For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

Maribelle7777 Posted: Jan 07, 2004 02:49 PM

For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

how much spending money do you think you spent?

i want to take a trip to the Halikalani (sp) volcano (the one where you go up at 1am to see the sun rise), FH wants a massage at one of the hotels, I might, we want to do the catamaran thing in kauai, and see pearl harbor and the USS arizona and USS missouri in Oahu.

I'm trying to see how much we'll need.

I'm thinking $2G and FH is thinking $3G

Emmasmom Posted: Jan 07, 2004 02:55 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

We went on our honeymoon last December 02 (which they say december is the high season for traveling there). We stayed for 11 days, 10 nights. We went to maui, kuaui, and oahu and we spent 5000$ (and I didnt drink at all because I was pregnant) which I think is way too much but we figured we may never get back there and we wanted to be able to do everything.

Sonicstef Posted: Jan 07, 2004 02:59 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

It depends more on the costs of airfare (to/from Hawaii as well as inter island) and the hotels you choose rather than the activities.

Maribelle7777 Posted: Jan 07, 2004 03:27 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

I already know the cost of the hotels/airfare, it's booked already. I have that budgeted. I was just wondering what all the activities/food/drinks/luaus costed people in the end.

I think I'll bring my debit card (it's a mastercard and can be used there) as well as travellers checks, and then have my sister deposit any $ we get as gifts and use part of that if need be.

2003fallwedding Posted: Jan 07, 2004 03:55 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

It depends on the types of restaraunts you like to eat in. There are lots to choose from so its not all high end restaruants. We were spending on dinner an average of $100 a night. Lunches vary and breakfasts were usually running like 20pp for a buffet.

sept2703 Posted: Jan 07, 2004 04:06 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

We went in Sept
For massages at the hotel I think were about $120 each person - we had 2 each while we were there .
We did a rafting tour in Kauai that was about $75 each.
We drove ourselves to the top of Haleakala (the volacano) for sunrise so that was just gas and maybe a park fee of $10.

Dinners were about $70 - $100 each night.
And drinks by the pool are about $8 each so count that in if you plan to have some.

It's expensize but worth it and not too bad compared to NY prices. I want to go back

ETC: we charged most of our excursions (the hotel concierge booked them) and the drinks/food eaten at the hotel to the room and they we payed that bill on our charge card when we left. I think we brough about $1500 in cash and came back with some.

ChristineC68 Posted: Jan 07, 2004 04:10 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

Generally when we travel we bring about $300-400 in cash with us and charge hotel stuff to the room, so it's one bill and use cash machines as we go along. I always found travellers checks to be more trouble then they are worth especially now that cash is so readily available everywhere.

(I don't know anything about HI, just commenting on how much cash to bring)

Scoop Posted: Jan 07, 2004 04:22 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

We went in Nov. 2002 for two weeks and stayed in Kauai, Maui & Oahu. We spent approx. $5,000 including hotel & airfare.

dcwife Posted: Jan 07, 2004 04:39 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

I think we probably spent closer to 2K but we had breakfast included everywhere. We spent $120 each on the Haleakala sunrisebike ride- which I woudl highly recommend. (www.mountainriders.com) and 120 each for a horseback ride in Kauai. We didn't really eat lunch, and I spent like $130 on a massage.

dandj Posted: Jan 07, 2004 05:43 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

We spent $4800 for airfare and hotel and car for 10 days (maui and Kauai) and about another 2000 while we were there for sightseeing and food etc.

Jenny5150 Posted: Jan 07, 2004 07:15 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

How long are you going for?
You can probably expect to spend about $300 a day (that's including meals).

Cindy Posted: Jan 07, 2004 08:39 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

It really depends on what kind of dinners you will be having too. It was our honeymoon so almost every night we went to very nice restaurants.

spel Posted: Jan 07, 2004 08:52 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

we just got back on sunday. we were there for two weeks.

we spent $5,000 just on hotel (13 nights) and inter-island flights. we stayed at two hyatts and one radisson.

the restaurants (for dinner) cost us approximately $150 for every meal and we ate out at nice restaurants about 8 or 9 nights. hmmm... actually two of our meals cost a lot more than that, but i think thats because we ordered bottles of wine... the other nights we just grabbed pizza or something light. plus we had to pay for breakfast occasionally (very overpriced in the hotels) and lunch everyday. we spent a tremendous amount of money on meals. but we also ate at wonderful restaurants (although ALL were overpriced!). we considered this very expensive, even compared to NY restaurants.

we bought a few things but didn't spend more than $200 on shopping.

the activities that were pricey were the helicopter ride (about $360 for both of us) and i got a massage (about $100). we also did whalewatching (only about $50 maybe) and the other activities were either free or rather inexpensive.

for us, this was a very very expensive vacation. luckily we used miles for our airfare roundtrip. but christmas is a very pricey time to go anywhere. other months will be much much cheaper, i'm sure.

there are many hotels thoughout the islands that are much less expensive in hawaii though.

many of us have used the book 'maui revealed' and the other books from that series to find out most of our info.

yabbobay Posted: Jan 07, 2004 11:03 PM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

think if you were going on vacation in Manhattan...I think Hawaiian prices can be compared to that...

I'm with Christine though...just take an ATM card...and actually when I went to HI the hotel cashed a personal check for me (I can't remember why I needed them too...but I remember they did) I haven't used travellers checks in years...

Sassy Posted: Jan 08, 2004 08:51 AM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

The hotel, airfare, rental, etc.. . was already paid for before we went.
Breakfast was included for 1/2 our stay, and we got one free excursion.

We stayed 10 nights, 2 islnads. We did excursions probably 6/10 nights.
Dinner out every night.
We spent a little over $3000 in spending money. We just went with the flow b/c it was our HM.

Niecey Posted: Jan 08, 2004 09:09 AM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

We probably spent about $2500-3,000 - don't remember to well. I think most of that bill was food. Dinners were often over $100-200 and that was with out drinking that much. It can be done cheaper but we took this as a one time thing and went to some of the very nice and very expensive restaurants. You can dine cheaper - actually one day we went to a cute local Vietnamese restaurant and dinner was only $25/30 for both of us. As for excursions we did the helicopter and the snorkeling trip and we upgraded our car in Kauai. Most of theo ther tours we took - we drove ourselves. We also had gift certificates to our hotel - someone gave us as part of their wedding gift to us - and they were used in the restuarants or on activities.

On tip on spending money (or saving money), since we did a lot of driving and were in Maui for 7 days - we drove to the Walmart - right near the Maui airport and bought a small styrofoam cooler and chips and a case of bottled water and snacks. The cooloer came in handy because we did a few picnic lunches on our full day tours and we always had food and drink in the car!

sept2703 Posted: Jan 08, 2004 10:08 AM

Re: For those that went to Hawaii on HM or for just a trip

Niecey- that was a good idea about the cooler and snack I think I borrowed from your original review. We did that too and it was great when we were doing our day trips and even for a snack in the room in the late afternoon.