How to travel to Hawaii during pandemic

It’s been six months-to-a-year since I’ve last blogged. Not because of the pandemic or because I haven’t traveled, but mostly because my new-ish job has me dead tired by the time I get home every night. I’m sure most every job during the pandemic has people working ten times as hard. Over the holidays in 2020, I decided I needed a tropical escape and recharge. I had just came back from Newport, Rhode Island for a December colonial holiday filled with mansions, Brown University, Yale University, the oldest working library in the US, Cliff Walks and wharfs, but I’ll explain that trip in a separate blog.

I always kept abreast and follow Southwest Airlines for any new destinations. I just signed up for their Chase credit card to receive 50,000 points if I spent $2,000 in the first three months, receive 7,500 points on my card anniversary and has an annual fee of $175. I could also get another 30,000 points if I spent $10,000 in the next nine months. I would sign up for this after booking my Hawaii trip and never regretted it. You can find the card here: https://creditcards.chase.com/a1/southwest/NAEP40kPriority321?CELL=6MB9&jp_cmp=cc/SWA_Brand_Exact_SWA_SEM_US_NA_Standard_NA/sea/p25772051396/Southwest+Card&gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjPaCBhDkARIsAISZN7RJoenp38vWhWAn5HXfCFTj3cQb3XhbO71JZ_SnLnFLlG1HUNruThUaAn5-EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Anyway, Southwest was adding a route from Long Beach, CA to Honolulu. I always liked to break up the flights on my way to Hawaii as it’s typically three hours to Cali and then five hours to Hawaii. So, it’s always best to stay the night in Cali. However, the main routes from Cali to Hawaii are through Oakland, San Jose, San Diego and Sacramento. With this new route through Long Beach, I thought I could get cheap rates getting in early as they were starting March 11. I looked and they were about $375 ROUND TRIP from Kansas City. That is unheard of, usually it’s double that, especially around spring break.

So, I used some points I had already and got round trip for $309 through Long Beach. I had to go from KC to Phoenix and then Phoenix to Long Beach. I would stay the night where I picked up 2,000 more Rapid Rewards points at the Westin Long Beach and then would fly straight to Honolulu. I would depart KC on March 11 and depart Long Beach on March 12.

On the way back, I would fly Honolulu to Long Beach on March 17 and then Long Beach to Denver to KC on March 18. (I would later change this route because the Denver layover was 4.5 hours and the Southwest customer service rep told me I could fly to Oakland and have a layover for 45 minutes and go straight to KC and arrive 4 hours earlier at 2:30p in the afternoon. I jumped on that opportunity!

So, my flight was set, but now I had to figure out the pandemic and quarantine situation in Hawaii as it’s much more strict on the islands. They had a mandatory 10-day quarantine up until October 2020. It was supposed to happen in August 2020, but they delayed it and the governor stated in October that if you produce a negative covid test taken from an approved Hawaii Dept of Health provider 72 hours prior to your final departing flight to Hawaii, you can avoid quarantine.

So, this means you have to setup an account here with the state health department of Hawaii: https://travel.hawaii.gov/#/ After you set up your account, you enter your trip information such as flight number, days staying on the islands, if you plan on visiting other islands while there and other information. I would also highly recommend NOT island hopping right now. A friend of mine visited the Big Island, had to take another covid test onsite when he landed, then he tried going to Kauai and had to fly back to Honolulu for another test and wait for results and flew back to Kauai. He had to pay for the extra flight and tests back in Honolulu. What a NIGHTMARE! I knew about the issues ahead of time, so I decided to stay on Oahu and it had been 16 years since I stayed there anyway, so wanted to check it out again.

So, my departing flight from Long Beach to Hawaii left on a Friday at 7:20a Pacific Time, which meant I could take my covid test in KC after 9:20a Central Time the Tuesday prior. I knew I left for Long Beach on Thursday and wanted to make sure I got my test back in time in case I somehow received a positive test and had to cancel everything. There was no way I was going all the way to Hawaii to sit in a condo for 10 days trapped in quarantine. Another issues was making sure LA county in Cali would not make serve any quarantine for being an out-of-state traveler, so I confirmed I would not have to from the Westin Hotel I stayed at ahead of time.

So, I took my test at Walgreens at 95th and Antioch at 11a Central Time on the Tuesday prior to my flights, March 9. I did a rapid diagnostic test, but they will NOT ACCEPT the antigen test, so DON’T DO THAT ONE. Make sure it’s the Real ID rapid diagnostic. You have to schedule on the Walgreens site online three days prior and they order the test for you and it’s drive-thru. Super easy and only takes a few minutes. I got my results back via email in about six hours.

After receiving your emailed results, you download the PDF version of the negative test and upload it to the Hawaii Health Dept site and it’s easy to navigate. You also have to upload a recent photo of yourself and you can even take a selfie really quick and upload. That’s what I did. As soon as you upload the negative test, an automated software will review the PDF and then you’ll see a “COVID NEGATIVE” appear next to your upload. It will do this automatically after you upload. This MUST BE a PDF file. You can’t screenshot from your phone or have a Word document or anything else that says negative, you must make sure this is a PDF so the software can read it. It must say what kind of test it was, what business administered it, the date and time you took it and the result. It’s all on the Walgreens lab form automatically. Make sure you print a hard copy to have on you at the airport just in case! You can’t take the test in Hawaii and still avoid quarantine.

The final piece of the puzzle is filling out a health questionnaire 24 hours prior to your flight. As soon as I got to the airport departing for Long Beach from KC, I went to the site on March 11 and filled it out that morning and submitted. You will receive a QR code via email right away that you’ll use as soon as you land in Hawaii in the terminal after you get off the plane, along with your government ID. Again, they are super strict right now.

The morning of March 11, I had a driver from Leader Limo pick me up to take me to the airport. They are a part of the Accelerent business development group I’m a part of and I’ve been referring a lot of business from local hotels to them, so as a thank you and as a showing of what they can do, they offered to take me to the airport and pick me up, which was super nice of the owner Bruce Heinrich! If you ever need their services for yourself or clients or someone you know, they have a wide range of fleet vehicles for even Bachelor parties or a kids first day of school or anything. They mostly focus on executive travel. Angelo was my driver and he was 15 minutes early and you’ll receive an email confirmation ahead of time. I rode in a Chevy Suburban and it was a smooth ride to KCI.

My flight to Phoenix was packed and not a seat open. My flight to Long Beach was wide open, not as many travelers going TO California and LA County that is still pretty locked down. Restaurants are just now starting to open again, but only for outside dining. It was unusually chilly in Long Beach, in the mid-50s temp and rainy. It was warmer in the 60s in KC, so the trip was off to a chilly start. I specifically planned to get to Long Beach early to get some beach time in, but was definitely too cold for that. The airport in Long Beach is so incredible. It’s tiny and so easy to get around in, and find an Uber for pickup. It was about $30 Uber from airport to the Westin Long Beach where I stayed. I chose it since I’d get 2,000 points for one night Rapid Rewards booking through the Southwest Airlines site and paying in advance. Worth it!

The hotel was gorgeous and monstrous and in the middle of everything.

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I checked in early and was starving so I found one of my fav seafood restaurants Gladstone’s that was a 7 minute walk away. I had only been to the Gladstone’s in Malibu and didn’t realize they had one in Long Beach. It was a restaurant my best friends Nate and Marisa introduced me to on my first trip to Hawaii 16 years prior in Malibu, so I had to try again and relive old memories. I would also go again later with my great friend Amber when we traveled to Nate and Marisa’s wedding together. But, that was in Malibu as well. The seafood was just as great as I remembered it!

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After watching some college men’s basketball and conference tournament games, I walked around the boardwalk and the aquarium. Only the outside pool was open at the aquarium, otherwise, I probably would have paid to go in. The trail was right along the water and there were tons of bike riders, scooters and joggers. Tons of yachts docked right there in the harbor.

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Even though it was a bit chilly, it was sunny out. I was running low on energy after getting up at 3:30a, so I grabbed an espresso at Starbucks on the way back to the hotel. It was super packed in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. Made me wonder what everyone did for a living in Cali? Most folks ordered on their app and simply walked in and picked it up. Ordering inside apparently is for the Midwestern travelers, which takes 100000 times as long.

I was zonked by the time I got back to the hotel and it had started to rain a bit again. I was looking up places that delivered and found a pizza joint that was rated best in Long Beach and they bicycle delivered to my hotel. So, I ordered and they delivered to the lobby. Was definitely tasty, but not the best I’ve ever had. It was called 4th Horseman.

My flight to Honolulu was 7:20a and my drive to the airport was about 15-20 min away, so I relaxed and got some sleep. A long flight the next day.

Got up early and was trying to find an Uber in the lobby of the hotel the next morning and literally could not FIND ONE UBER. I was trying for 30 minutes around 4:45a. I had some pilots and flight attendants staying at my hotel leaving in a van at the same time and I asked if I could hitch a ride with them and the driver wouldn’t let me saying she didn’t think the pilots would let me. One of the flight attendants said she could care less. But, right as I was denied, I accepted an Uber for 2.5x it’s rate. But, I got to the airport. Lesson learned, schedule AN UBER IN ADVANCE. My rate to the airport was $75! Ridiculous. I shrugged it off…I was going to Hawaii.

I was the first one in the airport that morning, not a single soul there. Telling you, this airport is tiny. The gate had tiny surf boards on it and lei’s. They had just started the route to Hawaii the day before. The airport is so small, you board outside.

I’ll end my blog here…..as I embarked on my five-hour flight to Honolulu. I’ll save more info for the landing and actual Oahu experience. But, this is a good set of rules and guidelines if you want to travel to Hawaii right now and the protocols you have to go through. It’s worth it and cheap airline rates! Until next time….book that trip!