8 Days and 9 Nights in Kauai

#1--Go on a hellicopter ride! By far it's the best way to leave Kauai with a good experience. It's natural beauty is gorgeous! The best one is a /person ride that sets you down at a waterfall, but if you can't afford that, we used Will Squires and enjoyed their tour too. Seriously though, find any deal or coupon you can and go on it.

Quick Tips:

Visit beaches on all but the west side of the island. The best ones are on the South and the North parts so focus on those, the west side isn't worth driving to, but if you do take a trip along the Nepali coast, those are cool too. Best beach we found was driving as far as you could up the north side. When you come to the end of the road, you have the best beach, best sunset, best true Hawaii beach I've ever seen. It's worth waiting for the sun to go down, that's for sure.

Best Way To Get Around:

Rental car. If you're staying for any length of time, you'll want a rental car to get up to explore the north part of the island. Sometimes you can find deals, but sometimes they gouge you depending on the time of year. Two months separated us from the my brother-in-law paid versus the we paid. Ouch. Taxes hurt you here too. Expect to pay at least -75 more than they quote you for because of state taxes on rental cars.

First of all, I don't know what the cost was per night as we used our points for this place.

This was the first place on the island we stayed (one-bedroom Pahio Resort). The place we stayed in was decent from the inside, although somewhat old-school in design. It looked like decor my grandma might decorate with if she lived on Hawaii. Nevertheless, it was nice inside.

The entryway to the actual room, however, looked like an old YMCA building (quoted from my wife), with painted-white bricks leading up the stairway. It does make it seem somewhat old and prison-ish.

The upside is that the resort shares their property with the Radison Hotel, which in our minds was the best place we stayed during our jaunt in Kauai. Read more about that night's stay in our journal for the Radison.

Pahio's pool was small and uninviting. However, you are welcome to use the Radison's pool and spa which is much more fun.

Overall, if you're going to stay on the property, stay in the Radison Hotel rather than the resort/condo area outside. It's well worth whatever the difference is in price.

Again, I'm not sure what the cost is per night as this was part of our "bonus week" with Pahio Resorts.

Our condo was one of the newest created at this resort, so it was pretty nice. Even the ones we peeked in that were some of the older ones looked nice too, though.

The pool at this Pahio Resort is the best one out of all of them (if you're not counting the one at the Radison Hotel if you're staying at the Kauai Beach Villas). We checked the Shearwater and the main office pools and neither had a waterfall (ours had two) coming into the pool, nor the one coming into the spa. The spa had sand on the bottom of it, which was a fun surprise.

This resort is set in Princeville which is located on the north side of the island. Princeville is the resort area so it's lush and groomed, however, not very realistic as to what the rest of the island looks like. It depends on what you're looking for whether you go for the north or the south part of the island.

The only unfortunate part of our stay here was that the beach was not accessable (or even viewable) from this resort/condo. You have to drive to get to one, but we didn't mind so much after we got used to the condo.

Overall, the best Pahio Resort condo to stay at hands down.

This was the best part of our trip. Aloha Airlines delayed our flight both coming into Lihue and leaving Lihue (hence the name eight days, nine nights). We were supposed to stay for seven nights but ended up with nine nights because of delays. On a side note, don't fly Aloha at all. Service, food, comfort levels all horrible.

The Radisson was our choice for hotels when Aloha delayed our flight leaving Lihue. Their pool is split into four good sized pools (one three foot depth kiddie pool and a separate beach-like sand pool) and includes a spa/hot tub. They have a decent restaurant and nightly fire-lighting ceremonies as well as evening musical entertainment, occassional luaus, and a nightly happy hour when they serve free mai tais, beer, and other drinks for an hour. Their meals at the bar are good and relatively inexpensive for good burgers, etc. Entertainment at night in the family friendly lounge was awesome thanks to Tim, the ukelele master!

The accommodations themselves were great. The room we stayed in was an ocean-front deluxe suite which was absolutely huge! King-sized bed, sofas, chairs, desk, and a tiny kitchen area were great. The view was fantastic. Service was excellent!

Overall, fully recommended for a good time!