Hawaii and Chicago - please help us plan a trip

pstones578

We are planning on going to Hawaii and Chicago in June 2012. We want to do Chicago for 3 nights and then Hawaii for 7 nights. We have done some rough numbers on Expedia for budgeting and think we are looking at the following.

Flights - £1900
Hotels Chicago - £200
Hotels Hawaii - £600

Has anyone done this sort of trip and do you think we are best booking things separately or are their any companies that will put a package together for us? I'm concerned that if we book things seperately that we are not ABTA covered.

neilbond007

When I lived in the UK I did 5 holidays to various parts of the US. Each time I booked independently. Flights and hotels completely separately. Half of the fun is doing the planning! I normally used Expedia for hotels and flights with whoever was cheapest at the time.

cubegame

Hawaii is an incredibly long way so you might want to consider the impact jet lag will have on a short holiday.

jackieblack

pstones578 wrote: »

We are planning on going to Hawaii and Chicago in June 2012. We want to do Chicago for 3 nights and then Hawaii for 7 nights. We have done some rough numbers on Expedia for budgeting and think we are looking at the following.

Flights - £1900
Hotels Chicago - £200
Hotels Hawaii - £600

Has anyone done this sort of trip and do you think we are best booking things separately or are their any companies that will put a package together for us? I'm concerned that if we book things seperately that we are not ABTA covered.

I agree with cubegame's comment above. Personally, I would not travel to the USA for less than 2 weeks, let alone flying on that much further to Hawaii, with the additional time difference. It takes us about 3 days to get adjusted to the time difference so we would spend about 6 days of that 10 day trip jet-lagged.

Alot of people find it cheaper to book things separately and this is fine if you feel confident enough to do this. There are companies that will put together tailor-made packages (we have, in the past, used Virgin Holidays and Trailfinders) but this is going to be more expensive. Only you can decide whether the extra cost is worth it to give you the confidence & peace of mind of knowing you will have more protection in the event of a problem.

When that Icelandic volcano erupted while we were in the USA at Easter 2010 we were very glad that we had booked through Virgin Holidays as they were brilliant and put us up in two very nice hotels (far nicer than the ones we'd booked for ourselves during our trip) and re-arranged our flights home for us. It was far less stressful for us than for some of the other people we met who, having booked everything separately themselves, were having to spend hours on hold to their respective airlines and being given dates for return flights that were, in some cases, 3-4 weeks later than we returned home, and having to pay all their accomodation expenses in the meantime. While I do realise the chances of something similar happening again are small, this is just an example of one of the benefits of booking a package.

What we tend to do now is book a fly-drive package, and arrange our own accomodation.

tanith

I agree with the others the two places really don't belong on the same trip they are so far apart.

richardw

Chicago is about half way to Hawaii, is a great city, and can fit in well on a trip to Hawaii. I agree the impact of jet lag is important.

pelirocco

We are doing San Fransisco for 5 nights then Maui for 5 nights then back to San Fran for 2 nights in a few weeks . I dont agree that jet lag will spoil your holiday , you wont get that until you fly back . I have flown many times to the US ,( once just a long weekend to LV ) and you might find you wake earlier and want to go to bed earlier at first , but just stick with local times , we have never had a problem . We have booked separately, flights out to SF with Virgin ( have airmiles) booked flights to maui through ebookers , trying to book with Hawaiin airlines was difficult because they dont accept UK cards online

claire16c

You will be ok with the jet lag because you will just wake up really early when you get to Hawaii, and most of the stuff like boat trips start pretty early in the mornings so youll just be up and ready for that! My parents were in the supermarket at 6am when we were there this year and back and ready for the beach at 8am which is handy for getting a good parking space

Where are you thinking of going in Hawaii? Please dont go to Waikiki for 7 nights! Try Maui or Kauai. Maui is my favourite.

If you are set on going to chicago, then that will help to break up the journey. I would look at flights with United, American, and check prices on kayak, expedia etc.

You can book flights with Hawaiian Airlines through the American Airlines website as like pelirocco says Hawaiian wont accept UK credit cards on their website.

book it on your credit card, and take out travel insurance and you should be fine.

You could also look on www.vrbo.com for condos as they are cheaper and bigger than hotels in Hawaii

Just to add - unless you are set on chicago, you could visit Dallas instead as you can fly there direct to Maui with American. Or of course theres always LA, San Fran..

richardw

claire16c wrote: »

You will be ok with the jet lag because you will just wake up really early when you get to Hawaii

The time difference is 10 hours, a bit more than waking up really early.

claire16c

Well thats what happens. You wake up really early, and fall asleep early! Which fits in with the timing of activities there. You might wake up in the night a few times on the 1st couple of days but its hardly a major issue.

Its much worse on the way back.

pelirocco

richardw wrote: »

The time difference is 10 hours, a bit more than waking up really early.

You forget they will be stopping over in Chicago , so they will have time to get used to the time difference there , before going on to Hawaii

So 6 hours time difference , then another 4 hrs in Hawaii .