Kona, Is It Worth a 2 Day Excursion?
 

Long-winded, bear with me:

Going to Kauai next month with some friends for the husband's birthday, we have been there at least 10-15 times and prefer the south shore. His parents own a place in Poipu where we will stay. The initial plan was that we'd all arrive in Kauai together, the our friends would head to the big island for the second week and we would go over there for a few days. Honestly, I was never that keen on heading to Kona to begin with as the Poipu place is free and with the plane tix, it adds up,+ it is additional jacking around. The husband wants to go and with the change in inter-island carriers prices have gone down to some extent. So I go to finally book the island flights last week, we are flying direct EWR to HNL and i had to buy the HNL-LIH round trip + the Kona segment. I was hoping that some carrier may have brought back the 6 pack of inter-island flights, but I cannot find a carrier offering it.

Anyway, the round trip flight from LIH to Kona is nearly $300/per person, we do have to do a round trip. Is this worth the price for 3 days/2nights?

Alternately, is there such a thing as the book of pre-paid inter-island flights anymore?

*note, the husband is rethinking based in the price of the Kona flight cost as well, not just me trying to get out of it...

Thanks!

I think it depends on what you want to do in Kona. If you're going to see the volcano, I would fly into Hilo instead of Kona; it's much closer to the volcano area.

Kauai and the Big Island are my favorite Hawaii islands. If I was going through the trouble of flying to the Big Island, I would prefer to stay more days; however, if I had a free condo on the south side of Kauai (our favorite side, too), then I would stay put.

The last time we fly inter-island, I think our tickets were about $100 round trip, but that's been 2 years ago, and I may have gotten a good deal -- can't remember. I think $300 per person is too much to pay for inter-island flights, but I haven't checked prices lately. We just got tickets for Hawaii in May, so I will be checking out prices soon. I know that last time, we joined the Aloha Club (I think it was Aloha, but not sure), and we were able to get discounted tickets.

Not sure what your exact travel dates are:? but was able to find Hawaiian, go!, and Mokulele, airline round trip tickets from LIH to KOA near end of July on all three airlines for ~ 200$-)per person on their respective websites: www.hawaiianair.com, www.iflygo.com, www.mokuleleairlines.com

My vote (having been to both multiple times): NOT worth it!!!

If you're talking Kailua-Kona, think: traffic, strip malls, and no beach.

If you had money to burn and could stay in Kohala at the Mauna Kea, Mauna Lani, or Hapuna Prince...then maybe.

thanks for the input will put the stop to the big island....