See the latest delay on reopening without Kauai Resort Bubbles.
524 thoughts on “Kauai Not Reopening Travel Soon + Kauai Resort Bubbles And More”
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See the latest delay on reopening without Kauai Resort Bubbles.
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We have been vaccinated. I am surprised that there is no information as to how this changes travel options to Kauai. It will be two weeks until we are to be in Kauai.
Thank you for all this great information.
Hi Heather.
It does not change options at all as vaccination is not valid for travel to Hawaii at this time. Testing remains the only option to avoid quarantine. As soon as there is a change or more information, we’ll update that.
Aloha.
Are there any restrictions on taking an Uber or Lyft from the airport to the resort bubble?…my resort is advising to take their shared ride service but it is $100! can’t wait until the 5th (I know it was finally approved by Ige), so we are sticking to the bubble resort. already scheduled our test with Poipu mobile md…fun stuff
I’m confused. Has the governor approved the request from
Kauai to rejoin the Hawaii Safe Travel program effective April
5? If not, why the delay? More politics?
Many people like my wife and I have already changed our
flights to arrive on April 5th.
Thanks for advising what’s going on. You’re a great source for
Kauai updates!
Hi Karl.
Thanks. Yes, that’s a very good question. While being a foregone conclusion that it will be approved, it has not been yet.
Aloha.
What’s the most direct/quickest way to find out Gov. Ige approves of Mayor Kawakami’s request? We’ve been watching the CountyofKauai.gov website. We’d like to change our flights by a few days to avoid the quarantine. Mahalo
Hi Pati.
You can check the county or state COVID sites. We’ll also update when that happens.
Aloha.
Re: the possible April 5th lifting of quarantine, does anyone know why April 5th and not April 1st? It must be some governmental timing? We’re scheduled to arrive 4/1 so it’s a major timing bummer for us.
Hi Pati.
We were left wondering the same thing. How was the date of 4/5 selected?
Aloha.
Hi friends,
My theory…..April 5th is a Monday, so Government offices are open and ready to process arrivals, manage logistics, answer the MANY phone calls, etc.
Also, it gives folks the weekend prior to enjoy Holy Week i.e. Holy Thursday (April 1), Good Friday, Easter, etc.
Just my thoughts… Definitely think Easter had a lot to do with it.
Cheers!
It’s the 5th …. the day after Easter. Just incase you were planning a family reunion.
Thanks for letting me post this.
–Kaua‘i submits proposed Rule 25 to Gov. Ige, requesting to rejoin state’s Safe Travels program for Trans-Pacific travelers starting April 5–
LĪHU‘E – Mayor Derek S. K. Kawakami has submitted proposed Emergency Rule 25 to Governor David Ige for approval. This proposal re-establishes the state’s Safe Travels program for incoming Kaua‘i travelers, effective April 5, 2021.
“Kaua‘i remains one of the safest places in the United States throughout the pandemic, thanks to the efforts of our community-minded residents and health-focused travel restrictions,” said Mayor Kawakami. “Over the past few months our community’s efforts have allowed us this opportunity to safely rejoin the state’s Safe Travels program. At this time, more than 24,000 doses of vaccine have been administered on Kaua‘i, and by April we are confident that employees in the hospitality and food service industries will be offered vaccines. Case counts across the state and on the mainland are stabilizing. Our local hospitals are working closely together and have surge plans in place for additional ICU capacity, if needed. They have also obtained more equipment and have COVID testing and treatment options available to respond to any increase in COVID-19 cases.”
Finally canceled our Kauai trip. Was supposed to stay 3 nights at Hyatt Waikiki, take test, then go to Grand Hyatt Poipu on August 9 for 3 nights. Well….. I have no confidence in Hyatt reopening.
The kicker was Alaska changing my nonstop flight home from Lihue to San Diego to a Seattle stopover, overnight. No thanks. Got my money back, in cash. Kudos to Alaska for the full, no questions refund.
We switched to the Bahamas instead. Testing window is 120 hours out instead of 72 hours. Health Visa is only required for age 10 and up. And, best part, all major hotels offer FREE testing. You need one to fly home, so Hyatt Baha Mar, Atlantis and others are offering free rapid or PCR tests. Heck YES!
Additionally, Hyatt Baha Mar will house you, for FREE, in a suite with $150 daily food credit per person for up to 5 people, for up to 14 days should you test positive. They will also fly you to Florida in a private jet. Wow! I mean, come on Kauai! Get it together. I applaud the Bahamas and their commitment to get tourism jump started.
We’re thrilled to keep our Spring Break plans alive, but sad that Hawaii won’t play a part. Perhaps next year.
Aloha!
Well, that was terrible timing. Another FB page is reporting that Kaua’i will rejoin the Safe Travels Program April 5th.
We flew Alaska from Seattle to Maui. Tested the night before with Carbon Health, contracted for Alaska customers, in an Alaska office parking lot. Received results before 9am next day. Uploaded results (use the “Hawaii Standard” form for auto approval) to Safe Travels, received a wristband at the airport no need to get health screening on landing. I understand Maui requires the AlohaSafe app running but nobody checked.
Maui was new to us and beautiful, we enjoyed our 3 days driving around the coast to Hana and up to the summit.
Booked flights via HNL to LIH with a 5.5-hour gap between inbound/outbound to allow time for testing at National Kidney at the HNL airport. Had to call Hawaiian to get a routing with that long a layover. Was able to check bags through to LIH for a single charge.
Testing outside Baggage Claim 31 is possibly the best organized test collection center I’ve seen (and this was my 12th test). You pay in advance when registering but there are no booked days/times, just a while-you-wait queue. The queue is outdoors, socially distanced, and moves fast (it took 15 minutes to get through it for us). You get to do the nose-swirl thing yourself. They noted that we had same-day flights and reassured us that the results would be in in time. Our packets were marked with the time of our outbound flight. The results arrived 2 hours after we were tested – hours before we needed them. The results came by email (no chance to print them). We uploaded pdfs from phones into Safe Travels.
The interisland terminal has limited eating open. We had Burger King. If I did this again I’d get DoorDash to some outdoor spot before going through Security.
The plane HNL-LIH was quite busy. On landing at LIH there was a queue. Instructions said to fill out the Kauai arrival form but we couldn’t figure out what option to pick to match our interisland status. In any case they checked our QR codes, ID and test results and let us go.
We’re back in Kauai! It worked. Thanks BOH!
Hi Phillippa.
Thanks for the report on your Maui travel and the interisland testing to visit Kauai. Very helpful.
Aloha.
Phillipa,
Thanks for sharing this – it gives us a new idea about how to get an inter-island test to go to Kauai with results quickly. We’ll be coming from Maui, so we may follow your lead and get a longer layover in Honolulu. We’re not going until mid May, so maybe things will be easier then, fingers crossed. Thanks again, very helpful.
I have a Question. If I have been vaccinated for COVID now, when will Kauai accept visitors from the mainland?
The opening of an article in today’s Garden Island (2/25) states “The county doesn’t want to miss out on summer tourism because it’s not participating in the state’s Safe Travels program, County of Kaua‘i Managing Director Michael Dahilig explained”. Another quote: “We have heard the calls, and a lot of them have been very, very vibrant and loud when it comes to a desire to want to return to Safe Travels”. I thought maybe some relief for small business was finally in sight.
But then my heart sank. “Dahlig stopped short of saying the county is in a stage of recovery, but is more so in a state of planning. What we’re seeing at this point is preparation to be able to layout a plan.” In other words, this is not a “plan”. It’s a plan to come up with a plan.
“Dahilig said the work with community partners and those in the tourism and resort industry will continue to work on a date to ask Gov. David Ige for the county to be reinstated to Safe Travels.”
Sorry for so many quotes, but I can’t give a link. Anyone interested can find the article on the Garden Island website.