Why not do both ? Water/beach front on Kauai & "upcountry" on Big Isl. Personally I've wanted to live by the sea for as long as I can remember, probably because childhood vacations always involved the salty world, so I don't mind paying the premium today. However, if a sea view is OK then you can get away from the crowd and move up slope a little perhaps. Just an idea.

We just returned from from 3 weeks in Hawaii and in my opinion the ocean front room really was great. When we opted for the garden view, we really missed the ocean. Even though our condo was right on the beach and we could easily walk to it, we found that we wanted to go to a different beach everyday. We preferred the condos over the hotels for several reasons, one of which was the price for an oceanfront was considerable less.

I think the consensus appears to favor staying in an ocean front room/condo, and I'd like to throw my two-cents in that corner as well. We recently returned from a fantastic trip to to Maui, and we stayed at the Embassy resort (great place). We had an "ocean view" room which was nice, but half-way through the trip we upgraded to an ocean front room, and it was well worth the money. We could hear the ocean, and so left our door open all night - so soothing and beautiful to fall asleep to and wake up to. From our room we watched whales, the sunsets, and woke up early one morning to see the moon setting over the ocean - that was incredible!! Being on the 10th floor, we were able to leave the bathroom door open so that we could look at the ocean while showering! We thought the the extra money for the upgrade was well worth it - how many times in our lives would we ever be on Maui with that opportunity? So spoil yourselves a little! Like one of the posters said, you're coming to Maui for the ocean, and this is a way to really enjoy it in your own privae setting.

MLC that ocean front room sounded heavenly. What hotel were you talking about and where on Maui?

We stayed at the Embassy Resort just north of Kaanapali. It is primarily a time share resort, but we weren't pressured or even asked at any time to attend any presentations, and there were a lot of folks just renting units like us. We rented it through a travel agent. It's a beautiful property - open air lobby with lots of tropical plants, a beautiful restaurant area where you walk across a bridge over a small stream to get to the restaurant, a free daily breakfast buffet, beautiful grounds and a wonderful. large pool with waterfall grottos, etc. The rooms were very spacious and clean, and the service was top notch. It was just far enough outside of Kaanapali where you didn't feel all that crowded, but close enough to everything, including the wonderful Napili and Kapalua (sp?) beaches and resorts. The Embassy was filled to capacity, but never felt like it. The people staying there ranged from families to honeymooners (we know two different couples who honeymooned there recently and loved it!) to senior citizens. It's right across from a grocery store, espresso stand, Maui dive shop, etc. We'd stay there again in a heartbeat!