Our initial plan in 2020 was to do 8 nights in Hawaii: 4 nights on Oahu, and 4 nights on Maui. However, we postponed our wedding and honeymoon to 2022 due to COVID, and when we went to rebook our honeymoon, the prices on Maui had gone WAY up. So, we changed up our plans a bit: 4 nights on Oahu, and then 4 nights in Costa Rica!
This post covers the Hawaii portion of the trip.
We stayed at the Outrigger Reef Waikiki Beach Resort. At check in, our room got upgraded to an ocean front room. The view was amazing!
We went to Waikiki Brewing Company for dinner and drinks, and saw a beautiful rainbow 🌈 on our walk there. Amazing food at this brewery!!
The next day, we went to a cute beachfront cafe for breakfast, and then went to the Waikiki Aquarium.
We intended for it to be a low-key day, since we had a long day traveling the day before, so we didn't plan any excursions or big adventures. Instead, we walked around the beach and around the town, ate dinner at Maui Brewing Company, and then watched the sunset from the beach at our hotel. I'm not a beer drinker, but my husband said that while Maui Brewing and Waikiki Brewing both had good beer, he liked the beer better at Maui Brewing.
The next day, we went to Pearl Harbor, and walked through their interactive museum (which was free to visit). Very informative, and lots to read. We wanted to take the ferry over to the USS Arizona memorial, but we didn't have reservations, and the Stand By line was long, so we skipped it.
We found a Groupon for surfing lessons, so we signed up! Neither of us had ever been surfing before, so we had no clue what we were getting ourselves into. They teach you the basics on land first, and then you go out into the water to try it out. This was SO FUN!! They had a photographer that joined the lesson to capture photos and videos for everyone, so these next two photos were taken by him.
On our last full day on the island, we went parasailing! This was my husband's biggest request when we were initially planning out our honeymoon. I'd never been parasailing before, but willing to give it a try. It was fun! Very calm and peaceful. The view from the top was beautiful.
They took photos for us that we ended up buying, so these next two photos are ones that they took for us.
We ate lunch at Hank's Haute Dogs, which my husband learned about from the show Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives. Really good food, and an especially really good curry ketchup!!
For our last dinner in Hawaii, we did a sunset dinner cruise on the Star Of Honolulu! Dinner included a salad, crab legs, beef tenderloin, BBQ chicken, and macadamia nut ice cream. A lot of food, but it was delicious! There are fireworks every Friday night in Waikiki, so we also got to see fireworks from the boat.
Overall, it was a lot of fun, even though we mainly did touristy things this trip. Groupon also helped us save money on activities that we were already planning to do. Next time we visit Hawaii, we'd definitely stay in an Airbnb instead of a hotel, and also do more hiking and seeing the rest of the island.
