Wailea is much more luxury and would be my personal choice. There's shopping and food over there too. Whaler's village isn't that great. Lahaina is worth going back to more than once. It will be a bit of a drive. Kaanapali is a more budget family type area. Wailea is where you like to be spoiled. I like the view there better too.

Depends what you like.

My wife and I hears that it was "just your typical big city" crowded and this and that blah blah blah.

Our idea of a vacation is city vacations, manhatten, san fran etc.

I almost did not go to Honollulu after some of the comments I got about it being dead at night and so forth.

Well let me tell you it ended up being one of the best vacations of my life.

The city is wonderful, surrounded by beauty where an outing is only minutes away up the coast line, or just laying around waikiki beach.

Locals are incredibly friendly, and the spectrum of food is amazing, especially if you like Asian cuisine.

We were so impressed, that we already have our next one booked there, and we hope to buy a condo in the next couple of years.

We will likely take some side trips to Maui in the future, but Oahu is always going to be our home base.

So I guess it all depends what you like to do.