The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii [Paperback]

Rick Carroll (Author), Marcie Carroll (Author), Betty ShimaBukuro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 19, 2004 | Series: Unofficial Guides

The Unofficial Guides® are the Consumer Reports of travel guides, offering candid evaluations of their destinations' attractions, hotels, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, sports, and more, all rated and ranked by a team of unbiased inspectors so even the most compulsive planners can be sure they're spending their time and money wisely. Each guide addresses the needs of everyone from families to business travelers, with handy charts that demonstrate how each place stacks up against the competition. Plus, all the details are pulled out so they're extremely easy to scan.

In The Unofficial Guide® to Hawaii you'll get the inside story on the islands' top attractions, such as Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, the Polynesian Cultural Center, the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, and more, plus tips on travel packages, beaches, adventure outings, and golf. All the major hotels, resorts, and restaurants are rated and ranked for value and quality, and we've explored all the details of Hawaiian nightlife, from luaus to the legendary Don Ho.

The Top 5 Ways The Unofficial Guide® to Hawaii Can Help You Have the Perfect Trip:

1. A complete guide to exploring the islands, including the best beaches, scenic drives, and rain forest walks
2. The inside story on shopping for aloha shirts, local art, and Hawaiian music
3. How to discover truly authentic Hawaiian culture, with tips on enjoying Hawaiian regional cuisine
4. The best places to golf, hike, dive, snorkel, and surf
5. Proven strategies for getting the best hotel rates, plus tips on enjoying Hawaii with kids

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

From the publishers of The Unofficial Guide^® to Walt Disney World^®

"A Tourist’s Best Friend!"
–Chicago Sun-Times

"Indispensable"
–The New York Times

The Top 10 Ways The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii Can Help You Have the Perfect Trip:

1. Information that’s candid, critical, and totally objective
2. Major hotels and resorts rated and ranked for value and quality of rooms–plus, proven strategies for getting the best rates
3. More than 80 restaurants reviewed in detail and rated, with tips on Hawaii Regional Cuisine
4. The inside story on the top attractions: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Polynesian Cultural Center, the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial, Haleakala National Park, and more
5. A complete guide to exploring the islands, including the best beaches, scenic drives, and rain forest walks
6. Tips on enjoying Hawaii with kids
7. The inside story on shopping for aloha shirts, local art, and Hawaiian music
8. All the details on nightlife, from luaus to the legendary Don Ho
9. The best places to golf, hike, dive, snorkel, and surf
10. How to discover truly authentic Hawaiian culture

Get the unbiased truth on hundreds of hotels, restaurants, attractions, and more in The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii–the resource that helps you save money, save time, and make your trip the best it can be.

About the Author

Rick Carroll, author of many Hawaii books, is the creator of the bestselling Hawaii’s Best Spooky Tales Series. A former daily journalist at the San Francisco Chronicle, Carroll wrote award-winning travel and feature stories about Hawaii and the Pacific for the Honolulu Advertiser and United Press International. He is contributing editor to Hawaii Magazine. His stories appear on the Internet at www.hawaii.rr.com. His new book, Madame Pele True Encounters with Hawaii’s Fire Goddess, celebrates Pele’s 20-year tantrum at Kilauea Volcano, the world’s longest continuous eruption, still underway.

Marcie Rasmussen Carroll, freelance travel writer and former communications director for the Hawaii Convention and Visitors Bureau, wrote political, environmental, and other news for the San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury-News, and UPI in Atlanta. She was a Journalism Fellow in Asian studies at University of Hawaii and in energy studies at Stanford University.
Together, the Carrolls, who moved to Windward Oahu in 1983, collected and edited the anthology Travelers Tales Hawaii: True Stories of the Island Spirit, which one reviewer praised as “the best collection of contemporary Hawaii travel stories.” They are the authors of this extensively revised and rewritten third edition of the Unofficial Guide to Hawaii.

Betty ShimaBukuro, who updated the dining chapter for this edition, is the food editor at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, a job that encompasses everything from good home cooking, to mom-and-pop ethnic restaurants, to the finest in Hawaii Regional Cuisine. After a long journalism career that has included a dozen different news beats, she considers this to be the best gig in town.

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 3 edition (March 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764541927
• ISBN-13: 978-0764541926
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,976 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bob Sehlinger, a Lowell Thomas Award winning journalist, is best known as the creator and producer of the Unofficial Guide Series published by Wiley Publishing Inc. and sold worldwide.

He is credited with being the first to apply research techniques from the fields of operations research and statistics to travel guides. Among other projects, he was able to develop mathematical models that could save theme park patrons more than three hours of standing in queue in a single day.

Sehlinger and his research team (pictured) have had numerous adventures and developed some unusual methodologies. Here's a sampling from research for The Unofficial Guide To Walt Disney World:

"We've slept in every Disney resort multiple times and more than 80 Orlando-area properties. Only once did we wake up covered in bugs. (It was a non-Disney hotel.)"

"We test hotel room soundproofing using a sophisticated digital sound meter and a copy of The Who's Greatest Hits."

"The first time we did Orlando spa reviews, one of our researchers had an eyebrow burned off during a waxing that went horribly awry."

"We once logged more than 700 miles in one week on buses to test Disney's transportation system, and never left Disney property. The bus drivers got so used to us being on board that one forgot we were there and took us back to the bus garage when his shift ended."

"We test pillow fluffiness using a measurement process we invented. We intended to use a fake human head as part of the test, but worried about getting it through airport security. We settled on a gallon jug of water, which is about the same size and weight as an average adult's noggin."

"When we test counter-service restaurants, we order at least one of everything on the menu, and break up in to small teams to sample each thing. We've tried every counter-service food item in every American Disney theme park."

"Our crowd prediction models take in to account everything from the day of week and time of year, to the vacation schedules of the fifty largest school districts east of the Mississippi, to weather phenomena including temperature, rainfall and humidity."

Bob Sehlinger is founder and co-owner of Keen Communications, a book publishing company that includes Menasha Ridge Press in Birmingham, Alabama; Clerisy Press in Cincinatti, Ohio; and Wilderness Press in Berkeley, California. The author of twenty-seven books, Sehlinger is a past president of the Publishers Association of the South, and has served at the invitation of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Information Service on educational missions for publishers in Hungary, Romania, and Russia.

Before becoming involved in writing and publishing, Sehlinger was CEO of SAGE, inc., a wilderness arts teaching and expeditional company that produced courses in kayaking, rock climbing, survival, and backpacking (among others) for high schools and universities in a 7-state area. During this period Sehlinger served as president of the Eastern Professional River Outfitters Association. Sehlinger makes his home in Birmingham, Alabama where he continues to be an avid river runner and mountain biker.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What a disappointment!, July 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii (Unofficial Guides) (Paperback)

Perhaps I was expecting too much from the title of this book. There is nothing "unofficial" about the information it contains. The hotel descriptions are very standard guidebook material - lots of facts, but not enough of a description to give you a feel of the properties. I have stayed at several of the properties listed in this book and they could have easily included some information that IMHO would have been crucial to your enjoyment. Also, very little information is provided on things to do on each island outside of the usual tourist attractions. Maybe I am being too harsh. After all, Frommers and Fodors aren't any better, but since this book is touting itself as the "unofficial guide", I feel that it's a bit of false advertising.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Just Bad, March 29, 2009

By 

Jamie M. Massaro "Jamie" (New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii (Unofficial Guides) (Paperback)

Last year I went to Disney and bought the Unoffical Guide to Disney and it was the best thing I could have ever done. After reading it I said hands down this will be the guidebook I will always buy. The Hawaii book was just terrible. I feel I was still as stumped as I was before I started the book. I would one million percent recommend the Disney book but I would stay away from this book. Buy a book that is dedicated to one island, even if you have to buy 2 or 3 it will be worth it because if you buy this book you will have to buy more books afterward anyway.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, February 15, 2011

By 

Brinda S. Swanson (Lenexa, Kansas United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Hawaii (Unofficial Guides) (Paperback)

I've read Unofficial Guides series before (e.g. Disney) and loved them...so I was disappointed when I got this one and it was not good at all. It is poorly organized for one thing. Instead of separating the sections by island, it has everything together. For example, if you want to find a good restaurant in Kauai, you have to look at the entire restaurant section and try to find ones that are in Kauai. The other books I'v read have a Kauai section and then you just turn to the restaurant portion of that section. Unless you are going to visit all the islands of Hawaii on your trip, then you are going to waste a lot of time reading stuff that doesn't apply to your trip. I was also disappointed in the level of detail provided.