Trip Report – Oahu, Hawaii

Our recent 5 day trip to the main island of Oahu, Hawaii was a short by sweet trip. While we did not have much time, we had a great bit of fun. Staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki on a great deal, the resort served as a great base for our adventures.

We hit a lot of major attractions there including the North Shore, Whale watching, Kualoa Ranch, Masumoto's shaved ice, and even had a chance to relax. You can read the details and itinerary of our adventures below:

• Hawaii Trip – Day 1 - Welcome to Waikiki
• Hawaii Trip – Day 2 – Unexpected Surprises
• Hawaii Trip - Day 3 - Oahu - Around the Island
• Hawaii Trip – Day 4 – A Little bit of everything
• Hawaii Trip – Day 5 – Relaxing in Waikiki

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Waimanalo Bay & Beach – The Best on Oahu

Looking for a place to get away from the crowded beaches of Waikiki? Longing for a beach not lined with luxury hotels and looks more like the ‘real’ Hawaii on the island of Oahu? Wanting to stay out of the coral and spend your time on a sandy beach? Then Waimanalo Bay & Beach is just the place for you.



If it sounds like I am gushing about Waimanalo Beach, you’re right – I am. Over our last several visits this sandy beach located just south of Waimanalo is the perfect place to kick back, relax and enjoy a Hawaiian beach. Not to mention, there is a L&L Restaurant in the town of Waimanalo – grab some for lunch before you head to the beach!



When you enter the Waimanalo Recreation area, you know you are just a little bit off the beaten path. Winding down the access road to the beach area, you are engulfed in trees and lush surroundings of the public beach and recreation area.



Finally, once you get to the beach – you will find it relatively uninhabited and you can have your choice of spots to enjoy the sun’s rays and the waves. If you want to get out of the sun, there is plenty of shade cover off the beach, including park benches and BBQ pits if you want to have a cook out.

The sand is pristine and comfortable and the waves are great for body-surfing and boogie-boarding. Both the kids and adults alike will enjoy this beach!

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Aloha Stadium Swap Meet – A Tourist Favorite!

The Aloha Bowl (Aloha Stadium) Swap Meet or ‘Flea Market’ as some people call it; is one of our favorite attractions when we are in Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu. It is also a favorite of most tourists visiting Oahu. Why? Well, keep reading and find out!



Plus, it is easy to get there with several buses and cheap transportation services offering round trips for less than $8 per person. If you happen to have a car, admission is only $1 per person.

The Aloha Bowl swap meet runs every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday in the parking lot of Aloha Stadium – practically just across the street from Pearl Harbor. So, if you are visiting the USS Missouri Battleship or the USS Arizona Pearl Harbor on one of these days, you should plan a stop at the flea market! It runs from 6am-3pm, but we recommend not getting there before 8am as many vendors will still not be setup, especially on Sundays!



The swap meet is most famous for all of the tourist items that you can get there, much cheaper than any of the stores or hotels along the beach strip in Waikiki or even the ABC stores! There are also a number of vendors selling varieties of fresh and dried Hawaiian fruits including fresh sugar cane, bananas, papayas, mangos, and even coconuts!

Perhaps the most famous items to be had are the 8 t-shirts for $20. A great price, for sure. Our recommendation is to get the slightly more expensive ones, the 4 or 5 for $20 depending on the vendor – they will fit much better and last much longer.



In addition, you can find all of the jewelry, photo albums, luggage, dancing hula girls, bongos, artwork and more. These are the same ones that you can find in Waikiki for often 50% off.



Visit the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet – you will have a great time!

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Cheeseburgers in Paradise – Grab a burger and enjoy the view!

Found at 2500 Kalakaua Ave right in the middle of the Waikiki Beach strip is a great little burger joint called, Cheeseburger In Paradise. It’s a great break from the numerous higher-end eateries along the strip as well as when you have had enough seafood for the week. The restaurant faces right towards Waikiki beach and offers splended views of all of the activities just across the street. We first visited on our last trip to Oahu some 18 months ago and really enjoyed it.



On this trip, we learned a lot more about the restaurant while enjoying a couple of Cheeseburgers, Onion Rings, and Kona Brewing company beers. In addition to the background provided on our menus, our server JP (who had ironically served us 18 months before) helped fill in the blanks.

Basically, the restaurant was founded back in 1989 by a couple of ladies from Orange County who moved to Maui and opened up the first restaurant. The number of restaurants is now in the teens and also known as “Cheeseburger, Mai-Tai, & Rock ‘n Roll” and Cheeseburger Island Style. This was due to a lawsuit that started back in 1996 when Jimmy Buffet sued when the restaurant decided to come to the mainland – and would compete with his trademark and partially owned with the Outback – Cheeseburger in Paradise chain.



None the less, once again the cheeseburgers and onion rings were a great break from the Hawaiian norm – make sure and visit it on your next trip!

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Whale watching in Hawaii – seeing the Humpback whale from the Oahu shore

Probably the only and perhaps the most frustrating element in planning our Hawaiian vacation were locating any decent information on whale watching in Oahu. When I say whale watching, I mean whale watching from the shores of Oahu. There is plenty of information and tour operators wanting to sell you one-hour to half-day excursions to watch the whales from off-shore boats – some of which guarantee a whale sighting or your money back.




There are a few reasons why we wanted to watch the Humpback whales from the Oahu shore. The first of which is that Ashley gets very sea-sick. Regardless of the remedy attempt, the only one that works is Dramamine – meaning she is pretty much out cold for 8 hours. Secondly, rather than making a minimum of a half-day out the trip – we wanted to build some whale watching into our schedule that made sense while we traversed the Hawaiian Island of Oahu.

As I mentioned before, information both on the Internet (littered with tour advertisements) and from our favorite guide books were pretty unspecific about where once could whale watch on the shore of Oahu. Luckily, while we were on our site tour at Kualoa Ranch we ran into the group monitoring the behaviors of the Humpback whale. While they had an excellent place that was actually on the property of the Kualoa Ranch, it was actually inaccessible to the public. They recommended that we try either the Makapu’u (Makapuu) Beach or Makapu’u (Makapuu) Point.

The basic theory they mentioned was that you wanted to be at a major point in the island that juts out towards the sea and to be able to achieve some elevation to better see the activities within the pod of whales should you be able to find them. With that in mind, a few key areas around the southern parts of the Oahu island of Hawaii come to mind.

The first is Diamond Head, where folks go November through April to try and catch a glimpse of a Humpback whale. Many have been successful. They only drawback is that because of the length of the climb, you are much higher than you may be at some of the other locations, increasing your distance from the whales.



The second is the area around Hanauma Bay, Halona Blow Hole, and Sandy Beach. On our whale sightseeing day, this proved to be a perfect location for us as we intended to spend our afternoon at Waimanalo beach. Our main stop along this route was the Halona Blow Hole, which overlooks Sandy Beach – a very popular beach stop. Within 15 minutes of our arrival, we had the opportunity to see at least two different whales breech the water approximately one half mile off shore. While it was quicker than expected, it was an amazing sight to see an adult Humpback whale completely launch itself out of the ocean water and then the splash that followed was tremendous. The Halona Blow Hole is a pretty good bet to see the Humpback whale.



Just down the road from the Halona Blow Hole on the other side of Sandy beach is Makapu’u Point, which is a local and veteran whale watchers preferred onshore location to see Humpback whales. The only caveat is that in order to get to the best viewing location you need to hike up the Ka’ Iwi shoreline trail which is paved road trail that rivals the hike to Diamond Head.



Think the road into Hanauma Bay, only about 4 times as long. Plan on a full half an hour to hike up the trail, if you walk pretty closely – and remember to bring your walking shoes. (Ashley and I only had our flip-flops with us and by the time we completed the hike up and down we had some hot spots on our feet – luckily they did not turn into blisters.)



The hike up to Makapu’u Point near the Makapu’u lighthouse is beautiful scenic trail, that by the time you reach the top you will have seen panoramic views of Hanauma Bay/Sandy Beach, the south east point of the island looking towards the Island of Molokai, and a great view down the windward side of Oahu. There are several lookout spots along the way, one that is even marked with a Humpback whale display containing information on the whales.



On most days at these spots you will have the opportunity to spot pods of Humpback whales, breeching, slapping, and blowing in the waters off the shore. Try them all out, preferably in the earlier or later portions of the day for the best viewing and least glare off the water. Good luck!

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Hawaii Trip – Day 5 – Relaxing in Waikiki

Well, today is our last day in Hawaii for this short vacation here. On this trip, as with previous trips, we will be taking a red eye flight back to Los Angeles (LAX) tonight. The only unfortunate thing about it is that not only do we need to go through San Francisco (SFO), but we are both going directly into work. Call us crazy.



On past trips, we had to plan carefully, since checkout time at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (HHV) is 11:00am, 12:00am if you are lucky enough to get late checkout. If you are not leaving the hotel until 7:00pm or 8:00pm – it was difficult to make sure you stayed fresh and yet still enjoyed the day.

Well, things have changed at Hilton Hawaiian Village (HHV). Now, on your day of departure you can reserve a hospitality room where you can freshen up. You are allotted 20 minutes per person in the room – so, for us that would be 40 minutes. The only trick is that you can reserve one day before your departure – so, when we woke up on Day 4, we called and made our reservation for 5:00pm!

So, with a hospitality room reserved in advance for 5:00 tonight, we had a very relaxing day. Once again, based on the good food at the Rainbow Lanai – we chose to have the breakfast buffet at the upgraded rate of $5/person. Very enjoyable.

After breakfast, it was a first for us. We paid for and reserved a beach umbrella, a chair and a chaise lounge on the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s beach. Generally, we have thumbed our nose at that thought of paying for space on the beach, but decided to give it a try on our last day – to the tune of $50.

For me, I try to avoid the sun like the plague when in Hawaii. It just burns me up real quick – when in California it is a little more manageable. I must say that this day at the beach with the umbrella and chair was the most pleasant day that I have ever spent at the beach. For us, it was worth every penny of the $50 and we will definitely use it in the future.



Other than spending the day at the beach, we broke quickly for lunch down to Dukes. We generally prefer Dukes’ lunchtime menu over their dinner menu. We have been to Dukes in Malibu several times and it seems to be much better in Waikiki. None the less, it was a relaxing meal that we enjoyed.



When the day came to an end, we enjoyed our hospitality room provided by the Hilton Hawaiian Village. We cleaned up, and then enjoyed our last Hawaiian sunset from Tropics Cafe & Beach Bar.



Finally, we headed to the airport compliments of Roberts Transportation. Los Angeles, here we come!

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Hawaii Trip – Day 4 – A Little bit of everything

On this Sunday, day 4 of our trip to the Island of Oahu on Hawaii rather than starting our day out at the Tropics Café & Beach Bar, instead we chose a different breakfast option. Now at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Gold & Diamond HHonors members can also upgrade to a buffet for $5 at either the Tapa Café or the Rainbow Lainai, located in at the base of the Rainbow Tower. Since the Rainbow Lanai has a great view of the Waikiki Beach and the Pacific Ocean, that was our choice.



Overall, a great breakfast buffet. You can have eggs made to order (Omelets), and a variety of hot and cold selections are available including Hawaiian fruits, and your standard scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns and more. There was a minor annoyance with the rude guest talking on his cell phone and could not understand why the cook skipped him – however I will avoid any sort of rant on that.

After a great breakfast, we headed out for the Aloha Stadium Swap Meet. We always have a great time at this flea market – and find most of our souvenirs there. It was another successful trip there including some new shirts, picture frames, and some great dried fruit. You can read more about it in this post here.



Once we finished up at the Swap Meet, we headed back towards Waikiki to do some whale watching at the southern tip of the Island. After a couple of quick stops right around Haunauma Bay, we found success at the Halona Blow hole and were able to watch at least two different Humpback whales breech and splash in the water. A great site, even from the shore!



Then, we hiked up to Makapu’u Point, another well known location to watch for Humpback whales. We did not get to see any there, but you can read more about the specifics of our whale watch here.

We had accomplished all of that before lunchtime, but boy were we hungry. So, we headed to the town of Waimanalo, because we new that they have one of the L&L Drive-In Hawaiian BBQ restaurants. Ashley and I split a Chicken Katsu, and enjoyed every piece.

After lunch, we headed to the Waimanalo Bay Recreation area to spend the afternoon at the beautifully sandy and uninhabited Waimanalo Beach. I had some fun body-surfing in the afternoon waves while Ashley just relaxed on the beach. (Read more about Waimanalo in this post.)



In the late afternoon, we headed back to Waikiki Beach so we could turn in the Avis rental car before they closed for the evening. Once that was turned in, we were conveniently next to the ‘Cheeseburger In Paradise’ restaurant and we had a bite to eat. (See review post here.)



Finally, after dinner – we took in the full sunset from Waikiki Beach as our last full day in Hawaii ended. On the walk back to our hotel, a traditional Hawaiian dance show was performed down at the beach. We enjoyed that before heading back to the Hilton Hawaiian Village for the evening.

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Hawaii Trip - Day 3 - Oahu - Around the Island

Today, once again started off with a beautiful sunrise coming over the Diamond Head crater and lighting up the Waikiki Beach and the ocean waves. We quickly grabbed our free continental breakfast (HHonors Gold) at the Tapa Bar & Beach Café and then headed to our Avis rental car to leave Hilton Hawaiian Village for the day.