Hawaii COVID Testing

[jjr42cornell]

So Josh, the rapid test at Walgreens was accepted? I mean you went so I'm assuming that test is on the approved list... obviously, just a little surprised. Glad you had a safe trip. We are scheduled for February, I'm surely hoping we get over this surge and we are in the clear to make our trip.

Yes the negative result from the test I took at Walgreens was accepted and allowed me to visit Hawaii without having to quarantine.

If you search Hawaii Covid Trusted Partners you should be able to find the site that provides all of the accepted places to get tested.

The trip felt very safe - almost everyone in Hawaii was very vigilant in wearing a mask (with exception for being on the beach).

 

[jjr42cornell]

to the DisBoards!! Glad you had a great trip. Please share a trip report or some individual threads about parts of your trip. This board is always hungry for Hawaii content, not only Aulani!

Thank you for the welcome!

This was my first time visiting Hawaii so it was a learning experience and if I ever go again I will try to visit multiple islands and make sure that I have a rental car to use for the duration of my stay.

We started off the trip by going to bed early (after 18 hours of traveling from Syracuse, NY), but woke up to see the sunrise from our balcony. We then made a stop at Starbucks (this was a daily event) and walked down to the beach. When I went into the water it felt like heaven. My Girlfriend and I are avid beach volleyball players so to our delight we met extremely friendly locals who set up volleyball nets close to Waikiki Beach and invited us to play.

Aside from visiting several beaches around the Island, we went hiking on Ka'au Crater Trail. Since we are not expert hikers, we got lost and took the wrong trail that brought us up a mountain. It tested our endurance and we missed out on waterfalls but we did make it to a beautiful lookout point that provided some nice pictures.

The next highlight of our trip was going on an excursion where we got to swim with Sea Turtles. This was definitely one of the best parts of the trip. Unfortunately due to Covid some things were shut down so we were not able to do everything that we had hoped. For example, I would have liked to have visited Hanauma Bay as it was highly recommended by many locals.

We ate a lot of food, such as Acai Bowls, Poke Bowls, and had some very nice Steak Dinners at the Tommy Bahamas in Waikiki Beach. Unfortunately many restaurants were either closed or did not allow dine-in, but this steakhouse ended up being a gem.

Overall - I decided that I need to visit again hopefully sooner than later

-Josh-

 

[Taterbug]

When you say automatically excepted—where or what do you see that indicates this?
thanks!
And so glad you got results so quickly!
Enjoy your trip!!

On the safe travels website, you upload a PDF of your results and it have a couple different status updates it gives like ‘processing’ and then it goes to ‘covid negative’..ours flipped to covid negative right away (within seconds) and said ‘the test result has been verified by an automated process’

 

[Taterbug]

Thank you for your experience. I am extremely worried about ours, as it did not have the pink stickers on it. The test supervisors said they flagged it for "expedited service" but they also commented our bags "were wrong". We still wrote "STAT Hawaii" on all bags with black sharpie. We took the tests yesterday (12/1) for 12/4 departure on American. If I had to do it over, I would have ordered Vault test through Hawaiian airlines although we aren't flying that airline to get the "correct" UPS shipping bag with pink stickers.
Our backup appointments at ExpressCheck in the PHX airport (they had recently began offering Rapid results approved by Hawaii travels) was scheduled for Thursday (12/3) at noon. We got an email today stating that they are no longer offering Rapid Results due to lack of testing supplies and "sorry for the inconvenience". So, all our proverbial eggs are in the Vault basket at this point. No appts available at CVS or Walgreens either.

I hope you get yours results back today or tomorrow! I think/hope you’ll be good with writing stat Hawaii on them! I just ordered through the website and said for travel buy I agree it would be nice to have ordered from Hawaiian to make sure it had the labels on. Good luck and maybe we’ll pass each other in Hawaii and not know it! ;-)

 

[wassily]

Yes. We arrived at HNL with the Walgreens ID NOW test results in hand this afternoon. We uploaded them yesterday. No line at all at the Ko Olina arrival/quarantine exemption desk at HNL. Cleared in 30 seconds.

Wow, great to hear no line at Ko Olina arrival/quarantine desk.
Can I use that line if my first hotel stop is in Waikiki but then a few days later have a week in Aulani?
Do I just need to show proof of a Ko Olina hotel reservation to use that line?

 

[CateinPhoenix]

I hope you get yours results back today or tomorrow! I think/hope you’ll be good with writing stat Hawaii on them! I just ordered through the website and said for travel buy I agree it would be nice to have ordered from Hawaiian to make sure it had the labels on. Good luck and maybe we’ll pass each other in Hawaii and not know it! ;-)

Tested on 12/1, received by Vault on 12/2 12:30 PST, results posted 12/2 9:00pm PST, 12/3 uploaded into Hawaii travels website using Chrome.
Originally said "not within 72 hour window" which is a glitch with Vault's PDF or the Hawaii travels website.
Reuploaded test results using Firefox and results switched "Negative test" correctly.
We have our QR code and are ready for travel tomorrow!

 

[Taterbug]

Tested on 12/1, received by Vault on 12/2 12:30 PST, results posted 12/2 9:00pm PST, 12/3 uploaded into Hawaii travels website using Chrome.
Originally said "not within 72 hour window" which is a glitch with Vault's PDF or the Hawaii travels website.
Reuploaded test results using Firefox and results switched "Negative test" correctly.
We have our QR code and are ready for travel tomorrow!

Hooray, I’m so happy to hear everything worked out! We’re on our plane today and landing in 50 minutes. Sooo ready!
Hope you have a great trip!

 

[montreid]

anyone know what's going on for California travel to Hawaii with the potential stay-at-home orders? We're in Southern California region and traveling end of the month planned

 

[Paul Stupin]

anyone know what's going on for California travel to Hawaii with the potential stay-at-home orders? We're in Southern California region and traveling end of the month planned

We’re in LA planning on travelling to Aulani in Jan. I don’t think there’s anything in the stay at home orders that says you can’t go to the airport and get on a plane. Also, not as worried about the plane travel, since everyone on board will have tested negative! ( I know it’s not a 100% guarantee, but it’s still comforting.)

 

[WedgeTheJedi]

Ok here is our experience so far. We are flying Hawaiian from Seattle on Monday. We ordered the Vault tests and also scheduled a backup test through Seattle's drive through testing site which was added to the trusted provider list a few weeks ago.

Vault test was taken Friday morning then dropped off at UPS store around 11am, the overnight pickup time from that store was 3pm. We were instructed to write "STAT: HAWAII" on the sample bag and the outer shipping bag by the nurse. The employee at the store also slapped some orange Saturday Delivery stickers on the packages to make sure they got through.. We got notice Saturday morning that the tests arrived and were being processed. By 5pm 3 of the 4 tests were back as Negative. 1 test didn't finish until the following morning. So 3 were done in under 32 hours, 1 was under 48 hours from the time we took the test. Vault result did not show the time the sample was taken, just the date (Friday) and the day the sample was processed (Saturday). Uploaded the pdf I downloaded from Vault into the Hawaii safe travels site and we were instantly confirmed as COVID Negative.

We still don't have the results from the backup test we took with Seattle which has now been over 48 hours. So for us Vault worked out great as long as your flight doesn't leave Tue or Wed (because UPS closed on Sunday).

 

[Lesley Wake]

I’m headed to Maui on Wednesday, so I went to get tested yesterday. Did the free option with Walgreens (in SoCal), but still waiting on those results. For piece of mind, I went to the $150 option at Clarity Labs at LAX. Took about an hour total (would have been shorter but someone was taking forever at the front). But I got my results 26 hrs later, negative! I recommend that for anyone in the SoCal area for piece of mind. (You can register on lax lab test.com and make an appt, but it doesn’t let you skip the line.)

 

[StayAwake]

We leave on Thursday, so today was testing day! My flight to HNL leaves the mainland at 12:05 pm, which is 2:05 pm my time.

As a back-up, I decided to do the Vault test, as I wasn't sure if I would be able to get an appointment for the 24-hr TAT Walgreens ID-NOW test.

I logged into Vault at just after 2 PM. The queue message said 20 minute wait. I waited a minute, maybe less, before I was connected to a test supervisor. After asking me all the verification questions, it was after 2:05, so I felt comfortable moving forward and not logging out to wait again. I was finished with the package wrapped up by 2:10 pm. I asked if I needed to do something since it was for Hawaii travel, and was advised that since I had pink stickers on my UPS package, there was nothing else I needed to do.

I drove to the local UPS store and waited in line for a few minutes until someone asked if anyone in the line had packages that were already labeled. He took those individuals, including mine, then indicated that mine needed to go in a box that was labeled COVID Tests. I couldn't get a receipt for dropping it off. The air pick-up time is 5:30 pm tonight, and I left the store about 2:20 pm.

I then drove across town (35 minutes) to the area where the Walgreens doing the 24-hour test was. I had refreshed their site several times last Thursday the 3rd and was able to make a Monday appointment just after 6 pm. I chose a 4:30 pm appointment (one of the last offered) as I wasn't sure how much time the Vault test would take. I stopped at a few stores in the area, just to make the time go by faster, and seeing that there hadn't been a line at Walgreens, around 3:30 pm I pulled up into the testing line and asked if I could take the test earlier, since I had an appointment but was there earlier. They agreed, and so the test was completed by 3:40 or so. I drove back home and while on the phone with my sister, realized that the results had been emailed around 4:30 pm. I got 2 .pdfs that were available for download- one said lab pdf and one said patient friendly pdf. I wasn't sure which one to upload into the Safe Travels site, but I started with the lab .pdf and almost immediately after I had completed the upload, it registered as Covid Negative. I do plan to bring a printed copy as well, just in case.

I will update as I have information on how the Vault test goes, for those who are still interested in that option.

 

[LiseG]

Has anyone recently used Kaiser for testing? Just wonder when, where how long the results took. Any advice to get the results back quicker?

I'm in Oregon and talked to Kaiser about a week ago. The customer service person said their turnaround time was at 5 days. She suggested I go with another testing option and submit the bill for reimbursement. From what I was told, Walgreens is doing tests "free" and billing insurance including Kaiser. Walgreens is listed as "under 24 hrs" for turnaround. American Family Care (AFC) has the Rapid RNA Molecular Test (Abbott). Results in 15-60 minutes. Valid for travel and on the HI approved list. Self-Pay Price: $199. You leave with the results in hand. I'm debating paying for the fast-fast test and going for reimbursement or nail-biting while I wait for the free Walgreens test. Any experience with this would be appreciated.

Our trip is in early January, so I'm still looking at options. Thank everyone for you help here. We're on Southwest, so we can cancel up to 10 minutes before flight time and try again ... or head east instead and rebook to MCO and move our DVC rooms to WDW.

 

[wassily]

I'm in Oregon and talked to Kaiser about a week ago. The customer service person said their turnaround time was at 5 days. She suggested I go with another testing option and submit the bill for reimbursement. From what I was told, Walgreens is doing tests "free" and billing insurance including Kaiser. Walgreens is listed as "under 24 hrs" for turnaround. American Family Care (AFC) has the Rapid RNA Molecular Test (Abbott). Results in 15-60 minutes. Valid for travel and on the HI approved list. Self-Pay Price: $199. You leave with the results in hand. I'm debating paying for the fast-fast test and going for reimbursement or nail-biting while I wait for the free Walgreens test. Any experience with this would be appreciated.

Our trip is in early January, so I'm still looking at options. Thank everyone for you help here. We're on Southwest, so we can cancel up to 10 minutes before flight time and try again ... head east instead and rebook to MCO and move our DVC rooms to WDW.

Walgreens is under 24 hours for the IDNow test only. However, there is only one location in Oregon (Cornelius) that offers it.
Otherwise, Walgreens offers PCR which is administered by Labcorp https://www.labcorp.com/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/news
On Labcorp's site, it says the average time you'll get results is 1-2 days after specimen pickup. There are more Walgreen locations that offer PCR.

If you are thinking about the IDNow test, the hard part is getting an appointment as there is only that one location in Oregon right now that offers it.
Also, check with AFC on availability of their Abbott test. Some places may not have enough tests at the moment.

 

[StayAwake]

I'm in Oregon and talked to Kaiser about a week ago. The customer service person said their turnaround time was at 5 days. She suggested I go with another testing option and submit the bill for reimbursement. From what I was told, Walgreens is doing tests "free" and billing insurance including Kaiser. Walgreens is listed as "under 24 hrs" for turnaround. American Family Care (AFC) has the Rapid RNA Molecular Test (Abbott). Results in 15-60 minutes. Valid for travel and on the HI approved list. Self-Pay Price: $199. You leave with the results in hand. I'm debating paying for the fast-fast test and going for reimbursement or nail-biting while I wait for the free Walgreens test. Any experience with this would be appreciated.

Our trip is in early January, so I'm still looking at options. Thank everyone for you help here. We're on Southwest, so we can cancel up to 10 minutes before flight time and try again ... head east instead and rebook to MCO and move our DVC rooms to WDW.

My sister did the AFC test on Monday at their location in Maryland. She had her results in less than an hour. She was able to make an appointment about a week ahead of the test.

I did the Walgreens rapid test (24 hour TAT) on Monday at one of their 3 locations in Minnesota and had my results back in just over 1 hour. I was able to make the appointment Thursday evening before the Monday I needed the test.

 

[StayAwake]

Update on my Vault Testing experience:

As I mentioned in the previous comment, I took the Vault test at just after 2 pm on Monday Central Time and had it to UPS drop off by 2:20 pm. That UPS store had an air deadline of 5:30 pm.

Per UPS tracking it was "shipped" at 2:47 pm. It was delivered at 10 am on Tuesday morning, per UPS tracking. I received an email from Vault at 2pm Tuesday that my sample had been received. I received an email with my results at 11:15. They were negative, so both tests gave the same result, which is a relief!

I also received a separate email a few minutes later with information that can be used to bill my insurance company for the test. I didn't get anything like that from Walgreens, although they not only didn't charge me for the test, they neglected to take my insurance information at the time I took the test, so not sure what happened there...

I have a "meeting" on my calendar to log into Safe Travels today and answer the Health Questionnaire to get my QR code, and then tomorrow, Aulani here I come.

I had gone back and forth about what to do about testing, because I am someone who likes to have a plan, and after reading multiple accounts of people having issues, decided to test 2 times from 2 different vendors to give myself a cushion. It turned out to be overkill, but I don't regret spending the extra money for peace of mind. I also only had myself to worry about, not a whole family, which I realize makes the equation very different.

 

[Paul Stupin]

Quick question about the Hawaii safe travels website. Do we create the account prior to getting the negative test results, and then upload them once received, or create the account once we get the results?

 

[StayAwake]

Quick question about the Hawaii safe travels website. Do we create the account prior to getting the negative test results, and then upload them once received, or create the account once we get the results?

You can do it either way. You do have to enter a bunch of information about your trip (flight info, hotel, etc) when you first create the account, so I know I found it helpful to create the account and get all that information completed prior to doing my test & getting the results. But you could wait until you have the results.

 

[adamak]

Silly question. We're flying Hawaiian Air from NYC in Feb. On HA website, it only listed 4 testing partners in NY. On State of HI website, they listed more https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel-partners/. Does it mean I can use any vendor from the State of HI list or must I select the one HA listed?

I'm planning to use Vault but want a backup. It's quite frustrating when I go to CVS or Walgreen website, they don't have any stores in my area that can provide tests. Even though I know they have testing in the CVS next door. Looks like my backup is only XpresCheck at the airport.....

 

[mickeee]

Silly question. We're flying Hawaiian Air from NYC in Feb. On HA website, it only listed 4 testing partners in NY. On State of HI website, they listed more https://hawaiicovid19.com/travel-partners/. Does it mean I can use any vendor from the State of HI list or must I select the one HA listed?

I'm planning to use Vault but want a backup. It's quite frustrating when I go to CVS or Walgreen website, they don't have any stores in my area that can provide tests. Even though I know they have testing in the CVS next door. Looks like my backup is only XpresCheck at the airport.....

If cost is not an issue just use the XpresCheck at the airport. They cost $200 for the rapid test and we got a 10% discount at Newark Airport for flying United.

Its quick and they give you a print out in the official HI form within 30 Minutes that you take a pdf of and upload. Just remember to make a appointment for the test if you want to save time and do it either a day or two prior to hour trip at the airport.

Like I said it was pretty seamless except for the cost as we are a family of 5. It adds up and they don’t accept insurance.