Hawaiian Airlines announced that it would be increasing the base fare price on it’s interisland flights from $49 to $54. This is for one-way tickets.

This news of fare increases is coming on the heels of news that Mesa Airlines, the parent company of the low fare competitor of interisland flights go! airlines, will pay Hawaiian Airlines $52.5 million. This was from the settlement last year that claimed that Mesa used confidential information to enter the market of interisland travel when it was thinking about helping Hawaiian out a few years back.

These prices are for off-peak flights and don’t include increase to peak flights, which I think everyone can agree have slowly been going up. It will be interesting to see how go! reacts to the news and if they can survive after having to pay Hawaiian. The fact that Aloha Airlines is closed may help the two airlines stay in business but Mesa is having it’s own troubles losing contracts with companies like Delta on mainland based flights.

Only time will tell if we’re to continue to see price increases and eventually have to pay more than we should on interisland flights. Maybe these companies should hang out with the CEO of southwest and see how they offer such cheap flights. (Although $54 one way isn’t too bad either.)

The Hawaii Superferry has been in local news for over a year. The main topic of choice has been to write about how the company was able to start operation even without doing an environmental impact study. Or how people tried to stop the vessel from entering one port or the other.

But this article isn’t about that. This one is about how the Superferry is actually making runs between Oahu and Maui, taking passengers and their vehicles on the trips between Honolulu Harbor and Kahului. Tickets still cost only $39, an offer that will continue through June 5th, for one way per passenger on a trip that takes just under four hours.

Vehicles will run you another $55 each way which brings the total for two people back and forth between the islands, $266. Considering that plane fares look like they’re going to continue to rise with rising gas prices and Aloha Airlines closing its doors, if the price of the voyage doesn’t rise drastically, this may be a decent alternative.

But now onto the good news. In addition to traveling everyday, leaving Honolulu at 6:30 am, arriving Maui at 10:15 am, then doing the return leaving at 11:15 arriving in Honolulu at 2:15, the Hawaii Superferry will increase routes and run another round trip on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

The second trip will leave Honolulu Harbor at 3:30 pm, arrive Maui at 7:00 pm then leave Kahului at 8:00 pm and finally return back to Honolulu Harbor at 11:00 pm. This schedule will begin on May 9th, 2008. This may mean that the Superferry is doing well, but I haven’t heard much. The ship still takes gas so I can’t imagine it’s immune to the rise in gas prices. Do we think it can sustain the $39 and be competitive?

Has anyone been on the Superferry? Any pictures, any opinions? Is it crowded? Are they doing well? Let us know if you have any scoops.

You can check out the Superferry website here

While Oahu has Hanauma Bay and Shark’s Cove which are some of the best snorkeling destinations in the islands, some would even say in the world, Maui has more remote snorkeling, less people and newer reefs.

When I was asked to do this sponsored posted, as usual, I wanted to see if our readers would benefit from knowing about snorkeling on Maui. Turns out, I’m benefiting too, as I will most likely try out this service the next time I travel to Maui.

The service is the Pride of Maui, a 65 foot catamaran that can hold up to 149 people and cruises around Maui and some of the best snorkeling and scenic destinations. The catamaran takes people to Molokini, which I’m told, has the best snorkeling in the islands with massive amounts of diverse underwater species. It also has cruises to other random Maui locations for snorkleing, sunset cruises, and whale watching is the season is right.

The boat offers an onboard grill, bar, and all the accomodations you’d need on a day long snorkel adventure. It also has snuba which is where you access oxygen through a long tube that goes to the surface, allowing you to snorkel in deeper sections of the ocean without lugging around all the scuba gear. Or getting trained in scuba.

If you want to see Maui, both above and below the ocean, the Pride of Maui seems to have everything. The next time I’m on Maui I’ll check it out for our readers and have more to report, and if you’re heading off to Maui and try our the catamaran cruise, let us know what you think.

I’m gonna say right off the bat that this is a sponsored post. I was asked to review a site and it just so happened to fit into my world right now so I thought I would share it with the readers of Aloha Update.

With the line of work I’m in, and the fact that it’s located in Hawaii, I have to travel to the mainland a lot. So I’m in and out of a lot of hotel chains. One of the best I’ve found and recently joined their rewards program is the Marriott, especially the residence inns. Also being in the technical line of work, we have to travel to tech focused areas of the country, one such place, Silicon Valley.

For those who haven’t been to Silicon Valley, it’s littered with tech companies, up and down the coast. San Jose, San Francisco, Berkeley. All of which also have tons of fun things to do. This particular area of the country, and speaking of business, has a lot of vineyards and thus great wines for those business dinners.

But I digress. If you’re heading off to the area, you undoubtedly need a place to stay and one place, that without even going and staying a night, I can suggest, is the Newark Silicon Valley Hotel which is one of the Marriott Residence Inns. For the business traveler these hotels are the best places to stay and feel still like you’re at home.

This particular one is in great proximity to all the towns mentioned above as well as good proximity to wine tours, most likely the tech company you’re visiting, and countless other entertainment venues that cities of this calibre have to offer.

Check out the site if you’re heading to the center of the tech world.

Panda Travel is giving all of you an incentive to donate canned foods to the Hawaii Food Bank.  What’s the incentive?  For starters, you can get travel discounts, Disney themed prizes (ie. collectibles, key chains, etc.), but the biggest prize is a chance to win a FREE trip to Los Angeles.  Yes, you read that right.  You could donate a $3 canned food item (hopefully more than just one), feel good that you are feeding the hungry and unfortunate, and you could be rewarded with a free flight to LA.

So where you do donate the canned goods?  Panda Travel is having a Disney Day with the Hawaii Food Bank drive from 10am to 1pm this Saturday at the Panda Travel parking lot.  During this time, Panda Travel will be giving out information for all Disney related information, including Disney World, Disney Land, Disney Cruises, etc.  They will be looking to help people book Disney trips and help them to make most of their time while on their Disney vacation.

It is a nice way to both promote business as well as giving back to the community.  And with the grand prize, there’s even more incentive to stop by.  So when will you find out if you are the winner?  The grand prize winner will be announced at 1pm that same day.  You could be that person, so I encourage you all to stop by!

The Honolulu International Airport parking lot has plenty of problems.  First of all, there never seems to be enough of it.  That means if you didn’t plan your time well, or if you run into traffic, you might be late for your flight.  So I guess you can counter that by telling yourself to plan ahead of time.  Even then, the parking lot can be so full that it takes quite a while before you finally find parking.  On top of that, if you were to leave your vehicle there overnight, it’ll cost you $10 a day.  That’s $70 a week!  I always wondered why the airport didn’t emulate the airports on the mainland which offer parking lots a little farther away, and charge half the rate.  Well, now we have one.

The airport has recently opened a parking lot on the corner of Aolele street off of Lagoon Drive.  What’s do good about this lot?  Well, for starters, it costs $5 a day!  That’s half of what it costs to park on the onsite parking lot at the airport.

The parking lot will accomodate 360 uncovered stalls with free shuttle service to and from the airport every 15 minutes.  You can park starting from 5am until midnight, with security monitoring the area to make sure your car is safe overnight.

So the next time you’re planning leave your car at the airport, don’t forget this cheaper lot.  It’s more affordable, and just so much more worth it!

A federal judge ruled today for Hawaiian Airlines. Mesa, the parent company of go! Airlines was told today they would need to pay Hawaiian Airlines $80 million for mis-using confidential bankruptcy information to gain a competitive advantage over other inter-island carriers.

This could mean the price of interisland flights will increase back to pre-go! days. If that’s so, which Hawaiian Airlines CEO has said will happen to interisland flight prices that could mean good news for the Hawaii Superferry depending on how it’s travel schedule pans out. Either way, cheap flights may be a thing of the past if this ruling holds.

Mesa has yet to comment on how the ruling will affect go! Airlines inter-island travel.

In an article over at Star Bulletin we read some quotes that we thought might interest some interisland travelers.

The quotes came from Hawaiian Airlines top dog, CEO and President Mark Dunkerley as he explained to a backruptcy judge what would happen if go! airlines were to leave interisland travel. The article states that he says his “company would return to pricing air tickets reasonably to cover the actual costs of transportation.”

Now we don’t know how much the increase would be but we would imagine our days of $19 flights, just announced this morning would be long gone.

The news comes as go! airlines battles it’s lawsuit from Hawaiian Airlines which could cost Mesa Air (go!’s parent company) $173 million and bar them from selling tickets in the islands for one year.

Who knows what will happen but it sounds like you should think about getting your interisland travel in soon.

It’s that time again. The airlines are battling for your business.

go! airlines and Hawaiian airlines are offering one-way interisland flights for $19. You have to fly between now and November 30th and you must purchase your ticket by 11:59 pm tonight.

Get em fast because probably by the time I’m done typing this half of the flights will be gone.

Are you looking to head over to Kauai in the near future? Finding a decent priced hotel room, condo, or rental house on that Island can be daunting. Staying in Poipu and you’ll pay a ton. Staying in Hanalei and you’ll pay a ton. Staying in Princeville and you’ll pay 2 tons!

Face it. Unless you stay at the Tip Top Motel (been there done that) you need to know someone with a timeshare, or pay the price. A hefty price. That’s why when I was asked to write this sponsored review about a Princeville Resort website I jumped on the chance.

The site is nice, uses good pictures, easy to get around and tells you the deals right on the front page. As I write this the front page says you can get Princeville condo rentals from $140 a night. That’s a great deal for those of you who haven’t searched around Kauai for a cheap place to stay. When we were on the island not to long back hotel rooms at most of the resorts started at $400 a night. And the cheaper places were still well over $250. (And the cheaper places aren’t as fun as Princeville)

The site splits up the listings into condos and vacation homes. Full of pictures and good descriptions, it should make choosing a place to stay much easier. Another nice thing is the prices are right there for you to see. No hiding the price until you inquire, as some do.

Lastly, the site also gives you a few pointers on where to go and what to see with beach reviews and golf course reviews and descriptions. So if you’re heading out to Kauai soon and want to stay somewhere nice without all the cost, check out the site and let us know what you think of the service in a comment below.