Good

Breakfast buffets in Grand Hyatt Po'ipu

Postcards in Hanalei

Lappert's Ice Cream everywhere

Lunch on Captain Andy's Zodiac Boat Tour

Okay

Puka Dog in the Po'ipu Shopping Village

Toi's Thai Kitchen in Ele'ele

The Beach House Restaurant in Koloa

Hamura's Saimin Stand in Lihu'e

Sandwiches on Zip n Dip tour on Princeville Ranch

Sandwiches on tubing tour near Hanamaulu

Tomkats Grille in old Koloa town.

Horrible

Paradise Bar and Grill

Mackinac Island (prononced Mack-in-aw) is a classic tourist-honeymoon kind of place. You have to take a ferry boat to access it and no cars are allowed. Only bicycles, horses, and your own two feet. Having been there 1 or 2 times in my life I would say it has the same charm as you would find on either West coast like Mendocino, CA. Maybe the wine isn't as good in Michigan but the scenery is just fine

After debating Maui vs. Kauai for some time, we finally settled on Kauai at the suggestion of many people familiar with the two, some of whom lived in Hawaii for anywhere from 1-4 years. With a glowing recommendation like that, Kauai must be pretty awesome.

Kauai Vacations

Kauai is small but it has a lot of stuff to do on the North and South parts of the island. To make the trip interesting we're splitting time between 2 of the main tourist areas on the island: Princeville and Poipu. Apparently the best places to stay are the Grand Hyatt in Poipu and the soon-to-open St. Regis in Princeville.

We booked our trip through a travel agent rather than the internet travel sites like Expedia. Surprisingly our trip booked through a traditional travel agent turned out to be $170 cheaper than the best the internet could offer (Expedia) AND it had a bigger mid-size car, as opposed to economy

Another tidbit to know is that booking hotel and flight together really does save a lot of money. I had gotten into the habit of booking hotels and flights separately. I found that Expedia has the best booking interface for multi-destination trips or partial hotel stays because, unlike the other internet travel agents, Expedia does not require that you fly to another destination nor stay at the same hotel the entire duration of your trip.

So, what is the most obvious choice for a honeymoon in the summer? It was a surprisingly difficult decision between Alaskan Cruise vs. Hawaii but we're going the cliche route and picking Hawaii. Then you have the decision: which island to pick? The 3 obvious islands would be the Big Island, Kauai, or Maui. It came down to a coin-toss between Maui and Kauai but I'm going with Maui because it's bigger and there is more "stuff" to do. Kauai apparently is more "natural" but honestly we're not exactly a nature-loving couple.

There are 2 areas of super-luxury on Maui: Kapalua to the West and Wailea to the South. How do I know this? Well, the Ritz Carlton is in Kapalua and the Four Seasons is in Wailea. To be democratic about our 6 nights of luxury I want to split it down the middle, 3 nights in Kapalua and 3 nights in Wailea. That should make for a good trip. I'm going to try to arrive on the islands as early as possible and leave as late as possible on the redeye even if it costs an extra $100 bucks for the tickets.

I haven't priced everything out yet but United is the only airline that has direct flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Kahului, Maui airport (OGG). These direct flights are pretty damn expensive but the cost goes down if bought in a vacation package. Frommer's suggests Pleasant Holidays as a good place to pick packages. I spoke with a travel agent who reserved us some accommodations through a packager and the air fare was about $300 less PER TICKET than if you were to build the trip piecemeal.