KTinTX

Hello. I'm trying to plan our June trip to Hawaii and have a question about arrival and drive times on Kauai. We'll be coming from Maui and arriving at LIH at 10 a.m. We are staying at the Princeville and renting a jeep from Thrifty.

What I would like to do is schedule our NaPali Catamaran snorkel/tour for that afternoon (1pm) Is this a feasible plan? Will there be enough time for getting our car, making the drive (how long is it...never been), checking in or stowing luggage and changing clothes, and driving to Hanalei?

Can anyone help with this? I'd like to do this because we will only have 3 days on Kauai and would prefer not to break up the other 2 days with this experience.

KTinTX

JohnD

Aloha KTinTX, just returned from Kauai and BI, and the drive from LIH to Princeville should be under an hour-depending upon the traffic in Kapaa, the drive to Hanalei from Princeville is about 10 minutes and Napali amaran is easy to find in the center of Hanalei. If you don't have already suggest picking up a copy of the "Kauai Revealed" guidebook which(www.wizardpub.com/kauai/kauai.html) also lists driving times around Kauai.

carbogilligan

Will you be checking your baggage?
A real time saver is to have one wait for the luggage and the other take the shuttle to the rental car place. Return to baggage claim with the rental car to pick up your party and your bags at curbside. Also, see if you can process paperwork for rental car ahead of time so you can do express checkout.
Lihue to Hanalei can be one hour drive. You should make it thru Kapaa before the lunchtime crowd hits the streets. GOOD LUCK!

iceeu2

Ok...JohnD...if you really want to help KTinTX out...post that trip report! We are ready to imagine we were there.

JohnD

Reply to iceeu2,

Trrrrryyyyyyyiiiiiinnnnggg haaaarrrrddd for a T.R., but jetlagging,&TAX and like Kal says "some of us have to work $)fo' a livin"

auntiemaria

Re: rental car

Follow carbogillian's advice on having someone go get the car. At Lihu`e Airport, Thrifty is located waaaaaaay off-airport and they only have 2 shuttles.

Assuming your flight arrives on time (even our inter-island flights are experience delays...sigh...), allow 10-30 minutes to get your rental car, and if there are no other delays, you'll easily make it to Princeville within an hour.

KTinTX

Thanks guys. I'm going to reschedule that boat trip to our arrival day in the afternoon. Check-in in Hanalei will be 12:45 for the boat, so we will have almost 3 hours from "touchdown" to get there. With our 3 day schedule, I felt it would be much better to have 2 "empty" days so that we could have one full day for South/West Kauai and one day for just hanging out on the North shore. IT wouldn't be a vacation without at least one HURRY UP moment or two.

KTinTX

Kal

hahahaha...maybe I should say "looking like I'm working".

KT, I'd suggest you make sure that no matter what time you make the reservations for the first day, you make sure of their cancellation/refund policy or else some unforeseen/uncontrolled delay will have you looking like one of "those people" on "Airline" telling the poor cust service people "But I got reservations I'm going to lose".

As for the "terminal tango", if Thrify is off prem., it may not be a good idea to separate unless you have cell phones.
Just my personal paranoia coming thru.
It seems like the a'lines have been pretty quick about getting the luggage off plane the past few trips over.

Good luck and mucho mahalos!
Kal

KTinTX

Hi Kal. Thanks for your input. I'm new here, but I've seen lots of good Kauai info from your posts. Yes, I'm a bit nervous about it, but feel like it shouldn't be to bad for a couple of reasons. First, we do have a direct flight from Maui, so no other connections to get in the way or lose bags. Worst case of 1 hour to get car+bags, another 1 hour to make drive to Princeville, and it still leaves almost an hour to drop luggage (maybe not check-in...just depends) and get to Hanalei.

Maybe I should ask this: Would you rather (having only 3 days, remember):
A) arrive morning day 1...and just explore/drive to Pville hang out on N. Shore....Day 2 NaPali boat tour morning...afternoon hang out on N. Shore...Day 3 drive to the canyon and polihale....OR
B) arrrive day1 and NaPali that afternoon...Days 2 and 3 one full day each of N shore and canyon/polihale/s shore?????

Any opinions?

KT

carbogilligan

I personally like Plan A! You won't feel rushed or stressed on your first day. Kauai is meant to be enjoyed!
Take the time and enjoy the drive north!

DB

I wish to interject and contradict:

Day 1 = Airport, Wailua Falls, Opaekaa Falls, Wailua Lighthouse, check-in, hangout, see Princeville, snorkel/swim behind hotel, etc.

Day 2 = west/south sides, Waimea Canyon & city, Blowhole & Poipu

Day 3 = Morning Boat tour, then see Hanalei city & bay, check caves along Nshore (EOR), stop at a couple neat beaches/views (Hanalei Valley Lookout).

DB

Sorry, meant Kilauea Lighthouse. It's right on the the way to Princeville.

KTinTX

DB, Thanks for your input. My only concern with your proposal is that we are renting a jeep (for the fun of it) and will have all our luggage/baggage with us. I don't know that I want to leave my car & bags unattended at lookouts etc., especially in the jeep where it can't even be locked in a trunk.

KT

ms_go

You can see Opaeka'a Falls, Wailua Falls and the Kileaua Lighthouse (from the first lookout; the one further away from the lighthouse) without having to walk out of sight of your car. If you want to walk out to the lighthouse or do any hiking around the falls, then that would be an issue, particularly at Wailua Falls because it is fairly remote.

Kal

You're asking the wrong person since I've been voted "Mr Kauaian Barstool/beachchair" for the past 4 straight years!

Kaymit

Hi

I have a very similar problem to this poster. We also arrive in Kaui at 10 am from Maui. We will spend the first two nights at the Hyatt and the last 3 nights up north. We would like to do the helicopter tour at 1 pm on the day we arrive to make best use of our time. The tour leaves from Henepepe airport which is not far from the Hyatt. I thought we could stop at the Hyatt and store our luggage even thought it would be to early to check in and go to the helicopter tour.
Do you think this is doable?

iceeu2

Kaymit, you are not going to have alot of time to spare....Say you arrive in Lihue at 10 am...and everything goes swell...you will arrive at the Hyatt at 11ish..........store your bags and such.....drive to Hanapepe.......and its then noonish (at the earliest)...don't you have to check in about 30-45 mins early for the helicopter tour for your safety instructions and such???
That's IF everything plays out perfectly...

DB

KT -- point taken.

Some years ago my niece went to Oahu and rented a jeep, they had their camera and stuff stolen while they were looking around (probably at Diamond Head).

But you may want to rethink the jeep, you really don't need it on Kauai, maybe a convertible would be better? ...you can still lock it up. We've never had any issues on Kauai with keeping our stuff in the trunk while out on the beach for the day. During one trip, we stayed over on Oahu for the better part of a day (~12 hours) and had an SUV, drove North Shore and all around Waikiki with all our luggage in the back.

KTinTX

DB....I got such a good rate on the jeep it just seemed like the perfect place to tool around in one!! And we'll have had a convertible on Maui, and variety IS the spice of life, right?

Anyway, I've about talked myself out of trying to make the mad rush to the hotel just to make the boat trip. That is one thing we would hate to miss. We'll have two afternoons to explore the north shore, won't have to feel rushed getting to Princeville, and a full day to drive around to Waimea etc.

Guess I'll have to call and change it back. LMAO at myself!


KTinTX

Kaymit

I have thought some more about the timing of the helicopter ride and decided to plan it for Sunday the day we check out of the Hyatt to to stay at the north shore. Now when we arrive on Friday we may see how clear it is in waima canyon and drive up there after checking into the Hyatt. But again we don't have to do this we can just play in the pools at the Hyatt all afternoon.