hi everyone this is going to be a Travel Tips video based on our vacation in Oahu
so just nuggets of wisdom that I learned cuz like I've mentioned in my other
video I'm not really that experienced with travel so I found these things
really helpful to carry on to future vacations so here we go
I had never used Turo before and we had used a rental car through Hotwire for the first
half of our vacation and so on February 4th
I booked a Turo reservation from February 16th to 19th for this smart car
and on February 4th the guy confirmed and said hey he even messaged me back
and said hey you're gonna really enjoy this car and so two days before we're
supposed to pick up our car, the guy cancels on us, and I'm like what? I didn't
even know that you're allowed to cancel. So you know when you booked up with a
rental car company either through Expedia or whatever it is, they can't
cancel on you. You show up and they're gonna give you some type of car. Before
we've gone to Budget and they ran out of economy cars and we ended up getting a
Mustang, you know, so either way you always have a car. So I was really
surprised and disappointed and regretting that I booked on Turo
because by the time I checked again on February 14th the prices had gone up so
ten days had gone by and the prices had gone up and if I had known I wouldn't
have booked on Turo because we're now stranded without a car. So what happened
is that I called Turo and I found another car and they said hey don't
worry we'll refund you the fare difference, we'll will cover it. They waited for
the other driver to confirm, so they have I think 12 hours to confirm after you
put in an offer to rent their car. And this guy's car was available but he
ended up not confirming, so we still don't have a car and it's another 12
hours later. We're gonna go, we need a car in a day and a half. So then I called
Turo again and we had a list of cars that we liked. I was on the phone for two
hours. The customer service guy needs to find the car, see if it's available, then
he calls the owner. So I'm waiting on hold while he's calling the owner just
to make sure that it's available. And the funny thing is that one of the cars that
we found it's available and technically they can deliver for free but then he
calls the owner and the owner says oh you know I have to work that day I don't
know if I can make it to the airport. So finally we got a car, but it was just a
hassle, you know. So one of the good things that ended up coming out of
it, is that the first time the car that we got, it would have cost 154 dollars
for three days and because of the cancellation the Turo customer service
will say oh you know we'll cover any fare differences so we end up getting a
Camaro that would have cost $450. They also gave me a $20 credit just for, you
know, inconvenience which, yeah, it was it really was inconvenient. So that's like
one of the upsides of our experience but all in all it was just a little bit more
stress than I would have liked because let's just say you're you
know getting off the plane and then your Turo
person cancels on you and then you're really stranded. So thank goodness
we had like a day and a half to rearrange all our plans. If it's about
the same price I would rather go with a rental car company where when I show up
I know I'm getting a car as opposed to always wandering in the back of my mind
if oh this Turo guy gonna cancel. Because I know that they have to pay
some type of cancellation, like a penalty if they cancel on you, so something
must have happened but still, it was just really unexpected and I think a flaw in
their business model. You don't really want customers thinking like oh is this
confirmed but not really confirmed. So that was my experience. It was my first
time experience with Turo, I didn't have a good impression and I don't know
if I'm gonna book with Turo again in the future. Travel tip number two prepare for
sudden rain so when we booked our tickets to Oahu we checked the weather
it was supposed to be 81 degrees every single day really sunny, amazing
weather and then when we showed up the weather turns to 70-72 with each day
having a chance of rain. So I don't really know how to deal with you know
30% chance of rain. I don't know how to dress for that so I ended up
bringing a lot of summer clothes and what happened was that it would just
rain all of a sudden in Hawaii. Sometimes it would last for a minute
sometimes it would last longer and so we were at the Polynesian Cultural Center
and then all of a sudden look - like torrential rain
this happened three times while we were at the Polynesian Cultural Center the
first time were sitting there, we're waiting for the boat pageant, it just
unexpected. I was wearing like a tank top and a thin dress so I really wasn't
prepared. it rained really hard there are all
these tours happening around us and you can tell that the tour guides know that
this happens because they brought out all these thin rain ponchos for
everybody. But unfortunately we didn't bring our umbrella it was in the car and
then I just ended up using my jacket to cover us but then it got soaked and then
so um I got a cold because of just all the rain. We got caught in the
rain a bunch of times and then I kind of got like this chill that I couldn't
get rid of. So that's why my voice is really weird in some of the videos
because I got a really bad cold it took me about you know over two weeks to get
over. I would say if you go to Hawaii, make sure you dress in layers, make sure
that you have an umbrella. We ended up having to buy an umbrella, which was you
know not cheap, because it's like a $14 umbrella at one of those
convenience stores. It's sunny but there are times when the clouds come over or
the rain comes down so be prepared
if you stay at a hotel that has a gym it's almost guaranteed that they have a
water machine so you end up just refilling your water bottles and then
you can save on the cost of water and we didn't learn this until after we had
bought two big cases of water at Walmart and then we realized oh my gosh we could
just refill our water bottles in the gym and then we never have to pay for water
so that's like something that can just save you some time and also be like
eco-friendly so you just like you know buy one bottle instead of all these
recyclable bottles
so I really don't like to fly, I get motion sickness really badly, so the
first time when we landed into Honolulu I almost threw up, I really had to
control myself. I really don't like to be in confined spaces. I don't like to sit
for a long time and so mentally I really had to be engaged. We couldn't connect to
the in-flight movie entertainment for some reason, you have to
download an app before you get on the plane. Bruce suggested that we get a
portable DVD player. I thought the bigger the display the better I ended up
getting a 15.4 inch DVD player which ended up being way too big. It took
up too much space, it was hard to carry around, it was hard to fit on the tray
table. So now from experience I know that next time I'll get like a really small
one maybe an 11 inch or something like that so we can still watch the movie and
then it's not just really hard to take in and out from my backpack. I ended up
getting DVDs from the library. It lasted six hours on battery, then I got a
headphone splitter so that both of us can listen to headphones at the same
time so that was really good
it's not cheap to go to the Polynesian Cultural
Center it's definitely worth it but tickets start at $60 for adults so if
you book 10 days in advance you can get 10% off on their website but we didn't
do that we decided, you know, less than 10 days before that we wanted to go there. I
ended up looking around online and then I found that there's a coupon book it's
called entertainmen. They used to sent out physical coupon books and now there is
an online one and it's so cheap. I signed up for $0.99 a month and I saved $40 off
Polynesian Cultural Center. You just download the app and then they give you
a reservation number and then you have a coupon code which you just call their
number and then they just take $40 off. So it would have been a $180
for the island buffet and show but we ended up only paying $140
which was totally worth it so yeah definitely check out
entertainment.com they have a lot of other discounts for restaurants in the
area, we never ended up going to them, but they're kind of more like you know chain
franchise restaurants like Teddy's Bigger Burgers which we never went to
but yeah it's definitely an option if you are in the area and then you can
also turn on the app to where it tells you oh hey there's a coupon nearby so
you can enable location sharing and then they'll track you and send
you notifications which is totally worth it for 99 cents a month
Travel Tip #6 if you like to travel light which I do. So I like to be really
hands-free which is why I like to wear a backpack it gives just a certain ease of
comfort. I usually wear a really big backpack but then when I travel, I kind of
want to be cute and match like my cute outfits so this is a super cute backpack
that I brought to San Diego but I just wanted something that I didn't always
have to like you know take off and reput it back on my back, it was kind of
annoying. So okay you guys I've jumped on the fanny pack bandwagon don't judge me
but I looked on Amazon and this was the best one that I found because okay look
at this it also fits a water bottle which is what I wanted because Bruce and
I always try to drink you know our eight cups of water a day and then see? So it
has two pockets this one totally fit my phone and then the rest of it totally
fits like your money and your hotel keys. It's resizable I really found
this convenient. Both of us wore it and it was really nice. So I have a question
for you guys because I have a hard time flying so on our trip back to California
when we were almost landing and the plane started to descend my ears hurt so
badly I thought my eardrums were gonna pop and it's something that never
happened to me before I mean like I said it don't fly very often because you know
I feel usually like I'm gonna throw up but this time I started crying because
the pain was so bad it just felt like my eardrums were so sore I had so much
pressure nothing I did helped. I tried you know like you know sometimes you try
to swallow just to kind of pop your ears from the pressure and I
tried to chew gum. I drank some water it didn't help and I just basically cried
the whole time until we landed and I thought I was gonna go deaf because my
eardrums were gonna pop that's just how much it hurt and one of my ears was just
stuffed for the next day it was just like
that feeling of when you go to higher altitude and then like it doesn't
pop. So my ear was just not back to normal for a whole day
I was wondering- has this ever happened to you guys? Do you know of any
remedies or things that I can try for next time because like I said I was like
just like crying and I felt bad because you know the guy sitting next
to us he must have been like what's wrong with her? But yeah it was super
painful I just want to know maybe you know if there's anything that you guys
have tried that might help so I'd really appreciate that. So this is my travel
tips video I hope to learn something from every time I travel just to gain
the experience, become a more seasoned traveler, so I'll see you guys next time
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