Happy New Year’s from Honolulu, Hawaii! This is my first time visiting Hawaii and I’m having a blast. Hope you enjoy this post about my short 4-day trip to ring in 2019.
FLY
Flying to Hawaii for New Years is going to be expensive. We flew in on Sunday and flew out on Wednesday, and I wanted a direct flight and the cheapest I could find was Alaska Air ~ $855 round trip out of Oakland.
I only brought a backpack: a few t-shirts, shorts, swimming gear, running gear, a light rain jacket, a toiletry bag, water bottle, some electronics, and a book. I also packed sandwiches and some snacks for the 5 hour flight.
LaMarco Prosecco ($8.50) to wash down my homemade chicken sandwich
You can purchase food on the flight (or better yet ahead of time on the app) but that’s money you don’t need to spend since you can bring food on the plane. You should download the Gogo entertainment app AND bring headphones if you want to watch free movies during the flight:
Alaska Air food available for purchase
Alaska Air drank available for purchase
Movies are free but you have to download this additional GoGo Entertainment app and try to get the wi-fi to work.
Before landing, there was this extra step of filling out a declaration form that you aren’t bringing in outside fruits.
Getting Around
It seems people rent cars when they come to Hawaii, but I didn’t want to deal with parking and driving so we decided to just take Lyft everywhere. Not really well marked from the airport but you have to go towards Lobby 8 then you’ll see signs for “rideshare”.
When we arrived in Hawaii there was this tiny sign directing folks
The Ride Share area felt super far away from the terminal
Where to stay
View of Waikiki from the Penthouse floor at the Hawaiian Monarch
I looked on Air BnB and Booking.com and kept on finding really small 700 square foot rooms available. There were three of us, and we wanted to be comfortable, so we splurged and found a vacation rental on Booking.com at the Hawaiian Monarch. We paid for it ($1500 for the entire stay or $500/each) but check out this ridiculous view!
Ala Wai Canal on the left; Diamond Head State Monument in the back.
Very comfortable and an easy walk to stores and places to eat. The tap water is drinkable and the place felt very safe.
RUN
So I did find a New Year’s day race, but it was on another side of the island, and I wasn’t sure if I could get a Lyft, so I decided to pass on the race. But I’d say the Waikiki area is very runnable and safe to run in the morning.
Ala Wai Canal
Running/Walking path on the canal
There is a canal that cuts through the Waikiki area and points to the Diamond Head mountain in one direction. I ran this early one morning and there was a little bit of a mist. There were other runners and walkers and a few transients sleeping on the benches and some people fishing. Not much else on the path but it was very easy and you could get in a quick 3 miler back and forth.
DRINK (and other things to do)
Pina Colada from Tommy Bahama’s rooftop bar
Watch the Honolulu Fireworks
The whole point of the trip was to go to a city with a well known fireworks/New Years celebration and Honolulu didn’t disappoint, BUT, not so much for the “official” show on the water. I was amazed by all the “illegal” local fireworks that were going off and since I had booked a penthouse room through booking.com at the Hawaiian Monarch, I had an amazing view of fireworks from the many windows in the room.
We felt since we paid all this money for the room might as well enjoy it. We were near the Waikiki brewery so I picked up a six pack and some food to go for our New Years dinner. Food was so-so but the beers are decent.
Black Strap Molasses Porter from Waikiki Brewing is very good (6.5% ABV, 37 IBU)
Kona Coffee
Hawaii is known for its coffee and Kona coffee is usually expensive in California, so we decided to try the “Kona Coffee” as is. It seems if you go to the main coffee line and order a standard Kona Coffee they will just brew the coffee in a standard coffee mass brewer. This didn’t make the coffee taste that great, in my opinion. I was talking to someone on the other side of the coffee bar (where you could order the beans), and they said they could make the coffee with a pour over method. When I tasted this it was much better so if you could opt for a pour over or an aero-Press I would suggest that.
Heavenly Island Lifestyle
Cover of their menu shows where the food comes from.
Most of the people I met all agreed that the typical Hawaiian food is not the healthiest and usually devoid of vegetables. But Heavenly Lifestyle was a very nice surprise. It seems everything on your plate is local to the Hawaiian islands, even the vegetables… so there are vegetables here!
$16 for Local eggs benedict: hollandaise sauce made with lilikoi butter, local eggs, Okinawa purple potatoes (fried), local pork belly, and I think kale that actually tasted good.
I ordered the eggs benedict with local pork belly and included a “Maui Mule” where even the lime was native to Hawaii. All very delicious.
$13 Maui mule made with Pau Maui Vodka, Island Ginger Beer, and something called a Finger lime. And the stirrer was cut from ginger root.
Last Words
Just a very chill place to visit, even for New Years, and even for Waikiki. I didn’t feel like I ran into anyone with attitude and I kind of understood why people fall in love with this place. It didn’t seem particularly expensive other than the penthouse I booked, but I was here to relax and chill and that’s exactly what I did. Here are some photos from the Blue Line trolley tour we did:
Fly. Run. Drink. 