Inside Travel Talk

Hawaii Adventures, Passport Tips & $1 Cruise Deposits

• Mark Faldmo & Patrick Wiscombe • Season 4 • Episode 3

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Imagine gliding through airport security without fumbling for IDs, then stepping onto an island where lava glows after dark and sea turtles rest on black sand. We unpack how new touchless ID technology at 65 airports speeds your journey when paired with TSA PreCheck, a valid passport profile, and airline enrollment—and why those saved seconds add up to real time you can spend on the beach.

From there, we map out Hawaii with clear, no-fuss guidance. The Big Island delivers volcano views and manta ray night snorkels, with Hapuna and Mauna Kea as two of the state’s top beaches. Kauai brings drama and calm in the same breath: the Nā Pali Coast by helicopter or boat, Waimea Canyon’s layered vistas, and a rewarding start on the Kalalau Trail. Maui blends the epic with the easy—Haleakalā sunrise and bike descent, the Road to Hana’s cliff-lined curves, Molokini’s sheltered snorkeling, and winter whale watching off Kāʻanapali. Oahu balances history and surf culture: Pearl Harbor and Punchbowl for reflection, Diamond Head for city views, and the North Shore for beach days and boogie boards.

We also share timely travel deals: savings on Hawaii packages that include airfare and trusted properties in Waikiki, plus a heads-up on falling Alaska cruise fares and Holland America’s limited $1 deposit window that lets you lock a cabin now and decide details later. Whether you’re booking your first island escape or optimizing a return trip, you’ll walk away with smarter airport strategies, passport essentials, and island-by-island picks you can trust.

If this guide helped you plan, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs a getaway, and leave a quick review to help more travelers find the show. Planning a trip soon? Tell us which island or cruise you’re choosing—we’d love to help you fine-tune the details.

Patrick Wiscombe:

It is time to talk travel. Welcome to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast or radio show. Hello there. Coming up on today's show, Mark and I will be talking about Hawaii. Always a great topic. Passport tips and reminders. Touch ID coming to an airport near you. I guess it's called touchless ID. Oceana going adults only. Three cruise deals of the week. I was genuinely surprised when I saw this. $1 deposits when sailing with Holland America, and it wouldn't be a show without a travel deal of the week to Hawaii. Let's start the show. The Inside Travel Talk Podcast radio show, presented by Blue PlanetVacations.com, contains travel deals, promotions, and offers that are time sensitive. All travel deals and offers were accurate when the show aired. Travel deals and offers change constantly and are capacity controlled and subject to change without notice.

Show Voice:

Explore your world. It's the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show, presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com. Call or text the show now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. And check out the podcast at Inside TravelTalk.com. And now, here are your hosts, Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Live from the great state of Utah, right here in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hello there. I am Patrick Wiscombe. You are listening to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast, a radio show. Coming up on today's show, we will be talking about Hawaii. And the entire purpose of this radio show and podcast is to help you plan to book your next vacation, or we're just going to give you ideas of where you may want to go on vacation next. And we are presented, proudly presented, by Blue PlanetVacations.com, a Mark Faldmo company. And just a sincere thank you for taking the time to stop and listen. This week we are talking about Hawaii. We've got the travel deal of the week to Hawaii, passport tips and reminders, not that that's relevant if you go to Hawaii. Touchless ID coming to an airport near you. Oceana goes adults only. We've got three cruise deals of the week, one dollar deposits when you sail with Holland America. So those are just a handful of the stories we'll be talking about on today's show. And let me bring in the co-host who is convalescing at the home of his parents right this very moment. He built his studio this week so he could do the radio show either from his parents' house, he can do it from his office, he can do it from his house. He's got three radio studios. Mark Faldmo its good to see you.

Speaker 3:

It's good to be here. Good to talk travel. I'm excited about this week's show.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Let's start with the TSA is undertaking a large expansion of touchless ID.

Speaker 3:

What are the details? They're going to roll that out to 65 airports by the end of spring. So one thing you need to be a precheck member. TSA pre-check. Okay. A TSA pre-check and you have to have a passport entered into your profile. And then you have to enroll with your airline, which is giving it permission to use that touchless ID.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Security is most important. So touchless ID, TSA. So if there's a hierarchy of importance, touchless ID or security at the any airport is paramount. So touchless ID. And then if you have a frequent flyer program like Delta Sky Miles, United, Southwest, anything like that, they work in conjunction with TSA.

Speaker 3:

They do. These programs work with that. The touchless ID is nice. I love the Delta Digital ID. Yeah. There's a special line for it when you're checking a bag, which often has nobody in it. Uh-huh. And they they just scan your face, it prints out your bag tag, it's done there. And then when going through TSA, it's basically you walk past camera and you're good to go. I think the TSA said this saves like five to six seconds per person, which individually doesn't sound like a lot, but collectively, oh yeah. That's minutes of waiting in line that you don't have to do.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Anything to speed up security, I'm a fan of.

Speaker 3:

Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about passport tips and reminders. It's always a good thing to review. The first one and the main one is six months validity on your passport. Meaning six months before it expires. Correct. So from the date you enter, your passport has to be valid for at least six months.

Speaker 4:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

Again, it's not a written rule. I usually will renew my passport about 14 months before. I have had customers that have been denied by airlines getting on a plane because they have not had six months' validity. The other thing is your passport should be in generally good condition. Yeah. No water stains, no physical damage. I know one time my dad's passport went through the wash. He traveled on it for a while until one day one of the customs agents flagged it and said, We're not going to allow you to travel on this passport anymore. For instance, been able to travel to a country, and then when you're coming back to the US, have them not accept your passport. So no physical damage. And another one that comes up quite often is the blank page problem. Oh yeah. You should make sure you have several consecutive pages in your passport. And there's not a lot of people traveling to China, but when I traveled to China before, you had to have a page for their visa, and then you had to have three blank pages consecutively after that, or they would not give you your visa. And there are a lot of countries that have that where you have to have a certain number of blank pages. I just barely got mine renewed, so I only have like one stamp in it right now. But when I was running low on pages, I got a paperclip and paper clipped like five pages together so that when the agent that was stamping the passport was looking, he wouldn't look at those and he'd find another place to put the stamp. So interesting. So just to make sure I had that in case I needed it.

Patrick Wiscombe:

That feels like a natural segue to uh plug blueplanetvacations.com. Down in the footer, you have a bunch of resources, one of which is how to get a passport application. And you can just see that at the bottom of the page.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, go. There's it's resources, and then in there, there's a whole bunch of travel resources, but there is a direct link to the State Department's passport page.

Patrick Wiscombe:

You can always ask your travel-related questions by calling or texting us 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. We are receiving a text from who is this? Jane? Jane is asking, I want to go to Hawaii, but I'm having a hard time deciding which island. Please give me your top pick of things to see and do on each island. Wow, that's a big question. Let's start with the big island.

Speaker 3:

Since that's my favorite island, we'll start with that one. I'm biased for the big island. The thing the big island is known for is the volcanoes. Hawaii National Park is phenomenal. If you go right now, you can get up and close to the erupting lava. Is it still going? It is still going. Wow. In fact, I think the national park has a just an ongoing webcam. So you can go to Hawaii Volcano National Park and click on their live webcam and see what the volcano is doing. Sometimes it's just lava, sometimes it's just steam. I know yesterday I saw a story, it erupted in the daytime, and there was you know a hundred-foot fountain of lava coming out. And and you're within a mile of that, and it's pretty amazing to see. That's the main thing to do, I think, on the big island.

Patrick Wiscombe:

What else do you recommend for the big island?

Speaker 3:

The other thing that a lot of people like to do is the night manta ray snorkel tour. You go out on a boat, it's especially good in a full moon to go out and snorkel with the manta rays. And the manta rays there on the big island are the huge, like you know, 20-foot wingspan. You know, the really big manta rays out there. So you go out at nighttime and snorkel with those. Really great thing to do. And just snorkeling. I like the snorkeling tour in general that goes out out at by Captain Cook's monument. It's a good place to snorkel.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I'm not a coffee drinker, but I know that uh isn't the coffee plantation uh oh yeah, I think it's in Kona.

Speaker 3:

I'm assuming that if you're a coffee drinker, that that they have the uh what a coffee tasting to go on the coffee plantation out on the Kona coast there with coffee tasting and just a learning experience about the whole process of making the coffee. I don't drink coffee, but it's an interesting tour to take.

Patrick Wiscombe:

One of the favorite things that Nikki and I did when we were on the big island, when was that? Was that March of 23?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, March of 23.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah, uh, was going to the Black Sand Beach. That was absolutely fascinating.

Speaker 3:

That is definitely on my list, especially during turtle season. Um, lots of sea turtles, that's where they nest and lay their eggs. It's a cordoned off area, so you can't get close to them. But just to see that, and then also the uniqueness of the black sand beach.

Patrick Wiscombe:

You wouldn't think that black sand would be uh that interesting, but when you see it in that amount in instead of tan, it it really is fascinating and it feels kind of cool in your hands.

Speaker 3:

It is, yeah. Uh what else? The next thing is it's probably the best island for beaches. Uh go to Hapuna Beach or uh Mauna Kea Beaches. Hapuna beach is often ranked as one of the top beaches in the world. There's a little cove there that's good for snorkeling, but it's just a great beach to go to. Probably two of the best beaches in all of Hawaii, Hapuna Beach and Mauna Kea Beach.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Let's move over to Kauai now. What do you recommend doing on Kauai?

Speaker 3:

The first thing is see the Nepali coast.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

You can either do it by helicopter. That is my favorite way to do it, or you can do it by boat. You can either do it by zodiac that goes and explores some of the smaller coves and secluded beaches, or you can do it on a bigger boat, which is more of a scenic way. But Nepali Coast, it's such a steep mountain into the ocean. There's no roads. So Kauai, uh, you can only drive halfway around the island. The whole other shore of the island is inaccessible except by boat.

Patrick Wiscombe:

One of the things on Kauai has to be Waimea Canyon.

Speaker 3:

It is, yeah. I love driving up that, you know, it's the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, lots of chickens everywhere, which is interesting up there. Um, but once you get to the top, you also do have a good view of the Nepali coast. But the drive, there's waterfalls, scenic views of the Waimea Canyon. It's a really good option and activity there in Kauai.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah, that's a must-do if you go there. You have to do that one. But what else to do on Kauai?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we've got two more things uh on Kauai. One is the Kilahana Plantation Railway. You know, we we always like talking about trains, and it's just a historic train ride through tropical scenery and through that old sugar cane plantation. The last thing is the Kululu Trail, which you can do part of it without a permit. And it's hiking, that's the trail that goes into the Nepali coast. The first 20 minutes, you know, about a mile and a half, is a pretty mountainous. It's a pretty steep up hike. But once you get there, it has great views. And you can do just that portion and then come back. If you go a little bit further in, there are backpackers that years in advance by permits to go.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Years in advance.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and you know, some of the some of those beaches, like if you remember from Jurassic Park, I don't know if it was the first one or the second one, the beach that the family went to that was just secluded. That was there on the Nepali coast in Kauai. So there are just secluded beaches with no one else on them that you can hike to and get a permit to camp there. But it it's years in advance to get that.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Mark and I can talk about Hawaii for a long time. One of the great guaranteed success vacations that you'll ever have: Hawaii and Alaska. No complaints. I've never heard complaints from anybody. We're going to talk about more of Jane's questions, what to do on each of the islands. We still have to cover Maui. We still have to call Oahu, and we're still going to get to the travel deal of the week and the infamous Just Cruising segment. That's coming up next when the Inside Travel Talk Podcast, a radio show continues, alongside my convalescing friend, Mark Faldmo. I am Patrick Wiscombe. We will be right back. Give us about 60 seconds.

Show Voice:

Taking you to destinations around the world, the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show is presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com. America's Best Travel Advisors. Call or text the show now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. Thanks for listening. We'll be right back. This segment of Inside Travel Talk is sponsored by El Dorado Spa Resorts. Escape to Cancun's Riviera Mayer with authentic, all-inclusive luxury at an El Dorado Spa Resort. To book your romantic beach getaway, contact Blue Planet Vacations at 888-718-7717 or Blue Planet Vacations.com. Now, back to the Insight Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show. Presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com. America's best travel advisor. Call or text the show right now. 801-649-3700. 801-649-3700. And check out the podcast at InsideTravel Talk.com. Here's Patrick Whiskey and Mark Faldmo.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Ahoy. Welcome back to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast or radio show. Alongside Mark Faldmo, I am Patrick Wiscombe, co-host of this award-nominated, but we haven't won our major radio award yet, but we have high expectations for this year. Coming up in this segment of the show, we are continuing to talk about Hawaii. The two islands left that we still need to talk about are Maui and Oahu. We'll get to the travel deal of the week. We've got the infamous Just Cruising segment. We'll be talking about Holland America and $1 deposits. That's coming up here in uh isn't that next week, Mark? It's like two days or something. Okay.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's two days. We'll get to that.

Patrick Wiscombe:

All right. Let's get back to what Jane's question was. And she was asking, hey, I want to go to Hawaii, but I can't decide which island to go to. So we're just giving her some options and choices. Obviously, we're letting you listen to this conversation. And Mark, we've already talked about what to do on the big island and in Kauai. Let's start with Maui. And I'm going to say it has to be one of the greatest experiences of my life. Haleakala, sunrise, and bike tour.

Speaker 3:

That is number one on the list. That's one of the more popular, if not the most popular, uh thing to do in Maui. And I would just add to that, just Haleakala, just going up to the top and seeing that. It is quite amazing. Um, but seeing it at sunrise and then the bike tour, which you see it at sunrise and then bike down the mountain. Um, very interesting.

Patrick Wiscombe:

That is just nuts to do because you go from sea level. Well, we did, we went from sea level all all the way up to what is it, like 11,000, 12,000 feet in the air?

Speaker 3:

I think it's about 12,000 feet.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah. And then ride your bike down.

Speaker 3:

That wow. Well, that's so high you're above the clouds. So, you know, a lot of times when you drive up to the top of Haleakala, you're driving in fog, and then you break out, and there's just the top of the mountain up there. From there, you can see all of the Hawaiian islands. You can see clear to Kauai on a clear day.

Patrick Wiscombe:

It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I don't use that phrase very often. It it is such a special experience. It's going to be one of those things that you're like, yeah, okay, that sounds great, blah, blah, blah. But you're above the clouds. So you see the sunrise come up over the clouds. Now, if you're there in the evening, you can watch the sun go down from above the clouds. It's unbelievable. It's kind of weird to think that such a place exists on planet Earth.

Speaker 3:

And that's one thing I like about Hawaii. There's so many different landscapes, and from the desert of Kona. In fact, I think there's about six inches of snow on the top of the volcano on Kilauea in uh the big island right now. And so you can go from tropical beaches to skiing in Hawaii. I'm just amazing.

Patrick Wiscombe:

What else is on the things to do in Maui?

Speaker 3:

One is the road to Hana. It's a scenic drive, one of the most beautiful drives I've been on. You do kind of have to have knuckles of steel because it's a narrow road. And when you come up against delivery trucks or some places, it's really hard for two-way traffic on that road. But it is a very beautiful drive. When you get over to Hana, if you go a little bit further, you actually go back into Haleakala National Park to where the seven sacred pools are. It's a great full day thing to do. The other thing is the Molokini Crater snorkel. Um, they're just off the coast of Maui. It's the very top of a volcano that's broken off. It's kind of a half moon sheltered area where you can snorkle. Great place to snorkel. And I did say that was the last one, but I will also throw in during the winter months while watching is great in Maui.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I'm gonna throw in one more. The Kaanapali beach and cliff jump at uh Black Rock. Have you done that? I have not.

Speaker 3:

Yep, I have done that. Um, and that is actually on the beach that's out in front of the uh Sheraton, Kaanapali, which is that's one of my top places to stay there. And so there's a short walk away from that is Black Rock, where you can jump into the ocean if you want.

Patrick Wiscombe:

I've done cliff jumping before. I that feels like uh well, in my case it was a three and done.

unknown:

Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Not a one and done.

unknown:

Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

All right, let's uh move from Maui over to Oahu. Let's start with what I think is must see. Reverence Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Pearl Harbor, USS Arizona Memorial. And along those lines, I'd also add Punch Bowl, which is the cemetery of the Pacific.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

A lot of history in Pearl Harbor for our country and for the world there.

Patrick Wiscombe:

That was a must-win. If we talk about must-win in sports, that was a must-win. Diamond Head. Hiking at Sunrise.

Speaker 3:

It is. This isn't quite as dramatic as Haleakala on Maui. Um, but you can hike Diamond Head. And you can actually drive into the crater of Diamond Head as well. So oh, you can drive in there? Yep. Yep, you can do that. Um, but that the there is a trail that you can hike up that gives you great views of Waikiki and Honolulu.

Patrick Wiscombe:

It wouldn't be Oahu if we didn't talk about the North Shore. Awesome.

Speaker 3:

Amazing. The the beaches of North Shore are great to visit. The last few times I've been there, so the last year or so, I spent a lot more time on the beaches of the North Shore. Oh, you did? Um I'm not as much of a water person, but I do like to boogie board every once in a while. And so, you know, what I do is you go to the ABC store, they're everywhere. You can buy a boogie board for twelve dollars, and then we just go donate it back to the Goodwill or the courtyard North Shore Oahu. We'll take them for their water program. Just give give them to the hotel. Say we're not gonna use them.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So, Jane, you really can't go wrong. If you need additional information, just call Mark in the office as soon as we get off the air. 888-718-7717 thats 888-718-7717. Let's make the deal just a little bit sweeter. This is the travel deal of the week, which is Hawaii. And what's the promotion that Jane and really any of our listeners can take advantage of?

Speaker 3:

This goes to the end of January, so a few weeks, and it save up to $250 to any island of Hawaii. I did just quickly pull out end of March, midweek, end of March date just to give people an idea of where pricing starts. So this was airfare from Salt Lake City, Five Nights Hotel, Sheraton Princess Kaialani, uh there in Waikiki, $999 per person. Wow. Um, my favorite hotel there, the Hilton Hawaiian Village, four and a half star hotel from $1579 per person.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah, it's especially if it includes airfare, that's incredible to me. That includes the savings, correct?

Speaker 3:

That does, yes. Okay.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Let's get to the infamous Just Cruising segment. This is the segment of the show that has made us famous around the country and around the world. Let's get to the cruise deal of the week now, which is Alaska. So we talked about Hawaii, and now we're going to talk about Alaska. These are two vacations that you can never go wrong with, ever.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I know we talked about Alaska last week, but it's so good. You know, I just wanted to mention that as I've been uh updating that new website I talked about last week, Alaska Cruise Guru, I've noticed a lot of the prices have dropped. I found some balconies that dropped more than $200 a person. Whoa. Um, I did find one, a rare case, where the price difference was $500 lower um than what it was a few weeks ago. So that's just a quick mention of Alaska Cruises. I also wanted to mention Hall in America's $1 deposit sale.

Patrick Wiscombe:

This is wild. So today is the uh we air the show on January 17th and 18th. So that's a Saturday and Sunday. So coming up on when is it? The uh Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so January 20th and 21st, you can book any Helmed America cruise departure for just a $1 deposit. There is a caveat on that, that the full deposit of $99 is due 30 days later. That's okay. It'll it'll at least get you to where you can start thinking about it and planning and give you it's a refundable deposit. So even if you lost the $1, that's no big deal.

Patrick Wiscombe:

So right. And that's what I'm saying is when we talk about book your vacation, put your deposit down, especially when it comes to cruising, just reserve your spot, reserve your cabin, and then you can have dinner and you know decide who's going, what who's doing what, and where you're going. It's a phenomenal way to get in line without having to commit all the dollars you have.

Speaker 3:

It is. Yeah.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Now to take advantage of the Holland America dollar deposit, they just call you in the office.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, just call us and we'll be able to book your Holland America cruise for one dollar.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Okay, so 888-718-7717-888-718-7717. Now, I'm just remembering this just now. Uh Holland America goes to Alaska. So could you reserve Alaska for a buck? You could. Yeah. Oh man.

Speaker 3:

For the later, for probably the August and September dates. All the other dates are in final payment.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Yeah, well, that's true. Oh, yeah. Okay. So May and June were the uh the dates that we were talking about with the uh Alaska cruises. That seems strange to me. They must need to fill up some ships because you never see Alaska drop ever, especially at the height of their season.

Speaker 3:

For the most part, they're full. They're just trying to fill some of those last unsold cabins.

Patrick Wiscombe:

Take advantage of that offer. Well, everyone who's listening. 888-718-7717-888-718-7717. One more time, because someone is scrambling. Oh, what do you say? 888-718-7717. And you can also get this information on Blue PlanetVacations.com. You can listen to this award-dominated podcast, a radio show, each and every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on the very radio station that you're listening to right now. And we air on all radio stations around the country starting at 11 a.m. local time. But if you just miss us entirely, you can stream the show. You can subscribe to the show at insetraveltalk.com. If you're not a podcaster, you just want to stream it, you can just stream, literally, just press play and you can listen to the show. And all podcast platform links can be found at inside traveltalk.com. All right, Mark. We have done our job, and now it's your turn to get out and travel the world while you can because you never know what curveballs life is going to throw at you. Live your life deliberately, live your life intentionally, and a sincere thank you for taking the time to stop and listen. Really, we don't have a business without you, we don't have a show without you. Make it a great week. We will talk to you next weekend.

Show Voice:

That's it. That's the end of the show. You've been listening to the Inside Travel Talk Podcast and Radio Show with Patrick Wiscombe and Mark Faldmo. Presented by Blue Planet Vacations.com. Book your adventure right now. Call 888-718-7717. That's 888-718-7717. Thanks for listening. Have a great week.com.