Weddingbee Blog

As promised in my last post about Hawaiian vacation rentals versus Hawaiian hotels, here are our Hawaiian rental treasures that I am so excited about. To be honest, I wanted to wait until these babies were safely secured before I posted them to the world. Now with all three rentals confirmed, I can share the details!

Personal photo/drawing

Mr. Funnel Cake and I spent a couple hours one Sunday poring over the rentals that I’d so carefully chosen from my hours of searching. At first, Mr. FC wanted to spend as little as possible, which is why he was leaning toward hotels in the first place. Hawaiian accommodations do not come cheap, so we realised we would probably have to spend around $100 a night to get some “adequate lodging.”*

*Code for “Miss Funnel Cake doesn’t want to spend every night of her honeymoon in a tent!”

With this budget in mind, I had done my searching and found options in the $40–150 range. Anything higher than $150 was really pushing Mr. Funnel Cake’s limits, so I made sure to show him the we-can-barely-afford-this-honeymoon options that were much more affordable than any hotel, and then I showed him the more decadent luxury locations within our budget. I found a few private rentals and even single rooms in B&Bs that were as low as $39–50 a night, but after I showed Mr. Funnel Cake all the places with sweet extras, we opted for a bit of luxury. I think, in the end, Mr. Funnel Cake didn’t want me to feel like we were skimping out and getting the bare minimum for our once-in-a-lifetime honeymoon.

This is where I kept sliding the search filters down to. Look how many I had to ignore due to costs!
If we really couldn’t afford it, we would wait and come to Hawaii later, but since we are going we want it to be special as it should be! Between the fireplaces, saunas, rural private cottages, and oceanfront condos, it was hard to choose. We ended up figuring out which places to stay backward, with the last choice being the first place we’ll visit, and here are the results:

MY HAWAII DREAM

Image via My Hawaii Dream

**All maps via Google and edited by me**

Nightly Rate: $98–110

Image via My Hawaii Dream

Grounds of the rental…half an acre!

This beach bungalow is dreamy. I think I was drooling after I stumbled upon this gem. It is RIGHT on the beach. Looking out onto the ocean from our private hot tub? Yes, please!

Hot tub on the left; kitchen on the right (Images via My Hawaii Dream)

I had waited to show Mr. Funnel Cake this listing last, after lots of other options, and when I showed it to him he asked without hesitation, “Should we just rent this the whole time on the Big Island?” Uh…sure! I thought I would have to convince him we should at least spend a few days here instead of the cheaper places, but he jumped on board immediately. Now my daydreams are filled with picturing us relaxing in the ocean breezes!

Views from the lanai; table at the sea (Images via My Hawaii Dream)

Interior (Images via My Hawaii Dream)

We’ll stay eight nights on the Big Island before we head to Kauai for 10 days. We have trails we want to explore on both the south and north shores of Kauai that require early starts in the morning, so we decided to split our time between a south-beach rental and a north-shore rental. First up: Poipu.

Beach studio in Poipu (Image via VRBO)

Nightly Rate: $99–115

We had a hard time narrowing down which place to stay on the south side of Kauai. There were many private cottages, tree houses, and neat properties to choose from, so we had the ability to narrow it down further by which cities we thought would be best to be located in and which prices and amenities suited us. My Excel sheet was pretty handy for sorting this. Since we had already chosen our property in the north, we decided to pick a rental on the beach for variety. (We hadn’t booked the place on the Big Island since we chose things backward, but you can’t have too many beachfronts, can you??)

Bedroom on the left; dining room on the right (Images via VRBO)

Kitchen on the left; balcony center; bathroom right (Images via VRBO)

This place is steps from the beach, it has a nice interesting interior and a beautiful kitchen, and it is the only place we’ve picked that seems to be in a condominium complex with a pool and all. I figure it doesn’t hurt to try the condo experience sometime during the vacation.

Image via Kauai-Honeymoon

Nightly Rate: $99

Images via Kauai-Honeymoon

Our last stop on the holiday, before we start the arduous trek of the Kalalau Trail along the Na Pali coast, will be here in this tree-house-like studio with a private jacuzzi on a balcony overlooking a pond with water lilies.

Jacuzzi overlooking the pond left; master bed right (Images via Kauai-Honeymoon)

Dining area left; view of the pond centre; more of the flat right (Images via Kauai-Honeymoon)

This was one of the most affordable places with a hot tub that I saw along the north shore that wasn’t in Princeville. Princeville and Poipu are the main condominium traps on Kauai, and I didn’t want to have both our rentals on this island be in places like this. I’m glad we found something that’s closer to the trail; we want to start early in the morning anyway. It even had a floorplan on the website. I LOVE floorplans!

Image via Kauai-Honeymoon

So for an 18-night stay in Hawaii, our breakdown on vacation rentals is:

• Big Island: $1,114.20
• Kauai South Shore: $880.42
• Kauai North Shore: $640
• That comes to a total of $2,634.62, with $300 in deposit money that we should have returned to us if Mr. Funnel Cake behaves himself.
• Final price per night: $129.70

Now, considering how many hotels are $200 a night or more plus all the room service, eating out, and other hotel expenses…I feel like we are getting a deal for our private hot tubs and ocean views! None of our rentals get too close to the $150 mark we set ourselves, either. I concede we will have to spend a bit more to use camping grounds, rent cars on the islands, and pay for food and activities, but I think this is a good start!

Are you excited about your honeymoon digs?