We're headed back for the first time in 12 years. We spent our entire trip on Maui last time. We would like to see a couple of the other islands this time (I'm thinking maybe BI and Kauii) (sp). Any suggestions for how to carve up our week, and any favorite resorts? Budget is flexible, but we don't need a 5 star reort to be happy.

Thanks for any input.

The rule of thumb is one island per week. The Big Island is just too big to split with another island for a week.

We had a similar experience. We did nine days on Maui for our first trip. For our second trip, we did a split of BI with Kauai, 5 days in BI and 3 in Kauai. We ended up seeing everything we wanted to, but we didn't have a lot of downtime. Loved all three islands. I wasn't expecting to like the BI as much as we did. We split our time between the Hapuna Beach Prince and the Kilauea Lodge so we had beach time and volcano time. The Prince is on a beautiful beach, and the Kilauea Lodge is kind of rustic and charming. We would stay at both again. On Kauai, we stayed at the Marriott in Lihue, really only because we had enough points to stay for free.

OK, so I think we have decided to not island hop, and just spend the entire week on the BI. So, I'm still looking for hotel/resort recommendations. Anyone have a favorite on the BI?

Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel. Fabulous beach, nice rooms. And I just love that swimming pool. Watching the sun go down and sitting in the swimming pool as the lights go on and the palm trees are swaying in the breeze.......

I recommend the same, and throw in the Kilauea Lodge if you want to spend a night or two by Volcanoes National Park. Do not miss Akaka Falls - absolutely gorgeous.

My vote is for the Hapuna. Great beach and nice rooms

My favorite is the Mauna Lani because the grounds are historically interesting with the ancient royal fishponds. If you are there on the full moon nearest a Saturday night, they offer a wonderful "Talk Story" night on the beach for free for anyone to attend.

I think all the resorts on the Kohala coast are pretty nice, if you find better prices on some.

The Mauna Kea is newly reopening. The Hilton Waikoloa is often less expensive than others, and a bit Disney-like, but still quite nice.

All the resorts have interesting restaurants and other features like petroglyphs or special entertainment, including star gazing, for example.

So, I agree with the Hapuna and Kilauea Lodge recommendations, but if they are too expensive, there are other great places, too.

We got a discount at the Hapuna using our Entertainment book, not sure if they still have the deal, but worth looking into.

Hubby and I spent 2 weeks on the BI in April. We found the best deal for us was a house rental. We ended up staying just south of Hilo, but we found fairly good prices on Kona side as well. It may be worth a look. And I would definitely spend the whole week on BI. You could do something different every day and still have more to do.
Let me know if I can answer any questions for you.
God bless!
Tammy

We always stay at the Hapuna Beach Prince. You can join their Prince Preferred and receive 10% off their best price.

We also like to stay in Volcano for a few days. This year we stayed at Volcano Village Lodge and loved it.