We have a 10pm flight back to Canada on a Friday night the end of August. We need to drop off a rental car before the flight. What time should we leave Aulani? We don’t want to be rushed and are planning to eat dinner at the airport. Thanks.
Our flight will be arriving in Honolulu at 3:00 pm. By the time we pick up our rental, it will be 4 - 4:30 pm I'm assuming, right in the middle of rush hour. Anyone have an opinion on whether we should try to have an early dinner near the airport to kill time before heading to Aulani, or would you go straight there despite the traffic?
So much time would people leave for a flight to Kauai? It's at 11:54 on a Saturday, also have to return the rental.
You’d be driving right into peak rush hour at 4:30 (assuming its a weekday). If you feel safe leaving luggage in your rental car early dinner wouldn’t be the worst idea, theres not a whole lot of options near by...and most are fast food type options...there’s a few like ruby tuesday near by, but not really much in the way of places most would like to eat at when in hawaii.
It can be a tough choice to decide between leaving luggage in a car for an hour +, or driving for 2 hours or so in stop and go traffic (mostly slower than 15 mph).
You could also try doing a scenic route drive (head for the h-3 to kaneohe, then drive up through kahuku, north shore, etc. before turning back towards mililani and then towards aulani.) it’ll take longer but at least the scenery will be much nicer...and theres a good chance you won’t see much traffic...just a longer drive. Just gotta be sure theres no road closures that could turn a nice scenic drive into a traffic nightmare.
Really Bad as in "I'd get a root canal before I did that". You'd get terrible traffic getting down there and then terrible traffic all the way back. IF you were going to do that, drive to Kapahulu, eat dinner somewhere close (side street inn is right there) and then drive to aulani later after traffic lessens a bit.How bad do you think it would be to drive from the Airport to Snorkel Bob's in Honolulu during rush hour? I forgot that we have to pick up our gear before heading to Aulani.
Our flight will be arriving in Honolulu at 3:00 pm. By the time we pick up our rental, it will be 4 - 4:30 pm I'm assuming, right in the middle of rush hour. Anyone have an opinion on whether we should try to have an early dinner near the airport to kill time before heading to Aulani, or would you go straight there despite the traffic?
Thanks! We are flying from Toronto to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Honolulu. Toronto traffic is THE WORST. I can't even imagine something worse, really. Hopefully that will make Honolulu rush hour traffic seem like a leisurely Sunday drive. Now I'm worried about my Snorkel Bob reservation based on buffettgirl's comment. I think I may have to cancel it and find an alternate time to pick up our snorkel gear. TOO MANY DECISIONS. SO LITTLE TIME.We were at Aulani in early February. We landed around 3pm on a Friday. We picked up our rental car and went straight to Aulani. The traffic was slow, but it stayed moving. We live in a major metropolitan area, so that type of traffic didn't bother us. As long as you're ok with that, you'll be fine heading to Aulani right away. My parents live in a small town, so that type of traffic would have bothered them more.
Thanks! We are flying from Toronto to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Honolulu. Toronto traffic is THE WORST. I can't even imagine something worse, really. Hopefully that will make Honolulu rush hour traffic seem like a leisurely Sunday drive. Now I'm worried about my Snorkel Bob reservation based on buffettgirl's comment. I think I may have to cancel it and find an alternate time to pick up our snorkel gear. TOO MANY DECISIONS. SO LITTLE TIME.
Well, it probably wont be too busy at the airport but you may want to get there at least 1.5 hours ahead of time(I always aim for 2) You need to return your car so give yourself half an hour for that. so absolute latest you want to be back to the airport area would be 7:30/8:00pm BUT not much is open at the actual airport to eat at that time of night in the departures area so you may want to hit something just before the car rental return. We usually find something to eat at the Moanalua Shopping plaza and we fill up the car there, it is basically 5 minutes from the airport off of a street called Valkenburg which connects to Nimitz (the road you take to get to the airport) There are so many options like Panda Express, Taco Bell, McDs, Subway, LocoMoco and a stand alone Ruby Tuesdays among other places to eat. Another option is to take your food to go and eat once you get into the airport. I know last time we left on a late night flight the only thing open for food was a Starbucks.
https://www.yelp.ca/biz/moanalua-shopping-center-honolulu-2
We have left Aulani at 6:30 for a 10pm flight and this gives us tons of time to get past the traffic (usually not too bad going toward the airport at that time) get gas, eat, return the car, go through check in and customs, and get to our gate. I would be panicked if we left any later, all it takes is one accident on the highway and you are backed up with no other route for quite a stretch.
Thank you so much, I was planning on grabbing dinner at the airport, I didn’t take into consideration that everything would be closed by that time. We will definitely eat on the way or maybe grab something to go - it gives us something to do while waiting at the gate. I’m already dreading the trek home with my seven year old son and husband, no dinner would have made it extra miserable.
It would be like landing at Pearson, driving down the 427 to get snorkel gear at Sherway, then driving across the Gardiner and up the DVP at rush hour to get to Aulani. I promise you, this is not a great idea.
As far as the snorkel gear rental, if you are a Costo member or know someone willing to go for you, I just saw decent snorkel gear in the stores here. I am a total germaphobe so I always bring our own. It is actually super easy to pack and then I dont have to worry about loosing them or what ever.