This article is reposted from a reader in our WeChat group, from the WeChat public account 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. Original link.

I previously wrote about the activities and food; in this post, I’ll cover lodging, flights, transportation, weather, and other odds and ends.

Hotel

For this trip, we stayed all 8 nights at the Sheraton Waikiki. The points redemption value was very poor during this week, so we paid cash instead. Room rates during the short winter break were not cheap, but thankfully I had stocked up on Marriott gift cards at 20% to 40% off through AMEX offers and Daily Getaways a few years ago. I used them all up on this trip, and they covered most of the cost.

As a Marriott Platinum member, I had to split the stay into several separate reservations because of limited availability at booking. At check-in, we were upgraded to a partial ocean view and didn’t have to switch rooms, which I appreciated since the hotel was absolutely packed for the holiday period, so I was satisfied even without a suite upgrade. However, each time one reservation ended, I had to go back to the front desk to reactivate the room key for parking, and even then it often still stopped working. The room key was a waterproof wristband, which I actually liked a lot.

Downstairs is the halapulani pool.

The other side of the balcony was more of a city view.

The Platinum breakfast benefit was a continental breakfast: just bread, yogurt, oatmeal, fruit, and your choice of beverage. Even though there were three of us in the room, they only gave us breakfast for two, which made for an awkward first morning in the restaurant. After that, my partner just went to the takeaway area each day and brought it upstairs. The breakfast benefit was really underwhelming, and the front desk said it couldn’t be swapped for points either. There’s a Lawson right downstairs from the hotel elevators, and honestly, breakfast of oden or rice balls was way better than this continental spread.

The beach by the main pool was still very crowded.

The beach on the other side was much smaller and less crowded. It’s also a docking point.

The Sheraton Waikiki was renovated during the pandemic, and inside the room there were only very slight signs of age left. The room had a washlet and a large lighted vanity mirror, and the balcony was huge—we ate breakfast out there every day. The reading lights by the bed and the wall decor were also quite nice and really gave off a vacation feel. My biggest complaint was the soundproofing, which is one of those old-hotel issues that’s hard to fully fix even after a renovation because of plumbing and other structural factors. Our room was far from the elevators, but we could still hear hallway noise and even a crying baby in the next room pretty clearly. Fortunately, during the holidays a lot of guests were families with kids, so people tended to wake up early and go to bed early, and nights were still fairly peaceful.

The Sheraton Waikiki’s biggest advantage is, without question, the location. It’s right in the heart of Waikiki, making shopping and dining very convenient. You still have to walk a little bit either left or right after going downstairs to get to the beach. The hotel has an adults-only infinity pool, though it’s very small, plus a nicely designed main pool, a waterslide, and small connecting slides between a few of the pools—which was my cautious kid’s favorite part. The pool water ran on the cool side, and floaties were not allowed. You need to show your wristband to get towels downstairs, but they do not track the number of towels you take.

A quick fun fact here: private beaches are not allowed in Hawaii, so all beaches in Hawaii are public. On the east side of the Sheraton, there’s a third-party beach chair rental service. If you want to set up your own beach tent, you can only squeeze into the corner, so buying a beach umbrella from ABC Store might actually be more practical.

The hotel’s self-parking is currently $55/night, and you use your room wristband to enter and exit. As I mentioned earlier, because we had separate reservations, we had to go reactivate it for each segment of the stay. But after the second time it still didn’t work, and we got stuck at the exit for quite a while when leaving one day and almost missed an appointment. After I complained to the front desk, they gave me a paper parking pass, and after that we used that along with the ticket pulled at entry to get out each day. For Waikiki, the parking supply here is relatively decent and fairly easy to navigate, and the walk from the parking area to the hotel entrance is very short.

We also requested a rollaway bed for our child, and that was $120/night, which felt pretty expensive.

Overall, the hotel service was quite good. We had to deal with the front desk multiple times, and on top of that, paying with gift cards one by one was kind of a hassle, but they were always very patient. The housekeeping staff were also very friendly. The weakest part of the service was the valet staff—our first interaction with the valet attendants at arrival was unpleasant enough that we immediately chose self-parking instead.

The Wi-Fi was also good enough. It felt slow at times, but I had no problem doing video meetings on it.

                                                       Weather

In winter, the temperature swing between day and night is pretty large, and it’s also windy. During the day, even though it was very sunny and we were in short sleeves, the winter wind made it feel cool; at night, you might even need a jacket.

Hawaii never seems to run short on rainbows and sea turtles—just a little rain and a rainbow appears.

For some reason, a towel from an upstairs room and a half-eaten piece of bread both ended up on our hotel room balcony—probably because of the strong wind...

We also ran into a Japanese couple there for wedding photos; the bride’s dress was gorgeous. The cross-breeze in the hotel hallways was also very strong.

Seeing this tree reminded me of the giant banyan tree in Maui. I wonder how it’s doing now...

Flights

The Delta Gold I had previously milked for benefits expired this year, but since these tickets were purchased before expiration, somehow I was still able to squeeze out one more round of perks. At check-in, the counter no longer showed Sky Priority, but it was still printed on my boarding pass, so I pushed the airport staff to put priority tags on our bags. I forgot all about that on the return, though. Thankfully, the bags still came out fairly quickly.

On the outbound, our A320 seats were upgraded to Comfort+. On the return, we were on a 767, and somehow the seat I had selected—the first row of economy—showed as regular economy when I picked it, but once I boarded I realized it was actually Comfort+.

On the outbound flight, we seemed to hit some clear-air turbulence, and it was pretty bumpy. That flight also had no Wi-Fi, and one of the screens broke mid-flight, so after I got back I emailed Delta again and got a few thousand points out of it.

Wi-Fi gift card

I went to the Centurion Lounge to get a cup of milk for my kid, and wow, the food at the tapas counter there was really bad.

My partner loves taking photos of the sunset and clouds outside the plane window.

The trip home had a few hiccups too. Early in the morning, we were notified that because the inbound flight was delayed, our flight would also be delayed by 2 hours. On a previous trip, when our flight was delayed, we went to check our bags based on the delayed departure time, and the ground staff warned us that even if a flight is delayed, you should still check your bags according to the original schedule. Otherwise, if the delay ends up getting lifted, the whole plane could be waiting for you. So this time we went to check in at the original scheduled time and asked the staff again, and the agent said, it's up to you. I’m still conflicted about which time you’re actually supposed to use for checking bags.

Anyway, since we got there early, we left our things in the lounge so my teammate could rest for a bit, and I took my kid to buy some souvenirs. But when my shopping basket was only half full, I suddenly got a text message saying our plane had departed 3 minutes earlier. I figured it was probably a mistake, but just to be safe, I had to abandon my half-filled basket and sprint with my kid to the gate. The gate agent confirmed it was indeed a mix-up, but said the inbound flight would arrive a little earlier and recommended that everyone come wait at the gate. So I called my kid’s dad over too, and after that I had no mood to go back shopping.

And yet in the end, the plane still departed at the originally delayed time anyway... the stuff in my shopping basket!

This corridor at HNL is something we stop to look at every time we come. My little boy loves watching planes take off and land.

The lounge is downstairs in the terminal, and there are several gardens in the center area that are quite יפה. The lounge itself doesn’t have food, just a few drinks.

Getting Around

On our previous three trips to Oahu, we once rented a car for the entire trip and barely drove it, and on our last visit we didn’t rent a car at all. But sometimes you really do need one.

For example, on our 2019 trip to Hanauma Bay, taking the bus there went smoothly, but the return bus was severely delayed. With a one-year-old child, we couldn’t keep waiting, and there was no Uber available either, so it turned into a bit of a mess.

So this time, with the mindset that we should rent a car whether we ended up driving it much or not, we rented one again. Avis gave us a Malibu, and my teammate said it was perfectly fine and that there was no need to switch to an SUV. The three of us didn’t need one.

Later on, since we ended up going to quite a few places, the rental car was definitely useful.

Other than renting a car, we often used Uber or took the bus when going out to restaurants. There’s not much to say about Uber. As for the bus, it now uses a transit card. At most ABC Store locations in Waikiki, you can buy the transit card called Holo. The card functions as a day pass on the day you buy it, and after that you can reload it on the Holo website with a credit card. The daily fare cap is $7.5. We usually took the bus at most once a day. A single ride is $3, and children age 5 and under ride free, so my child still qualified for that.

The bus actually isn’t that much cheaper than taking a rideshare, but our kid really likes riding it, and we also felt it was one way to experience local life. Walking to the bus stop after dinner also counted as a little post-meal stroll.

Shopping

We didn’t do much shopping this time. Besides the stores we usually visit, after snorkeling at Electric Beach we also went to the Disney Hotel to shop for Duffy and friends.

The Disney Hotel offers 30 minutes of free parking, and after that it’s $8 or something like that. Unfortunately, we parked for 34 minutes... But we managed to buy LinaBell and StellaLou again! The Hawaii Disney selection is different from Tokyo DisneySea’s, with almost no overlap.

On top of that, the dark-skinned Kitty and dark-skinned Kuromi items that ABC Store started carrying after the pandemic have also been very popular. They’re really cute in person, so we brought a few more home.

Oahu Series

About the Author

This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account of a reader from our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Drinks, and Fun. These are all original, high-quality articles, so if you’re interested, feel free to give it a follow.