Holy Moly!!!! We have a trip scheduled to Kauai in October and realized we forgot to reserve a rental car. We've always had good luck with Dollar and hopped on their site yesterday to reserve a mini van. Just guess how much a mini van is for ten days????? $2700!!!!!!!!! It's usually around $700. We searched every rental agency including AAA and didn't find anything much better. Eventually my wife found an article on line recommending Costco.com of all places. Sure enough the quote was $1000 cheaper than anyone else.
According to news reports, rental car agencies took a bit hit in the first year of Covid. In order to stay afloat they sold off a large portion of their fleets. Now that travel restrictions have lifted the companies are getting slammed and passing it on to the consumer. Yikes!!!
OLD NEWS ~
cars were all over parking malls parking lots on Kauai, stuffed into old sugar cane fields with growth over the tops of cars. Stuffed into make shift bulldozed lots at the airport and then ~poof, all gone.
Sold off, to pay off their leases to the dealers that they were leased from. COVID put a damper on rentals. No folks to rent cars. No people traveling. And then, 16, 17 months down the line, Hawaii opens up again to the tourists and No rentals cars. Why? New cars can't get chips nor computes for there new cars. So new cars are sitting in factories, static.
Whatever rentals cars are available are scooped up and gone. Folks rent U-Haul trucks from U-Haul or from Home Depot. Heaven forbid, take The Bus, on Oahu. No busses on Maui nor the Big Island of Hawaii and limited bus service on Kauai. But there is cab service which a lot of folks have turned to, to get to see any part of the island that folks are visiting.
Rumor has it that 5000 "rental cars" are being sent to Kauai for different rental agencies.
Whoopie. There goes the neighborhood.
Maui, the Island of Hawaii and soon Kauai have asked airlines to slow down the movement of people to the Islands. "We cannot handle the influx of people at this time." Restaurants, retail business's don't have enough employee's to staff the floors. Workloads /and overtime is the norm for many business's. House of cards for many employers.
Hours of operations for restaurants are being hindered by COVID restrictions in how many people can be in a restaurant at one time leaving many to wait up to an hour or more, 2 hours even. RESERVATIONS anywhere is a must IF, they are taken. Many restaurants don't need to take reservations anymore. "Fill the house," let them eat and shovel in the next group. There is no "service" anymore in some restaurants. Understaffed, overworked, some places can't even clear your starter plates nor main dishes from the table. Sad really.
I'm doing 5 different disciplines in the restaurant that I work at anytime during the evening if need be. Bussing, pantry work, in the back of house (salads, soups, desserts) food runner, so items don't sit and get cold, host, in taking names or sitting people and help washing dishes at the end of the night so we can all get out of Hanalei before 11:00 PM because the road closes overnight for safety reasons due to a huge landslide that we had in March and only one lane is available IN & OUT of Hanalei AND I have to go to work 4 hours before I'm scheduled, because of the work being done on the landslide area and there are scheduled hours on entering and leaving Hanalei. 5:00 AM to 7:30 AM. 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM and 5:30 to 11:00 PM. I take the 1-2:30 convoy. I loose half a day of anything just because of the convoy schedule. Just how it is for now.
COVID, has changed our daily lives in Hawaii for everyone, in one way or another ~
