When you’re planning your trip to Hawaii, your lodging will be the centerpiece of your stay. It’s pretty important to have an idea of what kind of place you’d like it to be. Hawaii has, on all the islands, a whole spectrum of choices.The purpose of your visit may be business, holiday, family vacation, reunion, […]

On today’s show we’re joined by actor Cary Tagawa. We talk about his career and his recent appearance on Hawaii 50. He answers questions from callers and folks who were in live chat. Cary impressed me because he is so soft spoken much different than all of the tough characters he plays in movies and […]

A podcast listener asked a great question today about whether it’s worth it to sit through a timeshare sales pitch to get a great deal on the Hawaii vacation. I’m a travel agent so course I am a bit biased about a question like this however, here is my reasoning for not recommending people go […]

Hawaii Vacation News The airlines expect Hawaii to be a stronger destination in 2011. The islands are expected to see a 4.5% increase in air seats to approximately 2.3 million in the first quarter of 2011. That means that air capacity is at 90% of 2007 which was before the global economic downturn and shut […]

The weather has been the story of the past few days as the Northeast went through one of the worst blizzards in decades. Hawaii has been no exception to the inclement weather. We’ve had rain on and off for the past seven days here in the islands. While we have talked about what to do […]

The weather has been the story of the past few days as the Northeast went through one of the worst blizzards in decades. Hawaii has been no exception to the inclement weather. We’ve had rain on and off for the past seven days here in the islands. While we have talked about what to do […]

It’s Aloha Friday so that means that we give shout outs and also answer podcast listener questions. We also go over some Hawaii vacation news and discuss packages that have been booked in the last 24 to 48 hours. We gave a shout out to Jesse, a Facebook friend who has been to the Big […]

Yes it rains in Hawaii and today we talk about things that you can do when you encounter a little unexpected weather. Most of the time when the rains it’s a short-lived thing. It rains for a few minutes or an hour and it’s done. However, there are times when fronts move in and the […]

Compared to the other islands, Oahu is still holding its own, but now it seems to be cool to skip it if you’re coming to Hawaii. We hear all the time; Waikiki is too “touristy.” Honolulu is a big city now, with the inevitable traffic, industrialization and loss of the Aloha Spirit. Okay. Maui has […]

It's Aloha Friday so that means we answer questions from podcast listeners and give shout outs.

We give a big shout out to Sher who posted a comment on our Facebook page about how much fun she had on her trip to Hawaii. She thanks our agent Abby for putting everything together for her. We discussed her trip and talk about a few excerpts from the blog which she created especially for her trip to Hawaii. We also give some advice to a person who booked us via Twitter, @AnthonyQuintano. Anthony and his wife narrowed down a couple of properties they thought they would enjoy using one of the popular OTA's and asked me for some advice. I was able to tweak his itinerary a little bit so that he would enjoy much better property for just a few dollars more. I talk about how to do this and offer some advice to listeners.

Finally, we talk about a question from a customer who is actually here on the island of Oahu. He had become increasingly uncomfortable with using the concierge services located in the lobby of his hotel. He observed that the concierge really didn't seem like the concierge and that they were trying to promote only certain tourers that it was obvious they were getting a profit from. He called and asked for some advice. We discussed the difference between a real concierge and the hotel activity desks that you find in most of the lobbies of the hotels in Hawaii.

With the exception of a few high-end hotels most of the hotels have activity desks and not concierge. The activity desks is usually purchased by activity company or vendor who sells many of the activities that are located here in the islands. They are not going to give you the full picture on the activities because obviously they make money from the activities they sell to their customers. That's why it's always best to speak to somebody here in the islands who really understand this place.