Aloha Carol,
I do a lot of business in Hawaii and used to go there a few times per year, since covid not so much. I have heard that people like cruising around the islands but I personally don’t get why. Note MJ and I are not cruise ship people anyway so that might be a factor. We like to spend more time in each place.

I would add, I can go to Hawaii and it is a tax deduction as I have customers to visit and it is a single flight which is nice. Yet I travel all the way to SXM for most of my vacations, or Mexico. Once on SXM, spoiled, much better beach life than Hawaii in my opinion.
While I typically just visit one island per trip it would be easy to jump island to island. Pearl Harbor is something to experience, but the rest of Oahu doesn’t have much that brings me back. Diamond Head is cool and if you get out of town there are some interesting places to visit especially in surfing season. Waikiki is a very busy area and the Honolulu area has some of the worst traffic in the US.

Noting this is post fire in Maui, hard to imagine the damage and loss of life that just occurred. The island has some of the best beaches, still not St Maarten, but for Hawaii much better. It is an expensive island, but lots of people love it. I would note that at most we usually only spend a day or two per week in the Lahaina area, mostly to go to Fleetwood’s which is no longer.

Kauai is very old school Hawaii, a lot more quiet and a lot more green and with that you have a lot more rain. It is very different, and while it has some nice beaches it is much more see the lush green and scenic areas. Much less densely populated than the two islands above.

The Big Island, Hawaii, is larger than the other islands combined. It is probably my favorite noting there is a lot of variation around the. It has I think all but two climate zones, when driving around we have seen the temperature go from in the 70’s to over 100 in less than 30 minutes of driving. The closest anywhere that you have a desert area to a rain forest. You can be driving by lava fields that have near zero plant life and a bit further you have trees that look like they are from the Serengeti and then a bit further it will look like a scene out of Jurassic Park. There are beaches, but not like Maui where they are near everywhere. Snow to lava to beach, all in a day.

Hawaii has some good restaurants but it is not a place that I would rave about the food in general. Even some of the highly recommended places are just ho hum in my view, yet expensive. If you do go I will offer some suggestions. Note that it is illegal to drink on a beach, although it is done but we have received warnings if not discrete. There are not many places with beach chairs set up, and if they are they are expensive.

Let me know if you do end up going. I personally would fly there and island hop and stay on land. Sure take some beach time but visit the sites. Note that car rental on the islands had spiked up but I think it may be coming back down a bit.
Cheers,
T