Finding Seclusion on Oahu

       Flying on Hawaiian Airline's first nonstop flight from New York City to Honolulu, I was concerned that the only place we could stay would be on the crowded beach of Waikiki.

                                                 The hotels that line Waikiki Beach

         Waikiki Beach, of course, is where most of the hotels are. It's the most famous tourist destination on the island of Oahu, the most populous of the seven Hawaiian Islands. The hotels are lined up along the beach, one after another. When it comes to a quiet beach to relax on, Waikiki Beach isn't the best choice. It's beautiful all right. There's the extinct volcano of Diamond Head at one end and downtown Honolulu and it's marina at the other but it feels like South Beach in Miami.

                             You can see how crowded Waikiki Beach is on a typical day

     On this trip, I was bringing my girlfriend and planning to ask her to marry me while we were in Hawaii. I have stayed on Oahu many times before. Usually I stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, a nice resort, if you don't mind crowds of people and lots of screaming children. Some other beautiful and more secluded resorts on the eastern side of Diamond Head, where there are not as many people. I was considering staying at the Kahala Resort. This is one of Hawaii's most luxurious hotels and you pay the price for it. Ocean-view rooms can start at $720 per night.

                                                     The JW Marriott Ihilani

     Then there's the JW Marriott Ihilani, on the western side of Oahu, about a 30 minute drive from the airport. Photos of the resort, I knew it was the right place to stay and the right place to ask my girlfriend to marry me. The JW Marriott Ihilani sits on the ocean in a cove, lined with white sand. The warm ocean water is calm and there are no crowds. The resort reminded me of the very secluded hotels you find on Maui and the Big Island of Hawaii.

     Here are my top five favorite things about the JW Marriott - Ihiliani:


1) Location - The JW Marriott Ihilani is on the west side of Oahu near Barbers Point. The west side of Oahu gets less rain than the east side of the island. The resort is located in a gated community of condominiums and hotels. It's  a secluded cove where you feel like you are far away from  the other tourists. You are about a 30 minute drive from the airport and about a 40 minute drive to Honolulu. Traffic can be pretty intense on Oahu. Try not to drive from Honolulu back to the resort during rush hour. If you do, it's a slow hula dance all the way back.

                                Our ocean-view junior suite at the JW Marriott - Ihilani

                                                   The view from our balcony

2) The Lagoon - The JW Marriott Ihilani has a lagoon where baby Hammerhead sharks, Sting Rays and Starfish swim around. I guess the Starfish don't do much swimming but you can get up close and personal with all of them when you walk along the pathways. You can even schedule a time to get in the water and feed the Sting Rays. They say not to work. The  Sting Rays won't sting and the baby sharks won't bite.

                                      A Sting Ray and baby Hammerhead shark swimming by

                                     Guests at the JW Marriott Ihilani can feed the Sting Rays

3) The Beach - It sits on a cove where there is only one other hotel in sight. Disney has a resort next door called Aulani. I was worried with a Disney resort next door would mean Disney characters and kids, high on soda, running around and screaming. That is not the case. The Marriott and Disney resort are totally separate. I was surprised by how elegant and quiet the Disney resort was. We couldn't even tell there was a Disney property nearby. The ocean is very calm at the beach, so it is perfect for kids. Every night, you also get one of the best views of the sunset on Oahu.

                                          The beach at the JW Marriott Ihilani


4) The Secret Beach - About 100 yards from the hotel is a secret beach. It's not much of a secret anymore but usually you can have it to yourself. It is a small beach, lined with volcanic rock, a great spot to take photos or make out with someone you love without anyone seeing.

                                                   The "Secret Beach" at the hotel

5) Ocean View Rooms - If you can, spend the extra money for an ocean view room. The ocean-view rooms have beautiful balconies for sunset watching, in case you don't want to walk down to the beach.

                                One of the beautiful sunsets we watched from our balcony

      The JW Marriott is my favorite hotel on the island of Oahu. I was surprised by how secluded it felt and how beautiful it is. The staff is wonderful and all the restaurants at the resort are terrific. Make sure you try their sushi restaurant called Ushio-Tei. The sushi chef or Shokunin is great though it's not inexpensive. Grab a beer and walk over to the southern side of the beach, where there is a beautiful park. You can sit in the grass and watch the sunset. The only down side of the JW Marriott for us was their parking rates, $38 per night whether you valet park or self-park. Hotels should always have a lower rate for self-parking and $38 per night is too high for valet. Other than that, the resort was terrific and I will definitely stay there again. By the way, my girlfriend said, "yes."
     
      The JW Marriott Ihilani has many different vacation packages. We enjoyed their "Romance Package." For $539 per night, we booked an ocean-view room and got breakfast for two, a champagne welcome and a rose retal drawn bath. They also have special packages for families and a special vacation package for LGBT couples.
Take a look at the video we shot while we were at the JW Marriott Ihilani
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Take a look at our flight on Hawaiian Airlines from New York to Honolulu
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See more about the JW Marriott Ihilani 
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                                            My fiance Angela and me right after she said yes

My Top 5 Travel Web Sites

My Top 5 Travel Web Sites - You may have never heard about some of these

       There are so many travel web sites out there, even I get confused and lost when I am trying to book a vacation. In my opinion, the Expedia's, Travelocity's and Orbitz of the cyber world are pretty much the same. They will help you book your trip and get you on vacation. But then there are some web sites that I have discovered that offer incredible deals on vacations and make you feel quite smart as a traveler.

1) Yapta.com - This is one of my favorite web sites because it helps you do something that just sticks it to the airlines. Yapta.com is a free site that will help you track airfares as they go up and down. We've seen this before with other sites like farecompare.com. But what makes Yapta.com so great is, it will also help you get a refund even after you booked your flight.

     All you have to do is give them your email address and then search for the flight you want. When you find the right price, Yapta.com sends you to the airline's web site to book the ticket. If the ticket price drops between the time you booked the trip and your departure date, Yapta.com will send you an email. Most airlines will refund you the difference in price if you call them. The airline won't alert you to the fact that the ticket price dropped. That wouldn't be good for business. But Yapta.com will and it saved me about $500 on a trip to Costa Rica with American Airlines. Keep in mind that not all airlines will refund the difference but Yapta.com has a list of the ones that will.

2) Seatguru.com - All airplane seats are not created equal. I love airplanes and I love flying first or business class when I can. Even when I fly economy, I always want to find the best seat on the plane. That's what seatguru.com does. Seatguru.com has information and reviews about almost every airline. When you are booking your flight and they give you the option to choose your seats, open up a new web page, log into seatguru.com, and look for the airline and type of plane you are flying on and seatguru.com will help you find the best seat to reserve. Some seats are too close to the bathroom. Other seats don't have windows or don't recline. There are all sorts of reviews that may surprise you. Even with business and first class seats, you can end up with a seat that doesn't recline as much or one that is too close to the galley where all the flight attendants are making noise while they perform the inflight service. Seatguru.com is a site I bookmarked and I use it everytime I book a ticket.

3) Sceptretours.com - I don't remember how I came across this site but, when it comes to vacations to Italy, Great Britain and Ireland, they have amazing deals. I remember the first deal I talked about. It was a vacation they were offering to Dublin, Ireland for 7 nights. The package included the roundtrip airfare from New York, 7 nights at the Ritz Carlton Powerscourt in Dublin and a rental car. I think the total price was around $1000 per person. I thought to myself, "that is absolutely amazing." Just the flight to Dublin could cost that price, roundtrip. This is why sceptretours.com became another one of my favorite travel web sites.

4) Travelbyjen.com - I don't know who Jen is but she has some amazing vacation deals to the Caribbean. The first time I found the web site, I saw a vacation to Cancun. It was to a luxury resort and the package gave you an oceanview suite, roundtrip airfare from New York, a $500 resort credit to use at the spa or for your incidental charges and the resort was all-inclusive, meaning all your food and drinks were included. This package was for a 5 day vacation and the price was $799 per person. Do I have to say anymore? I would bookmark the site. www.travelbyjen.com

5) Floridavacationauction.com - I am not supposed to call it the Ebay of travel, since the owner of the site, Sal Dickinson would snicker at me but that's what it really is, "The Ebay of travel." Floridavacationauction.com is a travel web site where you bid on Florida vacations. You can save 60% or more on trips. Sal has all sorts of hotels on his site, from luxury properties to places that your kids will love. Some of the resorts he has are right near Disney World or on a beautiful beach in The Keys. He also has some auctions for activities. His site is so easy to use. It's free and, when you win an auction, the price includes all taxes and fees. There really aren't any taxes and fees, since your winning bid is what you pay. All the auctions start on Sunday night and last for one week. The winner is notified the following Sunday. You first look at a map of Florida and choose the area you want to travel to. Then you scroll through a list of active auctions. As I am writing this story, Sal has an auction up for a vacation at the historic Biltmore Hotel in Miami. The vacation package is for five days and four nights.You get a junior suite and, in this case, you do have to pay a resort fee of $20 per day but that is not normally the case. The retail value of this vacation is $1,521.88. You can buy this package immediately, without bidding for $813.48. The opening bid is only $305.00. Have you bookmarked his website yet?

There is one other site that I would recommend you check frequently. It's my site,www.travelnewsanddeals.com. You can check all of my favorite travel web sites and see the most current vacation deals from all over the Internet. Happy travels everyone.

Aloha to New York City

                        The departure board at JFK.

            It is a long flight to Hawaii. I don’t mean a long flight from Los Angeles or Chicago. I’m talking about the flight from New York to Honolulu. In June, Hawaiian Airlines started the first nonstop flights from New York’s Kennedy Airport to Honolulu. When I first started talking about their new service, someone told me that United has been doing it for years. Yes, United flies nonstop from the New York area to Hawaii but they leave from Newark and I think most New Yorkers would agree, Newark Airport is not in New York.

                        Hawaiian Airlines uses brand new A330 for the flight

            

       Along with Hawaiian’s new service to Honolulu, United has started nonstop flights from Washington, Dulles in addition to their flight from Newark. Delta has a nonstop from Atlanta. The reason so many airlines are starting to fly nonstop from the East Coast to Hawaii is because cross country airfares have dropped so much. Many airlines saw an opportunity to sell nonstop tickets from the East Coast for one low fare and attract people who don’t want to change planes in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco….. or go anywhere near the Newark Airport.

            My Top 5 Favorites Things About Flying Hawaiian Airlines to Hawaii from New York.

         1)   It’s Nonstop. About 10 hours from New York to Honolulu. Before Hawaiian started flying from New York, I used to fly to Los Angeles or San Francisco first to connect. It took about 12 hours total, sometimes more with the stops. The flight doesn't feel that long. With all the food and entertainment options, there's plenty to occupy your time.

         2) The Service - You feel like you're in Hawaii before you get there. Hawaiian has award-winning service. With the flight attendants in tropical shirts and gate agents wearing leis, you get that island feeling as you wait in line at Kennedy Airport in New York.

                    You check in at Terminal 5, where Jetblue departs from at JFK

      3) Hawaiian’s Dating Jetblue – Hawaiian partnered with Jetblue, so if you live in Boston, Florida or any Jetblue city on the East Coast, you can check your bag when you board you Jetblue flight, you and your bags change seamlessly in New York and you all arrive in Hawaii together. Jetblue is also allowing their True Blue members to earn mileage when they fly Hawaiian.

                                            Hawaiian Airline's First Class

        4) Hawaiian’s First Class – It’s not like international first classes but the seats are very comfortable. The seats don’t recline to a lie-flat position but you recline much more compared to coach, you get a foot rest and you get all the free alcohol you want. I overdid it on the Mai Tai’s. The seats recline 46 inches and are 18.5 inches wide. There are 18 seats in first class.

    5) The Food – They serve food. I know that doesn't sound amazing but it is. What airline has ever served you food on a domestic flight after 9-11. They don't just serve food in first class but in coach too. Hawaiian is the only airline, flying to Hawaii from the United States that serves meals on all flights. If you book first class, the food is delicious. I can’t tell you what it tastes like in coach but I saw people eating it and smiling. I had steamed Mahi Mahi, spinach lasagna and spicy chicken. We had Tiramisu for dessert. They are also very generous with the champagne. It keeps on flowing the minute you board.

What would make Hawaiian Even Better?

1) Wi-Fi – Lufthansa has started to offer wifi on overseas flights and I think it would make Hawaiian more attractive to travelers, if they could use the Internet on the long flight.

                                The Digiplayers in First Class

         2) More Entertainment Options – I wasn’t bored at all. There were plenty of films, TV shows and games but they were the same movies, TV shows and games both ways. They should change things up a bit.

        Take a look at the video we shot when we flew on Hawaiian Airlines. First Class on Hawaiian Airlines