Hawaii requires a negative Covid test presented on arrival, or else you have to go into quarantine. But not any test will do, for instance if you got your test at the world-renowned Mayo Clinic that won’t be accepted because Hawaii only accepts tests on its list of trusted testing partners.
Except that isn’t really true, because you can present a test from CareNow or LetsGetChecked, since those are American Airlines partners and American Airline is a partner – even though it doesn’t say this anywhere in Hawaii’s online guidelines.
So you might forgive two young women who flew from Raleigh to Hawaii with their negative test results in hand – only to discover that the results wouldn’t be accepted because they weren’t from a provider on Hawaii’s list. Sarah Blackwood and Abbey Campbell were taking a graduation trip after finishing East Carolina State University degrees. However,
- Hawaii doesn’t allow testing on arrival
- And they don’t allow going into quarantine pending the results of a test
As if the trusted providers list wasn’t absurd enough, not allowing passengers to test on arrival for some premium is stupid as well. These two women either had to quarantine for a week and a half – or return to the mainland, get tested, and come back. They bought new tickets to Los Angeles, flew 5 hours, got tests, and came back to Hawaii. Both women are already vaccinated, by the way.
Their ordeal has already racked up well over a million views on TikTok telling the story of what happened when they flew Raleigh – Atlanta – Honolulu:
@_sarahblackwood Ignore my red eyes been crying the last 2 hours… 12 more hours on a plane! #honolulu #covid #quarantine #hawaii #fuck #covid19 @abbeycampbell0
Imagine the let down finally arriving in Hawaii and learning that Hawaii won’t let you in. You’re vaccinated. You’ve tested negative for Covid-19. But you have the wrong papers. Campbell explains “So basically, you have to have it from certain companies. We didn’t know that. We just had our negative COVID tests.”
And the shock was compounded when they were told to go fly 5 hours to California to get new tests.
@_sarahblackwood Part 2!!!!! The conclusion to our incredibly expensive mistake, we made it!!!! #greenscreenvideo #oahu #honolulu #travel #fyp @abbeycampbell0
They paid $950 to get to LA. And they encountered others along the way who were in the same boat that they were.
“I think we met a total of like six couples that were there for the same reason,” Blackwood said, adding that a newlywed couple and a family from North Carolina were among them.
Blackwood and Campbell spent about six hours at the Los Angeles International Airport before they managed to get their results back and catch a standby flight back to Honolulu. The women said that other travelers and airport staff began recognizing them from their TikTok videos.
@_sarahblackwood 40 hours later WE MADE IT @abbeycampbell0 #hawaii #waimanalo #oahu #bestie #fyp
It took 40 hours to get from Raleigh to Honolulu to Los Angeles to Honolulu and on to their accommodations. They’d had six hours of sleep. And the advice they pass on is just to learn the rules – which in my view are something out of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985).
HI state law: no alcohol allowed on beaches. Tik Tok that for your next post-graduate lesson. Aloha
This thread bodes well for Hawaii tourism. As the many posts have proven Hawaii is and will be very popular…..what is good though is that people like Chris swear they won’t go back…
If the whole far right “you can’t tell me what to do/Covid is a Hoax” etc etc crew stays away the overall caliber of visitor will be enhanced and good respectful happy people will be more of the norm.
Simply makes Hawaii a better place with fewer finger pointing angry people coming.
Please, do go elsewhere, the only tourism problem Hawaii is facing is too much of a good thing.
Hawaii was one of the most rated tourists traps I ever visited.
@johnw – kinda funny that you say this: “If the whole far right “you can’t tell me what to do/Covid is a Hoax” etc etc crew stays away the overall caliber of visitor will be enhanced and good respectful happy people will be more of the norm.”
How’s Seattle/SF/LA/NYC/Chicago/etc. turning out for you? These used to be great cities to visit until the johnw’s of the world took over them after COVID struck. In other words – maybe if you leftists stop funding covid “gain of function” research with our taxpayer dollars we wouldn’t be in this situation.
And trust me – I won’t visit Hawaii; it’s like visiting Vegas when they had every type of restriction in place. If you want to visit a state that acts like you’re a 5 year old child, by all means.. have fun in your “paradise.”
It’s unbelievable that Hawaii does not have the ability to test upon arrival.
I just got back from Panama and Tocumen Airport has testing on arrival for $50 that takes about 30-45 minutes to get results.
You would have to search far and wide to find a place less hospitable than Hawaii. So many much nicer and more welcoming places to go to that actually appreciate your visit.
Maybe they should ask for a refund for their college education, because they are apparently not bright enough to read the main covid travel page for Hawaii. If they had they would have seen this: “Only test results from Trusted Testing and Travel Partners(link is external) will be accepted.” Yes Hawaii is being a bit stupid, but you know what? These girls are solely at fault here. This was widely available information and they couldn’t be bothered to take two minutes to read the page, so zero sympathy for them.
American Airlines is almost as bad with their Covid tested flights to Italy. Italy requires a negative rapid antigen test or PCR test. American gives you no guidance and if they try to help via phone, they advise us wrong. Get to the airport with the required test, in the required timeframe (48 hours) and at check they do not know what is acceptable and were turning people away. “Molecular, no good” one woman kept saying
Yes, it is. No rapid only antigen another said. CLUELESS. Forced to go retest at JFK – exact damn test we’d already done. I know for sure 10 people plus many others our flight of less than 75 were forced to do that. Total chaos and vast incompetence. Thank god the second lady who checked us in had sense because some people were still hassled after getting the second negative test. People flying Delta and United are not reporting these kind of problems.
You can complain, but the HI rules are clearly stated on their tourism website and a thousand travel bloggers. It’s list on the airlines, its listed on the hotel sites. Ignorance of the rules is not an excuse. I don’t like the rules, I think the rules are pointless, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to follow the rules if I want to visit HI.
You’ve got the wrong perspective on this article.
@WPH – as I show in the piece, though, the rules listed on Hawaii’s website aren’t even Hawaii’s actual rules…
I had a group of people coming to stay at my vacation rental for 6 weeks. They had been at another island and there was no inter-island testing out of quarantine at that time, only from the mainland. So they all flew to San Francisco, got tests and flew back the same day. Great for the planet huh?