hotel- Fairmost Kai Lani- no one has on masks. Not even the staff. So bizarre.

Good to hear it's not a crazy mask situation in Hawaii!

We're having difficulty with upload results. Hopefully have it worked out today or tomorrow. If not I guess we'll print ours and we have the email of results as well.

We're looking forward to it. It was a huge relief to get those results

Yeah. I used a travel agent (something I'm becoming more convinced is worth it). It has been very helpful for planning since it's my first trip but extra helpful with all the covid rules

CoppellAg93 said:

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Leaving for Kauai tomorrow - will be following this thread and will post rec's from my experiences.

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My wife and I and another couple traveled to Kauai June 2nd - 10th - here are my observations of our trip ....

Travel/Covid Papers

We flew to Lihue from DFW through LAX - was asked for our QR codes upon arriving at Lihue - we were thankfully in first class so we got off the plane first and there were no lines to get through the checkpoint. Don't remember being asked for any other paperwork during travel.

Tranportation To Hotel

We used Viator to schedule round trip transportation to our hotel - the bus was over an hour late and during that wait, I was on hold for over 30 minutes trying to get in touch with the company responsible for the bus (Speedi Shuttle). Once the bus got there, the trip to the hotel was fine.

Hotel

We stayed at the Sheraton Kauai Coconut Beach Resort in Kapa'a for 7 nights. Overall, the hotel was great. We had breakfast there every morning - the highlights were the Pulled Pork Eggs Benedict and the Chicken and Waffles. Service was very slow on a few days due to light staffing - but the staff was very friendly. The main restaurant was closed due to Covid but the outdoor bar/restaurant (Crooked Surf) was open and had a good food/drink selection. The Fish and Chips here were the best I had on the trip.

The room was nice and we had a good view of the pool area looking out at the beach.

The one disappointment was that the beach was not really swimmable. There was a reef that spanned most of the beach and the water was a bit rough in the other areas.

Rental Car

With rental cars non-existent on the island, we used Turo (think Air BnB for cars) to rent a small SUV for the middle 4 days of the trip. We paid just over $250 a day for it - but there's not much option if you plan to see the island at all.

Excursions

For most of our excursions around the island, we used the Shaka Audio Guide purchased through Viator - I would recommend it - gives you a lot of detail and history of the island while guiding you to the many places to stop, and you can pick and choose the ones you want to see. We did the following ....

Waimea & Na Pali Tour
North Shore Kauai Tour (only did parts)
Wailua Valley and WaterFalls Tour (only did parts)

The first one takes you towards the west side of the island where you travel up the Waimea Canyon up to the top at around 5,000 feet. The views of the canyon were amazing. The only downside is that it was too cloudy at the top to see down to the Na Pali coast once we reached the top. On the way back to our hotel, we stopped and saw the Spouting Horn blowhole and then ate at the Dolphin Poipu for dinner - great food.

We separately booked an afternoon catamaran tour of the Na Pali Coast through Na Pali Catamaran company. I'd highly recommend trying to get the boat with Nick and Nick as the captain and "first mate" - they were very down to earth, funny, and made the trip more fun. We travelled into several caves along the coast and travelled most of the coast before turning back, where we stopped at Tunnels Beach to do some snorkeling. Saw a good number of fish on the reef but no turtles. The view of the island was incredible.

While in Hanalei, we ate at Kalypso - cool bar with good food - and then caught an amazing sunset on the beach at Hanalei Bay.

We did a second day in the Area near Princeville along the North Shore where we saw the beach where the first season of Gilligan's Island was filmed, along with several other nice beaches. We finished a short day with a trip to Anini Beach for more snorkeling - we did see one sea turtle but were disappointed in that it is supposed to be a great spot to see many turtles - we were told by a restaurant worker that you had to swim to the buoy and would see a lot

Our last day of excursions was to the Wailua Valley and Waterfalls tour. We only did parts of this audio tour - skipping most of it to pair it down to the waterfalls. The first 2 of the falls were along the roadside where you could stop to take pictures. The last 2 falls were seen by hiking down the Hoopii Trailhead - about a 1 mile each way down to 2 different falls - the second and bigger one required walking down a steep trail to the bottom of the falls but the trip was worth it - it was beautiful. You could even swim in the falls, but we didn't.

Restaurants

Ate at the following restaurants on the trip (off hotel property) ...

The Dolphin Poipu - there is another location in Hanalei on the North Shore - food was great.
Coconuts Fish Cafe - near our hotel - decent food - order at counter and food is brought out
Oasis On The Beach (at Waipouli Beach Resort) - great food and environment
Lava Lava Beach Club (behind the Kauai Shores Hotel) - maybe the best meal we had - and right on the beach with some live music
Duke's Kauai - at Marriott Beach Club - been to Duke's in Maui - good food and atmosphere - had a fairly long wait but overall was worth it.

Overall Kauai was probably the most beautiful place I've ever been, with Great Exuma (Bahamas) being a close second. A lot of restaurants were still closed for Covid - but we never had a bad meal while we were there. I would definitely recommend Kauai to anyone looking for a bit more laid back scenic destination. I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone might have.

FYI - this ended up being a longer post then I expected, but I wanted to get some details in.

I'm still planning to come back and update my post above with more info, but wanted to drop in a comment about Anini Beach and sea turtles.

We befriended a local at Anini who runs a non-profit that does reef conservation stuff and he gave us great tips about the snorkeling there.

The best place to find the sea turtles is actually much closer to shore than the buoy which is out toward the middle of the protective reef semi-circle. As you're standing on the beach under the shade trees looking out, there is a sand bar that extends out into the ocean a little (which you can walk out on a bit and only be in a couple feet of water) that roughly lines up with an ironwood tree on the shore. About 50 feet out from the sand bar there is a group of 2-3 underwater rocks and coral which serve as a "turtle cleaning station." This is inside the right side, looking out, of the protective coral ring.

The turtles like to chill there while the little fish who live there clean their shells. The guy pictured above in front of my lovely bride was headed toward the cleaning station. The shinier guy hanging out at the bottom below in the cleaning area had already had most of his detail work done.


Obviously, they're wild animals so they may not cooperate with your timing (and tides could impact as well), but that's your best bet from our experience and the input of a guy who snorkels there all the time for 30+ years.

We leave on Saturday to Oahu for 7 days.

First time to Hawaii and bringing the two older boys (one of which is a huge history person) which is why this island was chosen.

I have our COVID pre-screening tests set for Thursday however I'm hoping by Wednesday, Hawaii has decided to no longer require the pre-screening tests. Fingers crossed.

Just booked flights to Maui for 10 days in December. Will be my first time going there and my wife's first time in 10+ years. Hoping Covid testing/restrictions will be gone by then.

We are getting married in Kauai next Easter, definitely gone keep tabs on this thread. Thanks for keeping people updated with the COVID stuff!

Just back from Maui - really great and they are starting to come out of their Covid coma.
Flight - United - maybe just our flight attendants but going there and back they were mask nazis. Very disappointed in United - and the fact they would keep saying - "it's federal law" made it ok for them to tout their power. They woke my wife up with a not so gentle shove just to tell her the mask had slipped under her nose and she had to put it back on - saw them do this with several other people.
Had to wear masks most places indoors and were kindly reminded to put them on when we didn't. No masks outside required anywhere but lots of people wearing them as if it was July 2020. Actually still doing temperature checks at a couple restaurants which doing that in the heat of Hawaii is ridiculous.
Dinners at the nice, popular places you need reservations weeks in advance for 5-8pm but we didn't mind early dinners or late dinners as a walk up.
Fleetwoods on Front St was fantastic.
Black Rock Beach was a highlight - jumped off cliffs, saw lots of turtles.
Had a guide take us to Twin Falls so got to see about 5 "private" waterfalls that we could jump and swim in - not just the main waterfall that most of the public sees and then turns around.
Kapalua Ziplines was amazing - views, fun, speed, height - highly recommend!
DM me if anyone is heading there.

Heading that way soon. No zip line dates available online unfortunately. Who did u use for wall fall tour?