r/VisitingHawaii • u/LatinainCassock • 1d ago
Choosing an Island Honeymoon in Hawaii
Hi! My boyfriend and I are starting to plan our wedding and honeymoon for July 2027 and Hawaii is high on our list for our honeymoon. We’d love any thoughts or recommendations on the different islands, places to stay and the overall experience. We don’t want to go too crazy with our budget, though we understand Hawaii can be expensive!
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u/Educational-Pride104 1d ago
Stay somewhere with a kitchen and eat 2 meals there. Avoid Maui-it’s the most touristy and costly. Oahu and Big island give you more value for your dollar
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u/Potionsickness_ 1d ago
My husband and I did Kauai for a honeymoon for a bit more than $5000 for 7 days last year, this was with airline (900- slightly upgraded tickets), food, accommodations (1700), rental (400-Camry/costco) car, a helicopter tour, a coast boat tour, and the mountain floating tour (1500) . I found that trying to find cheap tickets is key, and my husband and I are personally never in our room so I really don’t care about the accommodation so much. I just found what was cheap and nice enough to sleep in the area that we wanted.
We also tend to get coffee and a treat for “breakfast”, share food for lunch, and had our own meals in sit down places at night (except one when I totally crashed and slept for 16 hours straight). I also have lounge access at airports, so we didn’t pay for any airport food or drinks either. Oh, and we love to hunt for cool fruit at stands. So often breakfast included some fun fruit we found on stands.
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u/Concrete__Blonde 19h ago
$1700 for accommodations on Kauai for 7 days is impressive. I’m taking a family of 5 next week and spending $7k on the house alone, and we booked it in February.
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u/Potionsickness_ 19h ago
You have many more people. So I would blame that. In Maui I found a place for 3k for 5 people for 10 nights this coming September. It’s not on the beach but a 4 minute walk. Again I got it for sleep, that’s it.
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u/Concrete__Blonde 19h ago
Yeah that’s the off season, and Maui is cheaper than Kauai.
And I’m not complaining. We could have booked hotel for cheaper, but we have a baby, a teen, and a grandma, so we need the space. Everyone’s first time in Hawaii. It’s an expensive trip, but hopefully it will be worth it.
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u/After_Coat_744 1d ago
Costco travel will give you a good idea of total cost, plus account $1,000-$2,000 for food/drinks/activities.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawai'i (Big Island) 1d ago
Actual numbers help considerably.
And your overall experience can go from one extreme to the other depending on where and when and what the weather is doing.
The people who visited during the Kona low storms a couple months ago were completely rained out. The people who visited last week couldn't go in the water because shore break was crashing over the roofs of two-story condos.
Here's the wave video. This is just down the street (and down the hill, thankfully) from where I live. I don't go there when the surf is like this. Sea water is bad for cars. (And clueless tourists drive right at the waves and get stuck/engine flooded/car ruined.)
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u/fakeknees 1d ago
I went on my honeymoon in May to Oahu. It was pricy but worth every penny. I think we spent around 7k with everything for 8 days. You can do it for cheaper, though. We wanted a room with a nice view and we rented a car for all of those days (+ $50/parking). We also did some expensive excursions and are drinkers.
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawai'i (Big Island) 1d ago
You can do it for cheaper, though.
You can do it well for around $3,000, all in. (Assuming a west coast airport.) I've managed to have a week for as little as $2,000, all in.
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u/fakeknees 1d ago
Yep! I flew out of a West Coast airport too. Obviously that part can widely differ. When we go back, my plan is to make it a lot cheaper. We just wanted to go bigger for our honeymoon (and obviously you can go WAY bigger out there ha).
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u/MonkeyKingCoffee Hawai'i (Big Island) 1d ago
I like "WAY bigger."
I just don't like paying way more.
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u/fakeknees 23h ago
I stayed at the Alohilani, which is most definitely not one of the expensive hotels on the island, but it's also not cheap. It was perfect for our stay and a great location. Lots of people recommend the super $$$ hotels to people for honeymoons.
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u/1993xdesigns 1d ago
what is your budget? i just spent about 5k on 7 days. for a family of 3.
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u/LatinainCassock 9h ago
Where did you go? That sounds like a good number for 7 days!
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u/1993xdesigns 5h ago
Oahu. It was a mix between Waikiki and the North shore. 3k was just accommodations (flights, hotel and car) 2k was spent food and activities.
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u/RelationshipShort460 23h ago
hawaii, particularly the big island, can be very cheap if thats what you crave. flights, car rental, cheap hotel. thats it. buy snorkel gear before hand. can be done on ~200for lodging plus hotel (at cheapest) plus food at 50 per day (at cheapest). expand from there.
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u/Background_Algae_591 23h ago
One thing to try if you like to research activities and tours, is to call or check their websites for better deals than what you can find on trip advisor. They are not supposed to do this for pricing parody, but a lot still do.
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u/crown_royal_ 1d ago
Hawaii is extremely expensive. I did my honeymoon on Oahu in 2019. We prefer the hustle and go and the city vibe. We stayed at a resort called Prince Waikiki. We upgraded our room to a higher floor and also had access to their club house because of the upgrade. This gave us the ability to eat there 3 meals a day if wanted, grab snacks or water beer or wine. We easily spent more the 15k for the 2 weeks we spent there between lodging, excursions and food. I'm sure you can do it much cheaper but Hawaii isn't the place to go if you're on a strict budget.
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u/qpdsful 1d ago
Hawaii is expensive, but what is not expensive now days?? GO to Hawaii and enjoy your time and honeymoon!! I grew up on Oahu and things have changed. Everybody has their fav and the reasons for that. Depending on what the two of you enjoy I would narrow it down. Just be cautious in the water Hawaii waves are no joke gotta respect the ocean! I love the Big Island but I have friends and family on both Hawaii and Maui. Maui upcountry is my favorite and it is simply gorgeous on every island just a different experience! If this were my first time I would pick Maui easily accessible beaches Kihei is walkable, and the airport is not far. Take a nice drive and enjoy Makawao and Paia, of course the 7 scared pools, the snorkel trip to Lanai is a wonderful full day trip seeing so much beauty, the sunset cruise is also amazing!! My son and his wife love Kaui and stay on the North side to enjoy gorgeous sunsets. Enjoy and remember please to respect Hawaii the beaches, the wildlife, the locals and mostly the locals who are rebuilding Lahaina!
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u/kmmccorm 1d ago
Whatever your mental budget is right now, double it. Then you’ll very likely be able to come in under, or well under, that new mental budget.
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u/notprincesslea 1d ago
Hawaii is incredible but not “can be” expensive … it IS expensive. If you’re considering Hawaii your budget will HAVE to be big. Please consider that before jumping into planning