Planning a wedding on Maui?

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So you’ve said yes to the proposal and now you’re considering a destination wedding on Maui.  You’re not alone.  Many celebs have tied the knot there as well like Woody Harrelson, Pat Benetar, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, Anna Farris and others.  If you’re looking for a resource to start making phone calls for your big day, here’s a great one.  Maui No Ka Oi magazine has a list of businesses that can help make your day as special as you’ve dreamed it would be!  Congratulations!

Going snorkeling? Know what you’re looking at

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If you’ve spent any time in the islands or even reading up on them before a vacation, you may know the names of some of the fish.  We know the names of the ones that end up on our plates like Mahi Mahi, Opakapaka, Ono, Ahi, etc but what about the little ones we see when we’re snorkeling just off the beach?  There are usually plenty of snorkel shops that will sell you fish id cards for your adventure but I found a place that gives you one to print out at home for free!  Whether you want to memorize it before your trip or print it, laminate it and take it underwater with you, this is a great source to get to know the underwater friends you’re sharing the ocean with!  This Snorkel Maui website is a great resource for those who plan to make snorkeling a part of their vacation and good refresher tips for locals.

Click here to go to Hawaiian fish guide.

Snap up cheap interisland fare by tomorrow!

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If you’re looking to fly to the Big Island or Kauai from Oahu by the end of the year you’d better hurry to grab a great deal.  The three major interisland airlines are offering $39 one-way fares from Honolulu to Kona and Lihu’e for travel through Dec. 31 and tickets must be purchased by tomorrow (Wednesday).  Some restrictions apply so check with each airline.

Hawaiian Airlines website
Go! Airlines website
Mokulele Airlines website

The Aloha Diners Club

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Most of us know about the Entertainment Books that are local to each state.  Often times current year books are sold out for Hawaii before the year is half over with locals and visitors looking to save some money in the islands.  There is another option to save money on all islands…The Aloha Diners Club.  It’s similar to the Entertainment books but there appears to be more options for neighbor island dining, activities and events.  While it is cheaper than Entertainment at $19.95 compared to $35, there are fewer coupons the whole.  The ones they do offer are good though and you can easily recoup your $20 and more with using just one coupon depending on where you want to go!

To check out their offerings to see if the Aloha Diners Club is something that would benefit you on your vacation, click here to go to their website.  If you look on the left side, you’ll see they list coupon categories, click the category you want and list all and it will list the vendors coupons for every island.

Pink Palace on hiatus…

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The Royal Hawaiian Hotel aka the “pink palace” on Waikiki Beach is closed for 7 months for $110 million renovations.   The 400 employees have either transferred to other hotels or will take time off.  It will be interesting to see the impact 582 less hotel rooms available in Waikiki will have.  Under normal circumstances it may have driven the costs of hotel rooms up but seeing how the economy is tanking right now, people may luck out.  Their website is refering people to Moana Surfrider (Westin), Sheraton Waikiki and Sheraton Princess Kaiulani. 

It is scheduled to reopen January 1 to ring in 2009.

It’s Carnival of Aloha time

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It’s time to see what the Hawaii blogosphere has to offer!   It’s the Carnival of Aloha at Evelyn’s place.  It’s a great way to see other Hawaii oriented bloggers in action! 

Click here to make your way to the carnival.

Will road projects have you sitting in traffic?

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With the astronomical price of gas, a stop and go road project can put even more of a pinch in the gas budget of locals and visitors alike.  The Honolulu Advertiser has just released major island road projects so you can plan your routes to work or your favorite island attraction.

Oahu Road Projects

Kauai Road Projects

Maui Road Projects

Big Island Road Projects

A reminder, you can go to HawaiiGasPrices.com to get a heads up on where you can get the cheapest gas on the island.   Currently you’ll pay under $4.00 on Oahu but on Maui some areas are close to $4.50 per gallon.

Man made “lava” gives homeowners a creative option

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In looking for different, unique things we wanted to “bookmark” for our future home on the Big Island, I came across Pacific Gunite’s website.  While they specialize in swimming pools and water tanks, they also specialize in a really cool process which allows you to be able to have the look and feel of real hardened lava which they call “lava-crete.”  They take molds from actual lava flows and use it to make anything from patio pavers to pool surrounds to fireplace facades.  I haven’t used them or anything so if you have and would like to leave your experience here, feel free.  But I thought their work was too unique not to share!

lavacrete.jpg

Ocean safety a must

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As word gets out of another drowning at Hanauma Bay and with the summer vacation season approaching, now is a good time to familiarize yourself with local beaches and their hazards.  The Hawaii Lifeguard Association and SOEST has a great website full of real time information such as jellyfish alerts, weather and surf conditions, safety tips and island by island breakdowns of popular beaches. 

This website is a must visit whether you’re a local or visitor.  Awareness is the key to knowing what to do when you may find yourself in a changing situation while in the ocean.  To visit this wonderful resource, click below and add it to your favorites!

Stay safe everyone!

Visit Hawaii Beach Safety for lifeguard sponsored hazard conditions for Hawaii beaches

Hawaii IPTV review: Is it worth the money?

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There’s something about tv in Hawaii.  It’s the warm aloha of local newscasts, cooking shows, various cable access shows and even the commercials.  Whether you lived in Hawaii or visited on vacation, you find when you’re away, you yearn for the local flair.  Enter Hawaii IPTV.  I was so excited when I saw this because if there’s one thing I miss when I’m not in the islands, it’s watching Guy Hagi tell me the weather or Sam Choy tell me what local cuisine I can whip up.  At Christmas time, I got $250 as a gift from my mother in law and saw this as a perfect opportunity to bite the bullet and put it toward subscribing to Hawaii IPTV for a year.  (The start up cost including S&H is $344.99)

I was very glad to see they changed the set top box to a putty color rather than that hideous big bird yellow they had previously.  We were so excited when it finally arrived.  Immediately apparent is some of the broadband technology on which it runs on is outdated which the company needs to address.  Now time to get to the good stuff, we tuned in to the “live” programming which is just the newscasts from KGMB, KHNL and KFVE.  It’s implied you can watch the newscasts live from your time zone but we’ve yet to ever see one live.  Over the past week, we are only able to see KGMB and none of the other two newscasts work for ANY of the days, only color bars and a delightful piercing audio.  I emailed them a few days ago about it and have yet to hear back.  I mean, KGMB is who we watch anyway but that’s not the point, we’re paying for all of the newscasts to be available.

Basically, in the course of a month you could watch every single program on there as nothing seems to be added since we’ve had it.  We were especially excited to watch Sam Choy’s Kitchen cooking show and while there are probably 40+ shows, they’re all 11+ years old and the audio is bad to boot!  The audio is bad on a lot of the shows.  You have to do a lot of finagling with the audio on the remote that comes with it and your tv remote to get it to the point where its not completely grating.  Some shows have a decent amounts of episodes like Sam Choy’s Kitchen and then you get Eh, U Da Kine, Ah? with Tony Solis and there are only 2 episodes and the audio is so bad you can barely hear what’s being said.  I have to say that had the total cost been the bulk of my own money, I would be highly disappointed.  Well, any amount, I’m still highly disappointed.  The biggest reason I went ahead with it is the hint that they are negotiating to possibly get UH Sports for this year.  If we could see Warrior Football, that would be a major plus but if that doesn’t happen, I have to wonder if this is worth keeping once the subscription is up.

Bottom line:  Good idea, poor execution.  I think the problems this system has are VERY fixable if the company wants to do so and build a good reputation.  If the menu stays the same throughout the year with no new licensing agreements and added shows, people who are already subscribers are going to drop like flies.  It’d be like deciding if you want to pay a monthly fee for newscasts which is nice but apparently not so much at this point in time for the KHNL and KFVE newscast viewers.

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