Maui, HI: We went here on our honeymoon. We are still tinkering with the format of this blog thing so I’ll try to do a factual blog and then maybe sort of a narrative some other time. I guess we don’t know what we’re trying to accomplish yet so it’s hard to nail down what and how to write. I do know that when I’m old and crusty, it’ll be nice to get the facts, ma’am, and remember what life was like when we were young. Anyway….
When we went: Sept 2007
Where we stayed: Wailea Beach Marriot. There are a couple of different regions in Maui. You can stay in Hana, North Maui, West Maui, or South Maui. Hana is an all day drive from anywhere so if you stay there, don’t plan on leaving very often. North Maui is like a real city. The North Shore is up there, which is famous for surfing, but it’s right by the airport and it doesn’t really have that vacation feel to it. West Maui is extremely touristy. There are nice white sand beaches there with some good rough waves to play in, but it caters to tourists. Kaanapali and Lahaina are in West Maui. Lahaina was a pretty cool place to visit. It has plenty of shopping, an internet cafe, and it is sort of a hub for all of your water activities. By luck, we stayed in South Maui and loved it. Kehei seems to be the most authentic Hawaiian little town in the area. The bars and restaurants there are filled with more locals than tourists. It is much more laid back and you won’t have the pushy street vendors that you see in other more touristy areas. We stayed in Wailea, which is just east of Kehei. The beaches in Wailea are white sand and very calm. The great thing about Wailea is that it is very central location. You can also stay in central Maui, known as Upcountry, but who the hell would want to go to Hawaii and not stay by the beach?
Where we ate:
Bubba Gump Shrimp in Lahaina – Chain restaurant, but it did have a table that was basically on the Ocean. I got fish there and liked it.
Moose McGillicuddy’s in Lahaina – Sort of Irish.. sort of a hole in the wall, but it looked like they were doing construction to make it into a sports bar. We just had drinks and appetizers there. They had a big mural on the wall done by some Irish painter. One of the bartenders was quite proud of it.
Cheeseburger in Paradise – Very chain like… but damn, they make a strong Mai Tai and Pina Colata.
Maui Princess Dinner Cruise – Perfect way to end the trip. The food was OK, but the view is what made it. We snuck an extra free beer and we got lucky in that we were the only couple at our table.
Bada Bing in Kihei – We went here twice. It was excellent the first time and just kind of OK the second. Italian food near the beach and sort of a flea market. The price made it worth it though. It’s hard to find good cheap food in Maui.
Sports Page in Kihei – I can’t go 10 days with no sports! This was a typical local dive sports bar. We had some good greasy land lovin food and beer.
Road to Hana – Not sure the name of this place. About 1/2 up the Hana highway around the 17 mile marker is a place with some kick butt fresh banana bread. They also have pig heads hanging on the wall of the house behind the food stand.
Duo – In the 4 seasons in Wailea – Most expensive and best tasting meal we ever ate. Brit had a steak and I had ribs. Hey it was our honeymoon… we had to live it up, right?
Grand Wailea Dining Room – in the Grand Wailea – I forget what I ate there… I think it was typical hotel food. It was pretty cool because it was bright and open. We sat and watched people playing in the pool.
Our Jeep – yeah, that’s right. Food is expensive. We went to the grocery store a couple times and made sandwiches.
The Jungle – We took a guided jungle walk one day. I was a bit ashamed that I did such a touristy thing, but I’m glad we did. The guide was pretty cool and he showed us a ton of fruits and berries that we could eat fresh from the trees.
Tedeschi Vineyards – nothing special. It’s the only vineyard I know of on the island, so hey, why not?
A couple of dives…. the less touristy, the better.
Misc restaurants in the Marriott – uh, don’t eat there. We did for convenience, but I think we overpaid and the food wasn’t that good.
Marriot Luau – Now the food here was really good. We tried Poi, which is pretty nasty, and it was here that I realized that pulled pork is a Hawaiian dish. Heck yeah! I love pulled pork!
General Info:
If you are the adventurous type, Maui is perfect. Also, if you like to sit on the beach and get skin cancer, it’s perfect for you too. Once again by luck, I bought a travel guide called “Maui Revealed.” We actually talked to a local on the flight in and he strongly recommended the book without even knowing I had it in my carry on. Unlike Frommer’s or Lonely Planet or any of those, the author of this book spent something stupid like 10 years in Maui. Just about every recommendation in the book was good and accurate.
Also to our advantage, I did not plan too far in advance. Yes, it’s rare that this is an advantage, but in Hawaii, they don’t do things like they do in the midwest. Snorkeling is best when there are calm waves. Water sports are best when there’s rough surf. Haleakala is best when it’s cloudy. The road to Hana is best when it’s not. It seems like Hawaiians can predict the surf just about 24 hours in advance and general weather on a remote island is a lot more unpredictable than it is on a giant mass of land. The only thing that bit us is the Lahaina Luau is the most authentic on the island. It’s also in tourist heaven, and it apparently gets booked a month in advance. We ended up going to the Luau at our hotel… for half off… and it was pretty cool too.
We were lucky not to fall for any of the “swim with whales and dolphins” crap. We rented a Kayak and some snorkel equipment and were able to paddle out to the same spots that people were paying $100+ to check out… and I just about head butted a giant sea turtle.
Finally, paying for nature hikes is also kind of a scam. We paid a guide to take us to a bunch of waterfalls. It turns out, he walked us on a mini path that was next to what was basically a gravel road. The guy was a complete hippy, very entertaining, and he gave us some great insight on fruits we could eat and some other neat tid bits, but we quickly discovered that we paid $100 to walk on the same trail that we could have walked on for free. We only made that mistake once.
