Advice for moving a small 1br apartment from the Mid-Atlantic to Oahu (fit in, apartments)

[Sweetbliss]

Originally Posted by OpenD

PODS has an office and facility in Honolulu, which handles shipping from and to the mainland, and also does inter-island shipping.

Hawaii Moving and Storage

That must mean they don't service my current area, then. I just assumed that when it said it doesn't service an area I was requesting, it meant Hawaii - lol. Thanks for clearing that up! Sorry for the mix-up, folks!

[Sweetbliss]

Originally Posted by ystasino

One of the problems with doing a Matson container is picking up the items in Honolulu where I will be carrying items on my own.

Any further ideas are appreciated.

The Matson representative mentioned a moving service or other company you can call that would move your stuff from the dock to wherever you live as an additional charge. I'm not completely clear on this since I was asking for general estimates and I still don't know exactly where we would be living on the island: You still may be able to stay under your moving budget limit even with the full expense of a container.

[khyron]

Originally Posted by Sweetbliss

The Matson representative mentioned a moving service or other company you can call that would move your stuff from the dock to wherever you live as an additional charge. I'm not completely clear on this since I was asking for general estimates and I still don't know exactly where we would be living on the island: You still may be able to stay under your moving budget limit even with the full expense of a container.

There are some companies out there who will handle the whole show for you, door-to-door, including trucking to and from housing to port at both ends...giving you a single point of contact and no hassle for the whole thing. All the convenience doesn't necessarily come cheap though, here is one example:

American Pacific | Alaska, Hawaii Moving Company

[ystasino]

After dealing with UPS for quite a while this morning, I'm understanding that UPS ground small (ish) parcel shipping is a decent but pricey service, while UPS freight and every freight is to be avoided for home moving as it is pricey and needs to be packed perfectly and not oriented towards furniture moves

Now I was referred to a company called "island movers" which apparently handles ltl (less than container) moves from Hawaii, but which in turn referred me to two companies that provide door to door service, one Air Van North America talking about 6-8 weeks and about $2430/3645 for 1000/1500 pounds and another called United Van Lines who quoted a $2800-3200 price tag for a small 1 bedroom, but a ship-to time of 3-4 weeks. Both companies want to send someone to provide me a more detailed and accurate estimates.

A quick internet search showed quite a few complaints for the companies, but one never knows what % of their total business these complaints represent. So I wanted to ask if anyone here knows anything about these two companies, Air Van NorthAmerica and United Van Lines.

[CyberCity]

A major problem with many moving companies is the under-estimation of the weight of the items to be moved. At the end of the packing, boom, the estimate turns out lower than the actual weight. Bring out the checkbook.

Hint: if you are getting estimates, make sure you do a true comparison by asking for a specific weight to be included in the estimate. Don't be mislead by having one company tell you, "oh, we can move your 1- bedroom house for $2500", while another company says "We can move your 1 bedroom house for $3000", then choosing what you think is the cheaper without realizing they might not be using the same weight. Find out what weight they are using for their estimates.

I have in hand an invoice for a move I just helped arrange for a friend. Larger 2 bedroom house, moving almost all the furniture, limited garage boxes, full kitchen (no applicances). Total: over 10K pounds. Lesson: the pounds add up quickly!

[OpenD]

Maybe not for the OP, but for anyone else reading this thread...

One advantage to going the container route is that it is priced by volume, not weight. A 20' ISO container (x 8 1/2' wide x 8' high) has a capacity of about 65K pounds, way more than anyone needs for a residential move unless you're a blacksmith or have a machine shop in your garage.

[Rabrrita]

Am I to understand that Matson no longer does Door-to-Door for household goods? At least thats the way it appears to be reading. I know they still do Door-to-Door for business shipments.

[Sweetbliss]

I think Matson still does door to door, but there's an extra surcharge tacked on to the estimate. (I may be wrong - have been before - lol).

[CyberCity]

Originally Posted by Rabrrita

Am I to understand that Matson no longer does Door-to-Door for household goods? At least thats the way it appears to be reading. I know they still do Door-to-Door for business shipments.

We rented a container from Matson when coming back from the mainland, and hired separate trucking companies to drop/pickup the container, both on the mainland and here in Hawaii. We also hired local moving companies on both ends to help load and unload the container. Because we had accumulated a lot of auto shop type machinery, it made sense for us to just bring home everything (we could not re-buy them here for anywhere near the price we'd accumulated them for). As long as we were shipping heavy things by container, we sort of tossed in the whole house for not much more, because a container to Hawaii is not charged by weight. We filled every inch of that container!

[hunterseat]

Okay, backup... bed, TV, armchair(s)? Why are we having this discussion? JUST KIDDING (sort of). There's no substitution for your own stuff. I should know.... I got rid of ALL my stuff in the last year and a half.