Incredible Bargains for Travel to Hawaii’s Oahu Island
Waikiki is less than an hour away from all of Oahu’s major attractions, such as the most popular attraction of all, the Polynesian Cultural Center, and most notably Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. Also, within a short distance of Waikiki are destinations such as Diamond Head,the Dole Pineapple Plantation, the Halona Blow Hole, and the Pali Lookout.
Waikiki itself is host to a huge number of local attractions. Aside from the world famous Waikiki Beach, there is also:
* The Waikiki Aquarium, one of the top five oldest aquariums in the United States;
* The Honolulu Zoo, the largest zoo in all the Hawaiian islands;
* Hilo Hattie, otherwise known as “The Store of Hawaii”, best known for its selection of macadamia nuts, gourmet coffees and Hawaiian fashions;
* The ubiquitous ABC Stores, the most common vendor of macadamia nuts and other convenience items;
* The International Market, a massive flea market which boasts over 100 vendor stands, as well as a wide variety of cuisines and a buffet here and there;
* Trips such as the Atlantis Submarine tour, and the various Circle Island Tours;
* A proliferation of restaurants, many offering deals for breakfast, lunch and dinner;
* And many other attractions.
There are far too many major tourist attractions to list here, but most of them have one thing in common: they all make their money off tourists who pay the full price for admission. During my honeymoon in Honolulu with my wife, I discovered that discounts on the local attractions are actually quite easy to find. I just kept my eyes open and looked around. My gut told me it would be foolish to buy anything without price shopping and getting the word on the street, and it turned out to be true. The prices you often see for Oahu tourist attractions are far higher when you see them advertised on the mainland, than what you can get when you cut deals with certain vendors on the street. I also found I benefitted greatly from listening to the advice of the cab drivers and limousine drivers,as they were quite accurate in advising me on how to get the best prices on just about everything.
To get the best deal on guided tours and the events (such as the Grand Circle Island Tour),all you have to do is walk down Kuhio Avenue or Kalakaua Avenue and one of the prodigious number of vacation property street vendors will accost you and make a pitch to you about going to a time-sharing vacation home sales pitch in exchange for a free meal or discounts on tour packages. These time-sharing sales pitches cost you nothing, but the drawback is that they will last anywhere from one to three hours. But sometimes they give you meals during the seminar, and they always offer you deals on tour packages at the end. These bargains vary, and it is wise to talk to these street vendors about the details right away. Some vendors are fairly up front about the fact that they’re pitching time-sharing vacation properties and that the discounted tour packages are a gimmick to reel you in. Others go out of their way not to tell you about the obligation to attend a seminar, or to tell you at the last instant after they’ve hyped you up about all the discounts they’re offering. I found that the more up front vendors were typically more comfortable with being honest with me because they were better established, and most importantly they had better deals with tour package providers. Your results will vary. Talk to several vendors and shop around regardless. Trust me, if you step outside your hotel you will trip over two time-sharing peddlers before you get across the street.
I found that the most irksome vacation time-sharing condo vendor was one that required that I tell them my income. They could not, it seems, legally go and verify my claim, but I had to claim to make a lot of money before I was allowed to attend their seminar. This vendor offered me the lowest price I’d ever seen on the Catamaran Sunset Dinner Cruise, and they even threw in the John Hirokawa “Magic of Polynesia” Magic Show for free. Their sales pitch was 90 minutes long and it was a one on one pitch; my wife and I sat at one table and talked to one sales rep. All the other vendors gave us less to eat than this vendor and they had one man who talked to 20 of us fairly impersonally.
In the International Marketplace you will find many different vendors hawking the very same products. For instance, I found one vendor sold wind chimes for $20, and the exact same thing wasbeing sold by another vendor for $12. You can play one vendor against another. I did this and came out with the same wind chime for $9. Do not be ashamed; I actually saw plenty of these vendors driving around at night in very expensive cars. Guess who pays for their cars? Of course, it’s us unwary tourists who make them rich. Selling trinkets at the Marketplace is a surprisingly high profit margin business, but they are highly vulnerable to the effects of vendor over-saturation. In other words, someone there will offer you a lower price to compete.
Also, consider a visit to the Pearl Factory vendors. The key to getting a good pearl – namely two pearls in one oyster, a large, pure white pearl, or a darkpearl – is to pick the ugliest oyster shell you can find. I did exactly this and got exactly what I wanted – a double pearl, a big black pearl and 2 big white pearls. Of course it could have just been a case of Newlywed’s luck. As the sales person will tell you, you should tap the oyster you picked twice for good luck, and then watch the vendor open it. Sometimes the Pearl Factory will have a special where you can buy a pearl mounting and get the pearl for free. Be prepared to devote some time to this; it took us a day for the setting to properly glue into the pearl. This can, of course, be a nice gift to give your relatives or loved one.
Finally, if you pick up some of the publications on the street, you will find that you never have to pay full price for a meal. Free publications like “Oahu Gold” feature not only a large number of articles, but also an overabundance of ads by restaurants providing coupons for cheap meals at buffets and even otherwise very expensive restaurants, not the least of which is the “Top of Waikiki”, Hawaii’s only revolving restaurant, apparently constructed in the spirit of the Seattle Space Needle, located on the 21st floor of the Waikiki Business Plaza. Just a caveat: some of these restaurants offering discounted meals are serving reduced-portion meals compared to the full priced versions; nevertheless, I left every discounted meal my wife and I got, with a VERY full stomach and happy taste buds.
“Oahu Gold”, like the other similar publications found at the many news stands on the street, also feature a dizzying variety of coupons for all other things Waikiki-related, such as tours, services and merchants. This way, you can save money when you just want a decent meal to eat, and then when you want to go for the gusto, you can do it without living in fear of what it will do to your credit card or bank account.
Waikiki is a major tourist trap for the unwary, but learning and using the local resources, both on and off the beaten path, made my visit to Oahu an affordable and enjoyable experience, even though I myself am very aggressively frugal. With a few exceptions, I got the same Waikiki experience that everyone else is paying up to twice as much for. I’ve only found myself referring to Waikiki as a tourist trap after being home for weeks and stepping back from the experience to realize how much I had saved.
