Aloha greetings from the beautiful island of Maui. It is an incredible place to visit and something everyone should experience at least once. There is so much to do or you can do nothing at all. We chose to do a little of both. We arrived late in the evening (thanks to a screw up by Aloha Airlines and a broken suitcase) and went to sleep because we wanted to get up early around 2-2:30 to make the drive up to Haleakala to see the beautiful sunrise. It was definitely worth getting up early for. It was spectacular. You can see everything from up there. It was a little overcast and the clouds moved in, but we heard that that was a normal occurrence there. We had a small breakfast we brought and walked around a little. The air was so fresh and crisp at 10,023 feet. A word of warning *** Make sure you take a lot of warm clothes and maybe even a blanket. IIt is really really cold and windy up there especially at 6:00 am. *** We slowly made our way back down to mountain behind all the bicyclist on the road. A big event up there is actually biking down the mountain after the sunrise. Sounded like a fun idea. Maybe we will do it next time. Here is the website for Haleakala Crater.
After we made our way down we went and picked up our tickets for all our activities we had scheduled. We booked all our tours and events through a company named Maui Activities. They were professional and even gave us a bunch of free coupons for discount dinners and a couple videos. After we left their store we went back to our hotel to get some more sleep. We only got four hours of sleep the night before thanks again to Aloha Airlines for getting us in late. After our nap we went out for our first dip into the Hawaiian water. It was so nice. I couldn’t wait to go on our snorkel tour to Lanai that we had planned for later in the week. Later that evening we went to a really nice restaurant in Old Lahaina. It is the Café Sauvage. The service was excellent and the meal was delicious. We had a very nice meal. The rest of the evening we just walked around Old Lahaina on Front Street (the main boulevard there) and did some shopping.
The days are a little bi mixed up now, but I think we did some driving around and exploring Maui. We went around the whole island and stopped along the way for lunch at this little cute restaurant on the water. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of it. Anyway, we stopped many places along the way and took pictures. It is so beautiful even if it rained off and on. They do have the most beautiful rainbows. I took some pictures but they never come out as pretty as the real thing.
Anyway, later that night we had tickets to the Royal Lahaina Luau. Royal Lahaina Luau it was great even though we arrived a few minutes late due to a flat tire. :( They did greet us with a Mai Tai which was needed after the flat tire. The rest of the night went wonderfully. I also discovered the drink I would be drinking the rest of the week. It is called a Lava Flow. It is a mixture of a Pina Colada and Strawberry Daquiri. They are wonderful. The best part, was it was an open bar. Yahoo!!! Lol I don’t know how many I drank, but I never did get drunk. Maybe they were watered down. j/k
A little bit later they had a huge “ceremony” when they pulled the pig out of the ground pit and it smelled wonderful. I could hardly wait for the buffet. In between we just walked around the gardens and talked to other guests. It was so nice to just sit around and relax. Once they started serving dinner it seemed like it took forever to get our table called, but it was worth the wait when they did. Yum, Yum. It was so tasty. I even tried Poi. Gene was watching me to see if I would spit it out or say yuck. I really didn’t think much of it one way or another. It wasn’t good or bad to me.
Once everyone was done eating, they started the entertainment. It was so bright and festive. I couldn’t believe all the colors flying around. I still don’t know how they can Hula so fast. It is so fun to watch though. The fire was also exciting. They even had a special dance for those on their honeymoon or an anniversary. Since it was our anniversary, we danced. It was really romantic dancing near the water by the light of the fire. Breathtaking…I enjoyed our honeymoon in Cancun, but I now realize why so many people come to Hawaii for their honeymoon.
The next day was probably one of the most exciting but draining days. We ended up going to Hana . We probably shouldn’t have done it after a Luau, but we didn’t plan it very well. Oh well, we had fun. One of the more exciting parts of the day was the fact that we took a helicopter to Hana! It was so spectacular up there. We had some clouds come in, but you could still see so much ocean and mountains. I didn’t want to ever come down! But we eventually did and had lunch on a black sand beach. After we ate we had about ½ hour to explore or swim. We walked around awhile then got in the water for a few minutes. I had never seen black sand before and I mostly remember that it was really hot but beautiful.
After lunch we all got into a van and explored Hana a little bit. It is a cute little town, but very small. We did stop at a nursery and were given some beautiful flowers. I kept mine in the frig the rest of the time and brought it home. It was purple and smelled wonderful. We left there and headed back to Maui. I don’t know how many waterfalls and hidden places we stopped at on the way back, but it was incredible. We got into the water a couple of times but we were also on a schedule and were afraid we would miss something if we did it at every stop. It was an amazing trip home, but very bumpy. We see why people have those shirts that say “I survived the Road to Hana”! It was a nice trip back, but very tiring. I think the sun was getting to me. Or maybe it was the alcohol from the night before, lol. Either way, we just stayed at the hotel that night and walked along the beach a little. That is always romantic, but seemed more special in Hawaii.
The next day I think was one of our snorkel tours. We had two. The first one went to Lanai. It was sort of a murky day and we didn’t see as many pretty fish as I was hoping to see. I was disappointed but we still had a nice morning. Later the afternoon/evening we drove to the south part of the island and drove to where the molten lava touched Maui. I have always been interested in that and thought it would be interesting to see. We also found an awesome place to snorkel. There were only about 5-6 other people and it was surrounded by molten so the water was clear and we could see the fish really well. I don’t remember what else we did that night, but it probable included a stroll or drink on the water.
Our second snorkel tour was a freebie by one of my customers Bob’s Maui Dive Shop . This tour went to Molokai and Turtle Town. The water was much better and we saw a lot of turtles in Turtle Town. Go figure. Lol The tour guide actually dove down and pulled up a couple of pencil sea urchins. Pretty cool. All in all, it was a better trip because the water was better than the day before. That evening we went shopping for more souvenirs and had dinner.
We did a lot of driving around for several days and just finding nice places to swim and snorkel. We were leaving the next day and just wanted to soak up more of the local color. We enjoyed our time there so much but still hadn’t done everything we wanted to do. We had wanted to hit the Sheraton Hotel and snorkel at Black Rock Beach . We had heard it was really good and that you can see a lot of different fish such as: Butterfly fish, parrot fish, damsel fish, surgeon fish, moorish idol, tang, wrasse, box fish, cardinal fish, perch, chub, trigger fish, and the former Hawaii State Fish Humuhumunukunukuapuaa. We didn really want to miss it, but we had to leave our hotel at 9 to be at the airport by 10:00. We decided snorkeling was more important then sleep. :) We got up real early and hit Black Rock Beach before 7:00. There was only 1 other person there when we first arrived and it was beautiful. It was probably one of the best places we went snorkeling. I didn’t want to leave, but we had to or we would miss our plane. We hurried back to the hotel, took showers, rinsed and dried our suits and headed to the airport. I whimpered all the way to the airport telling Gene he was going the wrong way. I have never felt so sad and depressed when we had to come home from a vacation. The only solace was the fact that Aloha had bumped us to first class due to the earlier problems. It was a great trip home even though I didn’t want to come home. Macadamias and Mai Tai’s all the way home. It was sweet. We even got milk and warm cookies before we landed. First class is the way to go.
I definitely want to go back to Hawaii, but I think I want to go to The Big Island or Oahu before we go back to Maui. Gene was born on Oahu so we will probably get there first. One day we will get to both. We did a lot in a week but there were still so many things we didn’t get to do, and too many to list. Hopefully we will be soon!