Oahu day planning.

[WishingMom]

Good morning,

In the beginning stages of planning for Oahu/Aulani for next year and was wondering how you all plan your touring days on the island? What tours/sites do you visit and do you recommend doing one thing per day or is it feasible to do more than one per day?

Cheers,

 

[thedogatemyhomework]

doing one thing a day is nice if you want a very relaxed pace and either have a lot of days or not a lot you want to do.

doing multiple things is very possible, but if those things aren’t very close to each other...it can add some stress as getting from place to place can take quite a while. something like doing diamond head in the morning and waikiki for midday/afternoon could work just fine...but if its a weekday...trying to add sunset on a north shore beach...probably not the best idea.

for things like pearl harbor or the polynesian cultural center you may be better off having those be a 1 per day thing as its possible to spend quite a bit of time there (and depending on the tour/activities kualoa ranch could be the same)

 

[GooglyBear808]

I try to schedule one thing a day if possible. As the above poster mentioned, things like PCC and Kualoa should be the only thing that day as they are farther away from Aulani and usually require more than a couple hours to actually do. I don't know if your vacation includes a stay say in Waikiki besides Aulani. If it does I would suggest certain activities such as: Honolulu Zoo, Koko head crater hike, Hanauma Bay etc to be done while staying in Waikiki. Keep things such as: Dole Plantation, North Shore etc for Aulani as they are closer in distance from Aulani than Waikiki.

 

[nkereina]

IMO, its important to plan your activities based on their locations on the island. You don't want to be criss-crossing the island because it will eat up time and you're inclined to run into traffic at some point.

Diamond Head is relatively close to Waikiki, so you could hike in the morning and shop/stroll the strip in the afternoon. Pearl Harbor and Hanuama Bay are also in the same relative vicinity as Waikiki, or Pearl Harbor would be an easy half day trip from Aulani.

We spent a day at the North Shore and also did Dole Plantation, Waimea Valley, and Laniakea Beach where sea turtles are prevalent. We spent another day on the windward side of the island doing Kualoa Ranch, Byodo-In Temple, and Kailua. I'd recommend all of it, and we had full days in both areas (roughly 7am-5/6pm) but it worked out well and we never felt pressed for time.