My wife and I are celebrating her 50th B-day with a trip to Hawaii leaving the day after Christmas. We are flying from Chicago to Honolulu arriving early evening local time on Saturday 12-26-09. Our plans are to spend the night and then visit Pearl Harbor and the Arizona Memorial on Sunday 12-27. We leave for Kauai on Monday morning 12-28 and spend the rest of the week in Kauai.

I need recommendations for a hotel near the Honolulu airport that is not too expensive and yet clean and not run down.

Any thoughts?

Let me get this straight. You are going to Hawaii to celebrate & want to stay near the airport??? I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you wouldn't rather stay in the Waikiki Beach area - I'm almost certain your wife would.

LOL..I was thinking the same thing OSB..
My wife would ream me a new one if I didn't at least get a decent hotel on her 50th on Waikiki beach..they run about $100+..especially in this economy.
Motels near the airport..I can't even imagine what they are like..no offense jf..just listen to us..
try expedia.com or similar travel websites.
Best to you and your wife!

Get a hotel in Waikiki for the two nights.

If you rent a car for the couple of days, besides USS Arizona, you have time for National Cemetery of the Pacific & Tantalus Drive and driving tour #1 or #2 on this thread:

http://www.fodors.com/community/unit...trip-to-hi.cfm

Also there is a huge Christmas display in front of Honolulu Hale (city hall) on South King Street. Nice Christmas tree & wreath display inside Honolulu Hale.

Lobbies of hotels like Royal Hawaiian, Moana Surfrider will be nicely decorated. Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel always has a huge gingerbread village display.

Repeating the good advice above. You want a hotel in Waikiki, even for a short stay. There's only 3 hotels at the airport and none of them are nice.

Looks like it's unanimous so far. Stay on Waikiki! Sheraton Princess Kaiulani was mentioned above. I'm staying there for my third straight year in a row (in Sept). It is across the street from the beach, but in a great location and a great view if you get a "high ocean" room.

Waikiki for sure. Forget the airport!

Waikiki is about 12 miles and half and hour by car from the airport. Taxi costs about $30-40. Hire a car for convenience.

If you were my DH I'd tell you that an airport hotel in Hawaii would be grounds for divorce!

If you don't want to stay at a big, busy Waikiki hotel during Christmas vacation week, you might consider one of the smaller boutique hotels. My friends love Aston's Waikiki Joy.
Also check out the highly-rated properties of the Aqua chain:
www.aquaresorts.com
They are a growing presence in Hawaii. I read that they just took over management of the Kauai Hilton.

They are also taking over the Ilikai Hotel. You might be able to get good holiday prices if you book the Ilikai right now.They actually closed down the hotel last week, and word may not be out that they are back in business with new management yet.

Wow folks....should I get the rope and help you and my wife string me up??? LOL !!!

I guess my reasoning for staying near the airport was simplicity. We're only staying in Honolulu for a day. We'll get there late on Saturday, sightsee including Pearl Harbor on Sunday and then leave for Kauai early on Monday morning.

Thank you for the input, I'll widen my search away from the airport.

Waikiki is only about 20 minutes away. if your flight is early on Monday, you'll miss traffic, which isn't all that bad in that direction anyway.

Stay in a hotel at the end of Waikiki (towards Ala Moana Beach and Center) as it is a lot simpler and faster to get to airport from there. Ala Moana Hotel, Ilikai, Holiday Inn, Hale Koa (Military only) Hilton HV, are a few that come to mind in that end.

If you were arriving at the airport at 10 and night and flying out the next morning at 8, then "simplicity" of staying near the airport would make sense. But if you're going to go elsewhere on the island (gee, I hope so!) then what difference does it make if you drive a bit to get elsewhere from the airport or if you drive to the airport from elsewhere? It's six of one, half a dozen of the other. Meanwhile you'll have a better experience driving TO the airport from a decent place, rather that driving FROM the airport to see anything decent.

http://tinyurl.com/me6f75

This is a good map of Wakiki hotel locations. I don't know if it's complete. The airport is to the west.

If I may chime in with a second vote....Aqua Hotels has REALLY come up as a good quality boutique chain. Sign up on their website, they have a lot of good specials.

I'm not stringing anyone up, but I guarantee you'll be thanking us all later ;-)

Here's another idea... If you don't need to be RIGHT on the beach, or require hotel services( $30 breakfast, anyone?) for the night, check out the Aston Waikiki Beach Tower. We just returned last night ( fourth trip to Hawaii) and after staying at the Aston Waikiki Beach Tower, I am a total apartment convert. Our luxury two-bed two bath high floor with terrace overlooking the beach premier apartment cost us a whopping ( NOT!) $494/night. I found that deal through the Aston's web site, so not sure how long it will be available, but it's well worth a try. Obviously, if they're still offering that rate for the 2-bed, a 1-bed should be much less. You can also choose not to have a full ocean view for less money. We thought the apartment was really amazing- nice kitchen, so we saved on breakfast/lunch, dining room, flat screen TVs, excellent beds and AC. And the view from the enormous corner terrace was like a postcard. We saw the beach out front, and to the side of the terrace, a good view of Diamond Head. It was really heaven.

The Aston is across the street from a public beach where we were able to rent lounges for $5/ an hour. It's also only a few blocks from the International Marketplace, and there are tons of cheap restaurants and ubiqutious ABC stores in both directions. We really thought it was a lot better than a hotel.

Just to give you an idea, last year, we stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. While the grounds were quite nice, our room in one of the towers was nothing special for over $300/night, and had a tiny terrace.

Now, if after all this, you still want to stay at a hotel, also check out the deals Starwood is offering. Not sure what they have in Hawaii at the moment, but I did just get a mailing saying that they're offering 50% off at a lot of their properties.

Anyway, have a wonderful time, and congratulations!

You might also want to check out the Best Western Coconut. They have great reviews (tripadvisor.com)& was one of the hotels we had seriuosly considered for our upcoming trip. Price is right if you don't want to spend a lot for such a short time. We decided to stay on the beach since we'll be there for a few days otherwise it would have been the Best Western no contest!