Hawaii vacation deals & news: August 30, 2016

– Rooms at Turtle Bay Resort on Oahu’s North Shore are starting at $239 for a partial ocean view room via TravelZoo. If you can swing it, we recommend upgrading to a deluxe ocean view room for $289 per night.

– Another great TravelZoo deal is for the beautiful Mauna Lani Hotel on Hawaii (Big) Island for $239 per night for a resort view room. Upgrade to an ocean view room for $80 more. See the deal here

– The normally quiet and practically non-existent tropical storm season in Hawaii have been unusually busy the past two years. There are two hurricanes, Lester and Madeline, that are could pass near  the Hawaiian islands. We pray that these storms blow away from Hawaii. For more information, check the Hawaii News Now Hurricane Center.

– The first humpback whale sighting of the season occurred on August 25 off of Lahaina, Maui. Unfortunately, the whale wasn’t healthy, which might explain this extremely early sighting. For more information, see this article.

– Our annual contest to guess the first humpback whale sighting was very short-lived this year. Congratulations to Kathy Anderson of Oklahoma for submitting the closest guess!

– The newer, fancier version of Waikiki’s International Market Place shopping center opened

– Good news for fans of the Kona Village Resort — plans are in place to reopen it in 2019 per PBN.

– GoHawaii launched a free app with Hawaii travel tips. This YouTube video provides a quick overview. You can download it from iTunes or Google Play.