Palau trip with 1 hour layover in Guam, is that not enough time?

[ewaiea]

I got a killer deal on an itinerary - I cashed in my miles for a Palau trip this October on the Tropic Dancer, Palau. I'm arriving a couple days early to get rid of jet lag, or in case there are luggage or travel delays. Provided I leave Honolulu (my origination point) on time, would a 1 hour layover in Guam leave me enough time to meet my connection? Black out dates were a factor as was availability so this was the only itinerary choice I had given my dates. I realize that the airline will have to put me up somewhere in Guam and put me on a later flight but since I already have some day activities tentatively planned as well as hotel reservations I'm kind of hoping I don't have hang ups. Am I living in a dream world or reality with these hopes?

I've looked at the airport layout and it looks fairly understandable, but I'm not sure how easy it is to clear customs and immigration - as it does require a passport for entry.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? I'm kind of wondering if this will even work out as planned.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ocdiver1]

If the airline ticketed it all the way through it means they consider it a valid connection...if they didn't consider it such they wouldn't have booked it. That's another story if you are just using your miles Honolulu-Guam and are connecting on another airline that you ticketed on your own for the Guam-Palau leg.

 

[Tom Smedley]

Going from Honolulu to Palau an hour is plenty of time. Coming from Palau going back to Honolulu you have to clear U.S. Customs and an hour is probably not encough time. The passport requirements for Guam are for the trip back as Guam is a U.S. Territory.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Provided I leave Honolulu (my origination point) on time, would a 1 hour layover in Guam leave me enough time to meet my connection? . . . I've looked at the airport layout and it looks fairly understandable, but I'm not sure how easy it is to clear customs and immigration - as it does require a passport for entry.

You'll be fine. Technically, you're never "in" Guam because you're in transit. So you won't need to clear any Customs & Immigration until you hit Palau. Assuming you're on the Continental HNL-GUM flight, you'll usually come in at Gate 9 or 10 and your flight out will probably be Gate 20 or in that area. Shouldn't be a problem as that in-bound Continental flight has a pretty good on-time record.

- Ken

 

[ewaiea]

Thanks for the warm fuzzy everyone. My ticket using my miles is for the entire round-trip HNL-ROR-HNL. I had a feeling about customs in Guam as not being a big deal because as long as you don't leave the airport you should be good to go, but it's nice to know that my reasoning is valid. My connection back through Guam on my way home is also only an hour but I've taken an extra day off work and I really don't care what happens after the dive trip is complete. I just want to make sure I can get to the Cliffside Hotel in Palau to spend the two nights that I've already paid for.

Thanks again all!

 

[Mossman]

Many of the people on the Palau flight will be coming in on your GUM flight. They will hold the connecting flights if it's delayed. Most of the connections are scheduled around the incoming GUM flight, often with much less than an hour. You have the luxury of time.

On my last Palau trip, we only had 30 min connection time :shocked2: But I called Continental and they assured me that was AOK. For some reason, there is some sort of processing IIRC when you land in Guam from Hawaii, even though it's still considered the US, and I recall we had to exit and then go through security again before getting on the Palau flight. That surprised me since I thought we'd just be going from one gate to a nearby one without nothing in between. Fortunately, there were attendants there calling out our Palau flight and they bumped us to the head of the line. Continental "Air Micronesia" has always been one of CO's best assets. It can be a little weird at times (like the odd plane security check if you make a stop on Yap), but it usually seems to work out great.

I just noticed you said you only have an hour on the way home. I think that's all I had on my last trip as well, but the immigration process goes pretty fast so it was plenty of time. As long as you're covered, you'll make your flight. Murphy's Law only holds that if you have to make a flight to be in a certain place on time, that's when you'll have problems. Even on the way there, if your only worry is enjoying both your nights in Palau, that's no worry. As long as you make it Guam, you'll make it to Palau, since they have daily flights. I had a misadventure a while back trying to get to Bali on CO, where the connection through GUM was only twice a week and our LAX-HNL flight was delayed so we missed our crucial connection to the GUM flight. That trip started out badly. But you're already in HNL so getting to GUM is automatic. No, you definitely have no worries. Stop worrying!

(Even if by some horrible calamity you were to be delayed so that you didn't even make it to Palau before the liveaboard "departure", Palau is a great destination for "missing the boat" since the boat doesn't really go very far and they can always send the skiff to Koror to pick you up. My above-mentioned nightmare involved a liveaboard leaving Bali to head the long way to Komodo, so missing the boat wasn't an option. Short story: We finally made it in time thanks to having giving ourselves a couple days of "padding", but it wasn't cheap, and we missed out on an entire day planned to tour Bali.)

If you have a delay and time for breakfast, don't miss scrambled eggs with garlic fried rice, a nice local airport breakfast treat. One day I plan to spend more than a night in Guam.

Have an excellent trip. I've been hearing about it for so long, I'm glad you're finally going

 

[Tom Smedley]

I spent two years worth of nights in Guam once and I sat in the airport and cried when they made me leave. Wonderful little island......

 

[eagleraydiver]

Hello
Have a trip to Palau, leaving April 5 - booking the cliffside hotel for the layover on the way in. Do you recommend?

 

[Cali_diver]

Just got back from Palau. It took us more than an hour to get through customs and back through security. Very long lines. Luckily our flight to Honolulu was delayed. There was an airport official in the security line taking note of who was on our flight and how many passengers were left to go through security so we were not too worried about the plane leaving without us. The one thing to know is that you do not have to get your checked bags to go through customs in Guam (twice we were told that we had to get our bags), but you do have to get them in Honolulu.

 

[ewaiea]

I absolutely recommend the Cliffside Hotel in Palau. I sent you a PM detailing how I felt Palau measured up to the other places I've been - PNG, Cocos Island and Kona, Hawaii. You should get in touch with Sam's Tours Palau and book a Rock Island snorkeling excursion before your real dive trip starts (which I think you mentioned you're doing a liveaboard). The Rock Island snorkeling tour will allow you to see some dive sites you may or may not see on your week long dive trip on the liveaboard. And the ones you will see on your dive trip that you also see on the snorkeling tour are really the ones you'll want to see more than once anyway....i.e. Big Drop Off and Jellyfish Lake. The others are closer into the rock islands and are definitely worth a visit.

Another thing about Cliffside - pop for the Cabana Deluxe room. I was impressed with it - the regular rooms are pretty dumpy so I would upgrade if you can.