Any Big Island Recommendations?

[ct7878]

We have just decided to spend 5-7 days on the Big Island before our week at Aulani. While not Aulani directly related, I am curious if anyone has any recommendations- hotels/Airbnb if particular. We are thinking we might do a few nights on the Hilo side and few on the Kona side so recommendations for either would be great and welcomed!

 

[gregf71]

We did an Aulani and Big Island trip in the summer of 2018. The Big Island was a blast! Sadly, our visit was cut a day short because of the hurricane, but we still saw, did, and of course ate some wonderful things there! Here is a link to our trip report with a bunch of info:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/c...lani-oahu-the-big-island-august-2018.3703678/

 

[dachsie]

We have just decided to spend 5-7 days on the Big Island before our week at Aulani. While not Aulani directly related, I am curious if anyone has any recommendations- hotels/Airbnb if particular. We are thinking we might do a few nights on the Hilo side and few on the Kona side so recommendations for either would be great and welcomed!

I just started my trip report for the Big Island so stay tuned. We stayed at Hilton Waikoloa Village which was really nice. The Marriott Waikoloa Village was nice too. Both are on A Bay which is gorgeous. We drove to Hilo side as you will read later so cant recommend anything there.

 

[jodybird511]

Hi! We did a few days on the Big Island in May 2018 and are going back in June. We had originally planned to stay in the Pahoa area (Hilo side), but Kilauea had other plans for us in May 2018. We ended up renting a condo through Kona Coast Vacations. I would HIGHLY recommend renting through them. They were very responsive and easy to rent through. They also have many properties. Some of their properties are also listed through Airbnb, but you save by renting directly through them. We enjoyed tidepooling on the Big Island, walking through Kona town, and visiting a coffee farm. It was very enjoyable. This year, we plan to visit the National Park--that was our original 2018 plan...alas.... You should be aware before you go that Kona can get pretty voggy at times, which greatly decreases visibility...

 

[winjos]

We stayed on the Big Island in 2018. In Hilo, we stayed at The House of Paddles (VRBO) and it was a fabulous place. In Kona, we stayed at a friends condo (so can't help there).

I know you didn't ask about activities, but here are a few highlights from our trip:

On the Hilo side::

• The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just north of Hilo (the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen!)
• Akaka Falls
• Tex Drive-In (The best malasadas!)

On the Kona side:

• Swimming with Manta Rays (this was our number one favorite excursion - the most incredible experience!)
• Octopus Farm (Informative and an up close experience with octopi)
• Tour a coffee farm

After swimming with Manta Rays, our second favorite experience was driving up to Mauna Kea Observatory to experience the "tour" of the night sky. It is very cold and can be crowded, but the view is spectacular and the tour of the night sky was breathtaking. Oh - and it's free!

We really enjoyed our time on the Big Island!

 

[Tangled26]

We visited the big island in 2017 and last June. Both times we stayed at the Fairmont Orchid and absolutely loved it! It is a beautiful resort with a wonderful protected beach, making it safer for the kids to swim in the ocean. They loved seeing the fish, and there are always a couple of sea turtles around.

We also did a night snorkeling with Manta Rays adventure that was the highlight of our trip. And both times my boys loved going to the Octopus Farm. You get to play with and feed live Octopus, which is amazing.

 

[OffToDWD]

We've stayed at "Gorgeous Magic Sands Home #LaaloaLove" (Airbnb) and it was great!

 

[Nalshersmom]

We really enjoyed touring a coffee farm. We also spent a day driving to Volcanos National Park to visit the steam vents. On the way we stopped by the southern most bakery in the United States which was sooo good. They had the best malasadas! We also visited Rainbow Falls in Hilo which were just pretty nice. Behind them are the banyon trees which were amazing. We stayed in Kona which was touristy, but we had lots of places to walk to.

 

[JamieKay]

If you're willing to rough it a bit, there are really nice cabins at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. They sleep four in very comfortable beds (one full, two twin bunks). The big downside is that you have to use a communal bathroom, like for a campground. Only those in the cabins have the key. There is only one shower for men, and one for women.

The best part is the price, just $80 - $100 a night! We used it as a base of operations and hiked all over the place. A lot of the trails are closed now, due to volcano activity, but there is still a lot to see there. It is an amazing park.

 

[Hannah nz]

We stayed in a condo in Waikoloa beach - it was so cheap compared to what we paid on Oahu. This area is so much nicer than Kona and close to all the best beaches.
We also loved Hapuna beach park - spent two days there - best beach we went to and there is some off the beach snorkeling
The drive to Hilo wasn't too bad - we did ziplining, a segway garden tour, and a heli flight all in the same day trip.

Our Manta ray swim was cancelled due to rough seas so if you are interested I would book that on one of your first nights so you have room to rebook if needed.

Do you want a relaxed beach trip or are you wanting more drives and activities?

ETA: we booked our condo in VRBO and there are plenty of safe legal rentals there. There can be problems with people putting private homes on Airbnb that are not legal to rent out so you could find your booking is cancelled when you arrive.

 

[SuJo]

I can't remember the tour company that we used but we did an all day tour that picked us up from our hotel, took us to a coffee farm where we did a coffee tasting, we did a tour through Volcano national park which included the lava tubes and going to the observation stations, black sand beach, had lunch sometime, we ended at the volcano winery where we had dinner and did a wine tasting. I still order wine from them, they were so good. If I can find the name of the company I will post it.

 

[loves to dive]

We were there 5 or 6 years ago on a dive trip. Stayed at Courtyard by Marriott King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Hotel . We rented a car at the airport since we needed to drive to the dock where the dive operation was located. The hotel was o.k. nothing fancy but we are divers so never expect anything over the top. They do have a luau there which was good (I couldn't eat much) and they have a great dock that the mantas visit every morning. We would get up early, grab some coffee and walk out there, talk to the fishermen and watch the mantas play. We went to the big island because we read it was our best chance to dive with mantas in Hawaii. We had gone to Paulau years earlier and were told the same thing and that was a bust, although the diving was the best we've ever done. We planned on taking one day off and driving to the volcano but I got some weird sickness where the first night I was up all night throwing up, went diving the next day anyway. Then I couldn't eat anything, literally couldn't swallow. Wasn't sick at my stomach, didn't have a sore throat just couldn't swallow food. We had planned on taking our last full day to drive to the volcano since you can't dive after going to those heights but instead I was in bed all day the day after diving so we dove the rest of the week and didn't get to go. I did take the last day to walk to Hulihe`e Palace Museum and a little shopping district there. Oh, and we did get to do a night dive with the mantas. Night dives are not my favorite but wow was that amazing, one little one was fascinated with my honey's video lights and followed us all the way back to the dive boat.