Maui Trip Report Oct. 2006

Old Oct 29th, 2006, 06:45 AM
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Maui Trip Report Oct. 2006

Purpose of trip: Relaxation! No itinerary, just a few ideas of places to visit.

Our original plan was 5 nights in Maui, 4 nights on the Big Island. About 2 weeks before we left, I changed our tickets to just stay on Maui. I've been to the B.I.
4 times and felt it would be more relaxing to just stay on one island.

We left Sat. the 14th early on Northwest. I had confirmed our seats and paid an extra $15 each to sit in the exit row that had about 4' of space in front of us. This was great! The day was very long (18 hours with layovers) and we arrived, got the car, got lost (my mapquest was from the airport not the Thrifty lot). (There are no signs for the Thrifty location at all!) When I asked directions at Thrifty the Hawaiian lady replied as only a local would, "Go out here, get on the road, keep going and turn right at the mountain". HUH? We looked at my mapquest directions more carefully and got back on track. The drive took about 45 min. I was nervous driving on these curvy roads in the dark and my brain was numb from the long day! We stopped at Safeway in Lahaina for drinks/snacks. Some things were more expensive, some just the same as home.

Check in at the Sheraton was smooth, it took place at the curb which was weird. I guess it was suppose to be faster, but to me it didn't really give a good impression. You're tired and you want a bit of pampering and here you are at the valet stand at the curb after flying forever. It was my name on the Priceline reservation, so I couldn't even go sit in the lobby. Did I mention that we were tired? The employees said they were not serving food anymore, so our only option for a late bite was to walk down to Whaler's Village.

I emailed the hotel and inquired about an upgraded room since it was our 20th anniversary trip.

ROOM: Perfect location for us: Third floor in building three. Our balcony over looked the lawn, pool and ocean. We loved it! They had chilled champagne in the room, nice! We couldn't see the view until morning and what a great surprise!

The room was nice, the bathroom was just "ok". The tub stopper had to be gently positioned 'just so' or the water wouldn't drain. This was a minor annoyance but we dealt with it daily.

The corridor carpet was so dirty! It looked like a bus terminal. I was so surprised. Maybe this was due to the open stairwells. The stairwells were open to the outside like a motel. This would allow dirt to just blow into the corridor and then get tracked down the hall.

POOL: Nice and cold! They might have just filled it since they worked on it recently. We loved floating in the 'lazy river' and listening to the Hawaiian music.

Lounge chairs were very crammed together. We didn't like how close and tight this was. The pool area was always very crowded and it was hard to find a bit of privacy.
We could tell a difference between the weekend crowd and then the vacationers. There were two weddings over the weekend and there were a lot of very loud (drunk) people. We should have bought chairs at ABC to sit on the beach. (you have to pay for chairs to sit on the beach).

Property: Beautiful! Very well maintained grounds. Koi ponds, flowers, perfect lawn.

Food, we had dinner one night there, it was nice. One breakfast on our first morning.
(after the earthquake) It was good, but very pricey. After that we had latte and muffins from the kiosk in the lobby.

EARTHQUAKE: Our first morning we awoke to the earthquake. The hotel did not tell us anything, or warn us or tell us to get out of the building. The electricity went out and we dressed and went down to breakfast.

We watched the ocean for a tsunami, and came up with a plan of where we would run if we saw one!....we couldn't watch CNN or did we know anything!!! No one came around and told us anything. Cell phones didn't work for about an hour.
I thought the hotel could have been more helpful!

Second night: At 2am? over the loud speakers we were told
to leave our rooms for an "emergency". We dressed quickly and
filed out of the hotel along with 300 other guests. No employees were around. We all went to the hotel entrance in front and waited. NO employees were there to tell us the Emergency! NOTHING. My husband and I and three others walked back up to the lobby and my husband demanded that the hotel tell us what was going on! NO employee came out and told us anything. This was horrible. All of these women with crying babies and old women in their robes scared to death, after all, the day before was the earthquake. An older man was on his cell phone complaining very loudly to someone about the emergency and said, "It was a false alarm?? Were you going to tell us???" There were a lot of upset people. I don't know who told the 300+ on Kaanapali parkway to return to their rooms. I felt sorry for the women who had tiny kids who had to get them back to sleep.

We just walked back to our room and went back to bed. Just as we drifted back to sleep over the loud speaker, "Please return to your rooms". The next day a letter from the hotel appreciated our 'patience" and did NOT apologize.

The Sheraton TOTALLY lacked any leadership in these two emergency situations.

Ok, now to good stuff:

We dined at Hula Grill three times. We always got a table on the more casual side but you can order off of either menu. It was a very busy place but we liked it. We both didn't want a 'dead' vacation, it was fun to people watch here. The second night a local band played and it was great! This musician played a Santana song on the ukulele that was amazing! The food there was overall very good. Dh had chicken that he said was "horrible" and I read the next day in the 'blue bible' that they felt the same way.

On our second day, it rained and we decided to drive down to Wailea to see if we wanted to stay down there our last two nights. It poured all the way down there, and we walked around the Kea Lani: Beautiful! and the Marriott: not that great...we saw a little construction, not much. As we got a Starbucks at a strip mall, we heard on the radio there was flooding, mudslids, rockslides....I felt at this point we were cursed! We tried to laugh about it saying we were the vacation "coolers" (like the gambling movie with William Macy). I drove white knuckled in bumper to bumper traffic in pouring rain on the curvy road back to the hotel. On my right side was wall of rock and signs saying "Falling Rock" on the other side was the ocean. I just knew we were in trouble! We inched along and drove through some 2' deep water in low spots.

When we got back to the hotel, it began to clear and we celebrated living through another day by relaxing in the pool and having a stiff drink! That evening the sunset was amazing and we crowded on the beach for the torch ceremony. I was thankful.

The rest of the week was spent driving up to the surfing area (north of Napali) and relaxing, going to dinner. We walked down to Whaler's village almost everynight. I carried a small pen light because it was dark on the path. We began to relax and enjoy our trip!

On Thursday, th 19th, we checked out and checked into the Hyatt. As a designer, the only negative I will say is that the checkin area was dark and dreary. I would suggest a bright busy wall that is an aquarieum, that will calm you as you are standing in line! You stand facing a plain brown wood wall. No art, nothing! Ugh. The lobby on the other hand is very grand with plants, statues, parrots...etc; Very upscale. Our room was "terrace view" and over looked a plank walkway and rain forest. If you leaned a bit you saw the ocean. We could see the pool through the follage. It was a big change from looking at the open lawn at the Sheraton.

Hyatt:

Room: Very nice, modern with polynesian touches. I liked it a lot. Bathroom area was GREAT. A seperate room that had a sidebar, a frig (we requested-free) the sink area and big closet. The toilet and tub were in a seperate room. I loved the ability to store stuff in the closet out of the way. The finishes were more upscale than the Sheraton: a creamy limestone floor and shower. Nice! The carpet was very pretty, it looked like a upscale wool tiki mat. Wifi was available for $10 per day. This allowed me to get on the net on the balcony!

Beds, nice- big comforter. It was harder to keep the room cool here. We cranked the AC but it took a while to get cool. Room felt bigger than the Sheraton.

Pool: I have read so much about the pool that it seemed small. There is a main pool a grotto/waterfall passage to a winding pool to a small private pool area in the rainforest of follage. There is a 150' slide inside of the big rock like structure and we flew down this about 6 times. It was fun.

We ate roomservice twice for breakfast: a shared omelet with all the sides...and I had the buffet at the very casual Pavillion. ($19 pretty good). We dined twice at Casscades restaurant and sat near the edge where you could hear the ocean. Very good food. Prices are what you would expect for a resort, $32 for fish.

We went to lunch in Lahaina three times: Kimo's, Bubba and BJ's pizza. Kimo's was the best. Walked around and shopped in Lahaina. Never made it to dinner there, I wanted to see it at night.

Our last day we drove to Pa'ia and watched the windsurfing! This was amazing. I am glad we did this.

Ate at Mama's Fish house and was a little disapointed. It was very expensive at lunch and my dh, who doesn't like fish, was forced to get a $39 steak. No chicken. I thought the interior was a nice retro blend of kitch and old Hawaiian elegance. We were a few tables away from the ocean view, but it was an impressive swirl of activity!

I would probably not go back to Mama's. (unless money was no object). The waiter never explained anything on the menu as I heard other waiters doing. I just don't know what all they hype is about this place. Maybe if we had more time, went in the evening and had a better waiter? It was too far a drive for us at dinner. We couldn't even make ourselves drive to Lahaina for dinner!

We did a quick Wal-mart run before taking the jeep back. I bought a comfy track suit to wear on our 21 hour trek home. Best decision of the week.

Car rental: I rented a Jeep Laredo SUV for $25? a day. We loved having the room. Don't forget to get out and inspect the car. This is done in the dark before you leave their lot. You can't see things, like scrapes or dings that you might see in the daylight. When we returned the car, we had a big scrape that was on the bumper. I don't know if it was there before or not! I began to worry we would have to pay for it, but they let it slide. (it wasn't on the original inspection).

Overall, we loved Maui and would love to return.

Positives: great beach, nice resorts, beautiful vistas, great food, great Hawaiian 'vibe'.

Negatives: more expensive than the Big Island, long flight.

I am very glad that we went! I was glad we didn't go to the B.I. since they had more earthquake damage. We were lucky we flew in before the quake. I have read reports of people flying in on the earthquake day that their planes had to turn around and go back to their destinations. We missed all of that angst.

If you have questions, let me know!





beachkomer is offline  
Old Oct 29th, 2006, 08:05 AM
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I enjoyed reading your TR and found myself nodding quite a bit. I know how long it takes to write these and the work that goes into recalling things. I think it is a big help to future visitors..so thanks!

I posted pictures yesterday that you might enjoy, take a look.

Debi
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 08:16 AM
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hey.... did you mean 'nodding off'?

I guess there is a limit to how much you can write because I typed for 30 more min. and it didn't post.

I wanted to say that the Hyatt amenities in the bathroom (lotion, shampoo, etc) were wonderful! It was their own special stuff which was coconut mango! I horded the stuff!

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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 08:28 AM
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how was the ocean temperature? air temps on maui?

we're headed there for the first time in about 2 1/2 weeks. i'm excited, but i chill easily. info on temps would be helpful to me!

thanks!
-lynne
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 08:39 AM
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The temp was normally in the low 80's, but one day it got up to 88 or so. If you are in the sun, you will be toasty, NO problem. I never needed a light jacket execpt for the day it rained. (it was cool in the morning).

The ocean was a little cold, but once you got in, and snorkeled you didn't notice it at all.

I had a mid-thigh length cotton zip up beach coverup that I wore all the time around the pool or beach.

Pack a few different flip flops so that you always have a dry pair.

I packed light and only used 1/3 of my clothes. I wore the same thing a lot at dinner, it was only for a few hours. I would pack and then take out about half. I like picking up a few tshirts locally.

I never wore tennis shoes but we didn't hike. If you have alot of hiking activities planned you will obviously need more stuff than me.

I basically lived in my swimsuit/coverup and what I wore to dinner. (and that track suit on the plane!)

I took a spray sunscreen that I applied every 2 hrs. or so. I never burned and barely tanned. (that was my goal in my fight against wrinkles!)

Let me know if you have more questions.
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 08:44 AM
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beachkomer -- OMG no! I wasn't nodding off but in agreement with your report! quot;>

I really enjoyed reading it...I would be the LAST one to complain that a TR was too long or too detailed. That is how I get my best info!

Thanks again!!!
Debi
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 12:20 PM
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Did you do any shopping in Pa'ia?
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 02:18 PM
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thanks! good advice!

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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 02:18 PM
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No we didn't shop in Pa'ia...my dh was sooo paranoid that the car would be broken into...he has some very expensive photo video equipement ($7,000 camera) and a nice Apple laptop. (we had all of our stuff).

In fact when we stopped to watch windsurfing, we took turns and one of us stayed in the car at the public park. This part of the trip was stressful because he didn't even want to stop at the mall to get ice cream. I about cried and was so frustrated by this....I went into Wal-Mart in the town (where the airport is) by myself.

The last travel day- packing, checkout, drive, car rental return, security, checkin, etc, are very very stressful! The rental car scrape only added to my stress and dh thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown! Too bad I couldn't find my one coveted zanex!

1994
Our rental car was broken into on South Beach at noon on a Sunday. He kept reminding me of this fact.
We lost all of our identification, money, air tickets, etc; This was pre 9/11 and dh talked to the ticket person (he travels overseas for a living and knew all the right things to say!) and we got to fly home.

LONG answer to your small question, sorry! Pa'ia looked like it would be fun to walk around. Maybe next time!


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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 03:09 PM
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Good trip report! Anyway, I've been at Paia three times in the past ten years with no problems. Although we've not left pricey stuff in the car.
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Old Oct 29th, 2006, 04:27 PM
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Well, the way our luck was going on this vacation it was going to be either a break in or a plane crash...I know, that's not funny...

we were just amazed that the largest earthquake to hit in some time... hit the islands 12 hours after we landed! We ARE movers and shakers! LOL

I forgot to mention the female flight attendant that appeared to be having a mental break. Even the girl next to me noticed and alerted her boyfriend. She was behaving so bizarrely. She sat on the jump seat in front of me, sideways with her feet propped AGAINST the emergency door! Like pushing...I was about to freak.
She went into the bathroom for about 15 minutes. I had a fear she was putting her liquid bomb together to bring us down. She later told us she never did red-eyes and was having problems....NO duh! Yikes!

:0
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