My husband (I can finally say that now!) and I spent our honeymoon in Hawaii! We decided on Hawaii as I’m unable to leave the US right now due to my visa, but we still wanted a relaxing tropical destination, and we wanted to go to a new place that neither of us had been to. We’ve talked about visiting Hawaii a few times during our relationship. It’s always been a place my husband, Kevin has wanted to see. It’s been a dream of his to go to Hawaii and his 30th birthday was during our trip, what a perfect way to celebrate!
We only had a month to plan our wedding due to me being on the K-1 visa (I’m sure I’ll write many posts on that journey in the future), so between me moving to the US, planning our wedding, getting our house ready for our out of country guests to stay with us during the wedding, making most of the wedding decor myself, hiring vendors for our wedding and making time for our relationship, I didn’t have much time or motivation to plan our honeymoon.
So I planned what I could, normally on a trip like this I would’ve done so much more research but most of my research ended up being me half watching a YouTube video about Maui and half making our 25-foot flower garland for our ceremony. I booked all of our hotels and rental cars at around 2 am one night because it was stressful for me that it wasn’t done yet. That being said, we both enjoyed our trip a lot, it ended up being the perfect amount of cool adventures to do and we still had lots of time to relax (unlike most of our vacations haha).
We left for our honeymoon on August 18th, really early in the morning (like 3 am). Our wedding was a few days before on the 16th and we hadn’t had very restful nights of sleep for a few days at that point, so we were VERY exhausted. My family and best friend Makenna were staying with us for the wedding, Makenna’s flight was about an hour earlier than ours so we went earlier than we needed to for our flight so we could go with her. Security was super easy, we got some Starbucks (thanks Makenna) and waited about an hour for Makenna’s flight to leave. Once she got on her plane Kevin and I went to our gate and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep. I fly a lot, and most of the time I’m traveling alone, so being able to fall asleep and not having to worry about my stuff because Kevin was there was amazing.
Eventually, our flight was ready to board, we got on our first flight to Salt Lake City for our 1-and-a-half-hour layover, then got on our next plane to Honolulu! The flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu was about 7 hours long, not too bad! We spent most of the flight sleeping. I forgot to mention, we used the TimeShifter app to help us adjust to the timezone! Did it work? I can’t say for sure, it was a little tough to follow for us, but I’m sure it helped!
Day One
We arrived! We landed just after 1 pm. O’hau is the only island we didn’t rent a car for, we planned on just staying in Honolulu since we’d be doing plenty of road trips on the other two islands we visited. Coincidentally, the 2024 Pokemon World Championships were taking place the same weekend we arrived! If you know me, you know I’m a huge Pokemon fan, there’s a room in our house with my Pokemon collection, so I had to go to the Pokemon festivities. We’ve gone to Pokemon Nationals before, so we knew what to expect for the most part, unfortunately, spectator tickets were sold out but I was able to get us a time slot for the Pokemon Center Store. It was booked at 3:15 pm, so we called an Uber and went to our hotel to see if we could drop our bags off, or get early check-in.
We stayed at the beautiful Shoreline Hotel Waikiki, located about a block away from Kalākaua Ave, one of the main streets. This hotel was perfect for us, it was within walking distance from almost everything we wanted to visit. There are also plenty of e-bike rentals with Biki if you’re not keen on walking a lot or want to go somewhere a bit outside of walking distance.
The hotel was brightly decorated and really gave us that tropical feel, perfect for the first night of our honeymoon. The front desk was super friendly and helpful and even gave us a bottle of pineapple wine since we were on our honeymoon! They let us check in early, no problem, and upgraded our room! Our room was on the top floor, with a balcony! We enjoyed our stay here very much and would definitely stay again.
After a short rest, we headed over to the Hawaii Convention Center. We took an Uber because we left a bit later than we meant to, and didn’t have time to walk without risking missing our appointment. We shopped around at the Pokemon Center (so cool) and they gave us 4 free beach balls and 6 free reusable Pokemon bags! They were so generous and it was super exciting for us since the main reason I wanted to buy something was to get another Pokemon Center bag haha. They had some free Pokemon events going on nearby so we walked there, after that we walked along the beach, spent some time at Fort Derussy Beach Park, and walked down Kalākaua Ave back to our hotel.
We rested for an hour, then stopped at Island Vintage Coffee for a pick-me up before walking back down to the same beach for the Pokemon drone show! I was so excited for this and I’m so glad we got to experience it. It was so cool and 100% worth the tiredness. We had an early morning the next day, so we went back to our hotel to sleep around 8:30 pm.
Day Two
We left our hotel at around 5:30 am to get to Diamond Head for our first hike of the trip! I’m sure you’ve heard of Diamond Head before but if you don’t know, it’s a volcanic tuff cone that overlooks Honolulu. The hike to Diamond Head Summit takes about an hour to complete. When we arrived, we went through the pedestrian checkpoint to get our tickets scanned (we reserved our spot about a month in advance) and started our hike! I recommend starting your hike early so you can enjoy the cooler weather, less crowds, and watch the sunrise!
The hike was relatively easy, it took us about 45 minutes to get to the top, and the views at the top were stunning. We spent about 20 minutes taking in the views and taking pictures, then headed back down.
After our hike, our Uber picked us up and we went to McDonalds! I know many people strive to eat local on vacation and not eat at chains, and we do too, but we make an exception for McDonald’s because we enjoy trying some of their different menu items for each region. Spam is very popular in Hawaii (I ate more spam on our trip to Hawaii than in my entire life) and at McDonald’s, they had a Spam, egg, and rice platter. I know a lot of people find Spam to be gross, so McDonald’s Spam probably sounds ten times grosser, but I ordered it!
I enjoyed this, but if you don’t like Spam or can’t get over the fact that it’s meat that comes in a can, you probably shouldn’t get this!
After our stop at McDonald’s, we took a walk to look for a coffee shop to get our energy back up after our early morning hike. We crossed the street to walk along the beach and took a picture with the statue of Duke Kahanamoku right on Kūhiō Beach in Waikīkī!
The bronze statue of Duke Kahanamoku honours him as the “father of modern surfing.” Duke, a Hawaiian native born in 1890, was a world-renowned swimmer, Olympic gold medalist, and a key figure in popularizing surfing worldwide. He also served as Hawaii’s first goodwill ambassador, contributing to the spread of Hawaiian culture and earning a lasting legacy in both the Surfing and Swimming Halls of Fame.
Right behind the statue, there was a surfing competition taking place! Great timing! We watched for a bit, then continued our quest to get coffee.
We made it to Honolulu Coffee for some much-needed iced Kona coffee! It was so refreshing and exactly what we needed after an early morning. We kept walking for a bit and stumbled into the International Marketplace. It’s an open-air marketplace with over 100 shops and restaurants, and seemed like a cool place but since it was still before 10 am, not much was open. We took a quick detour into an ABC store (a staple if you’re in Hawaii), then headed back to our hotel nearby to change for the beach!
We walked from our hotel to the famous Waikiki Beach and had a great time swimming and wading in the ocean. Waikiki Beach is a (almost entirely) man-made beach. We still really enjoyed our time there and since it was still decently early in the day it wasn’t too crowded and wasn’t too hot out yet. After about an hour of swimming and hanging out by the beach, we decided to get back to the hotel. Walking with our slightly still wet bathing suits on under our clothes was very uncomfortable and just our luck, we got a little lost getting back to our hotel.
We were almost back when we smelt something good, we were walking through the Royal Hawaiian Center and since it was getting close to 1 pm at this point we decided to check out the food court for lunch. I got some chicken and rice and Kevin got pho! I also got a delicious strawberry sunset lemonade drink from Mini Monster cafe. After our lunch, we continued back to the hotel, took a very-needed rest, tried some of our pineapple wine, and then got ready to go out again.
Leaving our hotel for our next excursion, we crossed the street to visit a shave ice place. We had already seen so many signs for shave ice at this point that we needed to try it. We got strawberry shave ice to share, and it was pretty good! Not necessarily something I’m dying to try again but it was unique and fun to try. At the shave ice place, we booked our Uber to go to our Luau!
Unfortunately, it took longer than expected to get the Uber so we were running a bit behind. When our Uber picked us up, he asked if we were going to the Luau, and when we said yes he realized we were running a little late, so just like out of a movie he stepped on the gas and weaved in and out of traffic and got us there lightning fast. We were pretty stressed about the possibility of not getting into the Luau due to our poor planning on getting there, but he absolutely saved the day and instantly got rid of our stress.
Quickly we arrived at Aloha Tower for our Ka Moana Luau! Aloha Tower is a retired lighthouse that was the tallest building on the island for decades. During the attack on Pearl Harbor, coast guards were ordered to take up defensive positions around Aloha Tower, it was even painted in camouflage to make it disappear at night.
We got out of the car and got in line for wristbands, thankfully there were lots of people still waiting to get in and lots who showed up after us, so we weren’t late at all, and probably wouldn’t have been late even if we didn’t get him as our driver. But it felt relieving to be there surprisingly on time! We got our wristbands on and got lei’d (haha), then went to the bar to get our complimentary Mai Tais! They had lots of activities going on while they waited for everyone to get in. Making Lei bracelets, weaving, and learning traditional Hawaiian instruments, was super interesting and something we weren’t expecting! We shared a table with a few other people and they were super nice and interesting people! Two of them were there to compete in Pokemon Worlds so that was fun to talk about!
They called up our table for the buffet, the food was really good, we got to try out Ube rolls for the first time and we also got some Ube dessert.
Then the Luau started. They told the story of Hawaii and Hawaii’s history, it was a really interesting and fun experience. They walked through the audience lots, had fire torches, did tons of different traditional Hawaiian dances, and incorporated the audience lots. Overall it was a great and engaging experience. After the Luau ended we headed back to our hotel, and got some rest before our long day the next day where we had a flight to catch! Somehow I’ve written over 2000 words just about two days of our trip, so I think I’ll have to continue in another post! Thanks for checking out my post!
The views from Diamond Head look great! Thanks for sharing, it’s helped with planning my trip to Honolulu.
A very thorough take on Honolulu! All the yummy food you described makes me hungry.
Wow! Honolulu has been on my list for a while now. Thanks for this. Bookmarking for later.
I have always wanted to visit Hawaii – maybe one of these days. These gorgeous photos give me an itch to go.