Yes, the Regional Planning Committee is trying to nail down an agreement with a local hotel, but it might be difficult with the time of year.
You might consider renting the large passenger vans (I found some on Thrifty.com for 12 passengers) which I do not believe require a special license.
As for chartering a flight, you might try checking that out if other teams in the area haven’t already booked their flights and you can get a large enough group.
I guess I’ll contact 254 and the Space Cookies
I do not believe we have made our reservations yet. Team 1868 is not attending Hawaii, though.
We are only bringing 8-10 students and 12 or so people overall. I don’t think chartering a plane becomes feasible until you get into very large numbers. The smallest plane any carrier operates to Hawaii seats around 200-225 people. Unless you can fill most/all of those seats, I doubt it’s a good alternative to simply flying commercial.
I meant contacting them early and reserving a large part of the flight so we can make sure every team have enough seats
According to Wikipedia, Aloha Airlines planes have a capacity of 124 that travel to and from the mainland. That’s still quite a number to overcome, however.
Really? Aloha must fly 737’s to Hawaii. I didn’t know that.
I think the number of people going to the event from the Bay Area is way too small for it to even be worth looking into. Individual teams should be able to get a group/athletic team rate for around 20-30 people.
There’s enough SoCal teams that it’d be an interesting thought though.
Can you guys reccomend any hotels in the area? Do you know where you guys are going to stay? Anyone from 359 or other Hawaiian teams have any advice? We’ve found a couple we’re looking into, but it’d be nice to stay with/near other teams who will be at the event.
One of the members of the Executive Advisory Board for the Hawaii event is a representative for Marriott so hopefully something may come about through that. I don’t know if/when that may materialize, but it might be something worth waiting for. Sorry, I know that doesn’t help at all.
Our team lives in the area, so we’re not getting any hotel reservations. I don’t know where 359 will be staying. If we had to stay someplace, it might’ve been at the Pagoda Hotel, but it’s a little generic, next door to and not within Waikiki, but close to food and shopping and a couple blocks from Ala Moana Beach Park.
We haven’t booked anything yet. We were going to stay wherever a $2,000 budget will take us for 6 rooms for 3 nights. That’s roughly 100/night plus HTAT and excise taxes.
Pagoda is one of our options, since the price is right for what you get. Yes, it is indeed close to shopping, eateries, etc. However, it is not close to Waikiki at all. I wanted to add that parking in Waikiki is a horror if your not getting some kind of discount staying at a hotel there.
Also, Aloha Airlines do indeed have small planes. My sister works for them so I get to fly on it all the time to Vegas.
I am not sure if they would be able to handle a large team(s). I dont recall prices being that cheap also whenever our team has researched it.
Let’s all plan to stay at the Pagoda then! We are game!!
Finally, the idea of getting assistance, if any, from the Marriot might be something worth waiting for. However, as team 368 has mentioned, its not a guarantee and may be a while before it materializes.
Now, I admit I haven’t read the entire contents of this thread, nor am I going to Hawaii, but…
Have the teams going considered chartering a jet together? When my school’s concert band went down to Disney this April, we chartered a jet with another school (the director’s wife is director at that school). We could arrange what time we wanted to leave and it was probably cheaper & easier to get tickets than trying to fly commercially. If anyone is interested in this, PM me and I’ll ask about who we chartered (no guarantees they fly to Hawaii).
just curious. any teams on the waiting list waiting to get on? The new FIRST regional listing doesnt show whos on the pending/waiting list.
I noticed there are 7 pending teams. Team pink seems to have been just added along with ourselves.
we are pending. but our adult mentor is away, so we are not too sure when we’ll be able to pay ( we have the money in our account though… YAY GRANTS!!!)
We are IN too. Our check is in process but we are squared with the NH office.
It’s gonna be a fun trip!!
WC 
If the other 4 veteran Hawaii teams are the other pending spots, I wonder who the final one is? West Coast, East Coast? What happened to team 103? This will really be a week 5 regional to watch! Just look at the list!
i just checked the plane tickets again. for the week of the competition, it is super expensive.
about $580 after all the security fees etc. are added on.
If we call them, I wonder how much the price can go down by.
and
Have anyone heard back from Jim Beck about the Hotels?
edit:// i searched fromt mroe travel companies and the cheapest i found was 529 from oakland to honolulu
When I tried calling the prices were actually higher.
oh wow… what happened to group rates…
well I did more research from various travel agencies. the cheapest I found was $528.
Just a quick update!
The prices from coming back on Sunday the 30th was getting ridiculously high (and very booked) so we called everyone that signed up for Hawaii Regional from my team to see if we can stay an extra day. Most didn’t have problem with it.
After called various airlines, we got a price of just below $400 (tax and everything included and getting there and back in San Jose!! first time in many years! we always had to go up to SFO) for 26 people!! yay!! Happy Ending for the Airfare!
We also called a couple hotels . So far only got number back from Hilton.
They are willing to give us rooms for about $200 /room/day (we need 12 rooms)
It’s a bit to expensive for us and not exactly necessary .I mean the point of planning is to bet the best value. Right now we are budgeting about ~$250 (average per person for 5 nights in max of 4 people per room, not everyone’s room will be filled up just cuz we always have an odd random numbers of girls going 
last time i had to sleep on the floor for 3 out of the 4 nights)
and average out the car rental price probably getting 2 vans to shuttle
possibly add in 2 team dinners. ( all the other meals the students get for themselves… we often get lazy and end up at fast food places hehe)
We are hoping to keep everything under $800 per student
With the extra day (the Sunday) we are thinking about planning a team trip.
So far on our possibility list, we have:
-Pearl Harbor
-Diamond Head
I never been to Hawaii before so what other close by places can we go to?
Last question: There IS going to be a team social on the last day right?
Hanauma bay
North Shore Beaches
Basically, go around the island and check it out.
Those are all great places to check out. We went to Hanauma Bay on July 4th and it was simply epic. We also went to Todai to fill ourselves up, not a bad way to spend your day:p. We were playing pasoi at the north shore. Pearl Harbor was our last stop, and it was a bit depressing. You can also go kayaking. We rented some and went out to Mokulua and had lunch there. It was a part of this bird sanctuary, so it was pretty cool.
For hotel we got the Hilton Hawaiian Village. Cost wise it’s going to be quite for a bit for everyone, with $1000-$1200 per person for the week, not including any meals which might get expensive. Hopefully we can go to Todai more for the one meal a day fill yourself up in 2 hours :D.
So all in all, you can check out Hanauma Bay, Diamond Head, North Shore, Pearl Harbor, Mokulua, and Todai.
sweet!!! there is a Todai around?
Nice!!! maybe that’s where we should make one of our team dinners.