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The Top 2 Secrets To Choosing Your Ideal Hawaii Vacation Rental

By Chris Haycock

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Published: 07Nov2009
Word count: 682
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Right, you've scrimped and saved, made all sorts of sacrifices. Now you are finally ready to take the family on the holiday of a lifetime. You are off to Hawaii.

Out of the many options on offer, you have decided that a vacation rental is the way for you. A good choice for a family especially as the locations are mostly great, you have the privacy to come and go as you wish, and they are usually pretty economical for what you get.

You've chosen Oahu. A good choice. Home to the state capital of Hawaii, Honolulu, Oahu is a place full of tradition and culture, with plenty to see and do. The obvious thing to do now is to google up "Oahu vacation rentals". WOW, hold on there, over 700,000 results. Just where do you start?

Let's see if we can help a little here with two of the top secrets that will help you choose your ideal rental.

1: Do use a reservation service. If you start to trawl through individual rental property listings posted by owners it's going to take you years and be very confusing. You are also going to be very restricted in the dates you can have. Vacation rentals in Hawaii are extremely popular, with many owners reporting a 90% plus occupancy rate. So it could take the aforementioned years to find the dates you want.

Plus, you only have the owners word and their own promotional material on the condition and location of their property. It's always going to be the best isn't it? You could be in for a big disappointment.

2: Make sure the reservation service you do use is a good one. Get a recommendation if at all possible. If you can't do that then make sure that the service is locally owned and operated. These services are going to want to do their best to keep you happy and give you what you want. After all they live there and have to deal with their owners face to face.

Remote websites just do not have the local knowledge to allow you to make an informed choice on a rental that will suit you best, for your individual purposes. For example, you have decided on Oahu, and you also want to take in some whale watching while on vacation. That's great, but only a local service will tell you that you need to be on the windward side of the Island to be able to do that.

Services that are impersonal, using automated credit card bookings, are less interested in finding out your ideal requirements than taking your cash.

Services that offer you a selection of over 100 properties are also to be avoided. To be honest there just aren't that many good quality rentals on Oahu, and they are very unlikely to have personally inspected them all and will be relying on the owners description. Not a good situation I'm sure you'll agree.

Stay away from any services that say they can offer you a hotel or condo in Kailua (a lovely beach community on the windward side of the Island, ideal for whale watching). Zoning laws do not allow hotels or condos in Kailua, so these services are purely once again just after your cash.

Bear in mind that the usual vacation property terms include a clause that means your deposit is non-refundable, so you really need to make the right choice. A decent reservation service will ask you questions, and try to find out from you exactly what you need and are looking for, including such things as what you want do whilst you are there.

The good services will take time to get it right for you, to the extent that they will actually try to dissuade you from a property that you might have chosen, as they know it's not the right one for you. Don't take offence, they are doing a good job. Let's face it a happy customer is often a repeat customer.

Well, I hope that's helped you a little, use these tips and have a great Hawaii vacation.

If you found this article useful and you wish to find out more hints and tips on all aspects of travel, all over the world (and at home) just go to http://www.loads-of-stuff.com

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