Honeymoon: Hawaii – The Big Island

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Late last fall, Jason and I took our babymoon in Hawaii. We spent about 10 days and split our time between The Big Island and Maui. Hawaii is such a popular spot for honeymoons, anniversaries and babymoons (we met so many other couples on babymoons too!), so I wanted to share our trip and recommendations with you all in case you have a trip for yourself in the near future. :) Today’s post is all about our stay on The Big Island, next week I’ll tell you all about our stay on Maui.

Getting to Hawaii is a really easy from the West Coast (a 5-6 hour flight) – so it’s perfect if you only have a few days for your honeymoon. Live on the East Coast or Midwest? The flight’s a bit longer, but so worth it for a memorable honeymoon or anniversary trip! Hawaii is one of our favorite places to visit — the weather is perfect, you’re still in the US so you don’t have to worry about language, currency or passports….but most of all…. it’s just so relaxing and beautiful! More personal to us, we got engaged in Maui, so it will always be a special place to us. :)

The Big Island is pretty special too – and our favorite part about it? The resort we stayed it. Thanks to Katie with Ever After Honeymoons for helping Jason and I learn about the Four Seasons Hualalai. It was probably one of our favorite resorts ever. She warned us we would love it and Jason’s friends told us we wouldn’t want to leave, but we really didn’t understand what was so special until we got there. They were all right, the property is incredible. The resort is just a scenic 15 minute drive from the airport, through fields of black lava and along the coast, which is really great. Once arriving at the property, you’re engulfed in beautiful views, vegetation and lava rocks everywhere. Arriving at Four Seasons Hualalai is pretty unique and we were pleasantly surprised during our entire staty.

A special note for you turtle lovers, there are lots of turtles that nap on the beach at the resort. So cute!

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One of our favorite parts of the trip was breakfast. As I mentioned, the resort is just beautiful and we didn’t want to leave the property much, so we ate breakfast on property each day. They have a great buffet with granola, yogurt, lots of fresh fruit, muffins and they take personalized orders at the omelet station. Each day they also had a special freshly squeezed juice that was creative and delicious. Each morning would begin with us spending about an hour, enjoying breakfast on the beach (it was literally on the sand!) and talking about our baby girl on the way. :)

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We spent most of our time on the resort – with great beaches, pools, a gym, and plenty of restaurants – there really wasn’t much reason to leave. If you like golf, there is also a gorgoeus golf course on their propoerty and lots of walking + jogging paths. We like to get our fitness on when we travel and they had one of the nicest gyms I’ve seen as well as offered lots of great classes. The gym offered both indoor and outdoor workout areas and had great equipment. After some good workouts, we decided to treat ourselves to massages at their spa. The spa is really great – they had open air treatment rooms, so you had a nice breeze and heard waterfalls to help you relax!

One of my other favorite parts of the resort was the food. The Four Seasons Hualalai is very committed to serving local and organic food, which we of course love. We really enjoyed the Beach Tree restaurant (right on the sand) and the brand new ‘ULU Ocean Grill (this one opened the week before we arrived). Lots of great local fish and pasta! I was pretty surprised that the pasta was so good – wasn’t expecting that in Hawaii. :)

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One day we did venture off the resort to go to Hawaii Volcanos National Park. It is a bit of a drive from the resort (about 3 hours there and back, so expect to spend the whole day exploring), but totally worth it. On the drive there we got to see the entire island (and experience almost every climate from hot to cold to rain to fog!) and made a few fun stops at the Waipio Valley Lookout and took a hike to see a pretty amazing waterfall at Akaka Falls. Once we arrived at Volcanos National Park, we loved seeing the crater and really enjoyed the hike through the Lava Tubes. Pretty amazing day…

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We can’t wait to return and experience the beauty + peacefulness of The Big Island and more importantly, Four Seasons Hualalai!

If you are planning a trip to Hawaii and/or The Big Island, be sure to book your trip with Katie at Ever After Honeymoons. There is no extra fees to use her to help booking your travel and the best part is that she is able to get you some pretty rad amenities including:
• complimentary breakfast daily (this is a great deal since breakfast cost around $35/person!)
• room upgrade based on availability at arrival
• food & beverage credit of $100

Any of you lovlies have any tips or stories of your time spent on The Big Island or at Four Seasons Hualalai? We’d love to hear :)

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