Day 3

So here we were Friday morning and our time at the Westin Resort has drawn to an end.  Still up incredibly early so did my blog entry for the previous day then wandered down to Starbucks for a coffee and croissant and read the paper. By the time I got back to the room Kelly was awake and we started packing.  Still had about 4 hours until check-out so we walked over to Whalers Village and had breakfast at Maui Fish and Pasta.  Very nice and we could see lots of whale activity on the water.  After breakfast we did some shopping. We were both in desperate need of new footwear as we were both wearing last summers sandals and they were pretty much toast.  We looked in Crocs but decided we'd be better off checking out their outlet store in Lahaina. Made our way back to the Westin where I got some final pictures of the beautiful property...

Completed our packing and checked out.  We had 4 hours until we could check Iinto our condo at The Kuleana in Kahana so the plan was to do some shopping in Lahaina and then go to Kahului to arrange golf club rentals and go to Costco.  We went to the outlet mall in Lahaina where we got some tshirts for the boys at Hilo Hatties and new sandals at Crocs. The Crocs outlet store had great selection and prices.  We then got on the road to head for Kahului....started out as a pleasant drive but once we hit Olawalu we never went over 20mph again...traffic crawled all the way to the Kihei turn off.  We hadn't meant to take that turn off as we meant to go to Kahului but nevertheless found ouselves on S. Kihei road. We got ouselves back on course and finally found the club rental shop where we chose our clubs for pickup Monday evening.  Then we went to Costco...in and out quickly and back on the road.  Traffic was much quicker for us heading north but by this time the southbound traffic was backed up from Lahaina to Maalaea....at a complete dead stop in some places.  It reminds me of the traffic backups in the summer in Kelowna before the new bridge wad built.  Seeing that traffic was enough for us to make the decision to rent clubs at the golf course and not bother with going back Monday evening.  At least our tee time at Elleair is at 7 am and we'll be through before the heavy traffic. If we want to see south Maui we'll do it that afternoon. Anyway we found the Kuleana and brought our luggage in then went to Times market in Honokawai for few more things...had a light dinner of cheese, crackers, Costco chicken and poke and collapsed...tomorrow is a morning whale watch on the Scotch Mist...

Day 2

We were up early again this morning....that seems to be the case when you're asleep by 9:00.  Kelly managed to fall asleep again while I worked on my first blog.  Good system I think. After getting dressed we grabbed coffees from Starbucks in the lobby and walked north along the beach to the Sheraton. The weather is gorgeous and sunny with not a cloud in the sky but the surf is still huge!  Four brave souls were snorkeling at Black Rock bobbing around like corks but we figured calmer waters would be better for us.  We headed back to the resort as today we had a cabana reserved for the day.  When i called a month ago to make the reservation the man on the phone told me he reserved the best cabana by the adult pool for us...I think he was right but you can see for yourselves....

View from our cabana

We had a great day..very relaxing.  There was poolside service which we took advantage of but also refilled our glasses several times from the fridge in our room.  We also had our picture taken later in the day by the resort photographer...a 4x6 print is included in the resort fees. We were told that we could use the cabana until 10:00 but when we got back after our pictures we were in full sun and it was hot! We lasted a couple more hours but by then we were pretty much cooked so headed back to our room.  I wanted to eat at The Hula Grill so we cleaned up and headed out again. It was only 5:00 and too early to eat so we decided to walk north along Kaanapali Beach.  Lots of locals surfing and boogie boarding in the huge surf.

I know I haven't been to that many beaches in the world but there cant be too many that rival the true beauty of Kaanapali Beach!  We were starting to get hungry so figured it was time to head back towards Whaler's Village and the Hula Grill...but found ourselves stopping to watch the
sunset...

Made our way to Hula Grill and sat in The Beach Bar enjoying a great meal with good music and lots of people watching....and so ends day two on Maui...tomorrow we change lodging and head to our condo at The Kuleana in Kahana for the next phase of our trip.

Day 1

We flew on Alaska Airlines Kelowna-Seatle-Maui and everything was on time and uneventful... found our shuttle to Enterprise to pick up our rental car.  I found a great price through Discount Hawaii Car Rentals..a convertible for ten days for 346 dollars.  Noone else was at Enteshopping and it took about five minutes to get our paper work organized.  No upsale either.  She asked how we wanted to cover extra insurance..I replied through my coverage at home...and she asked if we wanted to bring the car back empty or full.  Then out to the lot to pick up our car.  We got a 2014 Mustang convertible. Then it was on our way to The Westin.  Check in was smooth and took five minutes.  I got our room through priceline for 189 a night so wasn't expecting much.  We're on the fourth  floor and we overlook the main entrance and parking lot but it can be interesting watching people coming and going.  Our room is one of the refurbished rooms and it's quite nice and the bed is amazing! So comfortable! We fell asleep around midnight.  Just as a side note...they're still doing construction..the 2nd and 3rd floors are being worked on and you here some noise during the day.

Up very early on our first morning here.  We watched a huge storm blow in...the rain came down so hard you couldn't see the golf course across the street.  Once it stopped we decided to go check out the resort. The open air lobby is quite beautiful.

Waterfall and Koi Pond

Resort Flamingoes

After this mornings storm the surf was pretty high so swimming was definitely out of the question

Kaanapali Beach

Even though it might be hard to tell in the photo the surf really is pounding. We had an appointment at The Snorkel Store to pick up snorkel and beach chairs for our stay.  If you go to their website and pay online you get 1/2 price rentals. Good deal! After  a little shopping at Whaler's Village we decide that the action is probably pretty good at Nakalele Blowhole so we jump in the car and head north. Surf was amazing! Pictures don't truly do it justice because you can't hear the roar of the surf.

After a couple of hours of watching the surf (we also saw some whale action very far out) it was time to head back as we had reservations at Fleetwoods on Front Street for dinner.  We caught the Westin Shuttle into Lahaina and made it for happ hour.  They didn't have the roof top open yet fbecause they were stilling drying it out from the morning storm.  We had cocktails In the bar and then moved upstairs for dinner.  Fleetwoods seems to get mixed reviews but our service and food  was top notch.  Pricey but worth every penny.  We loved the sunset ceremony with the bagpipes
and the Hawaiin Blessing. Here's some pictures.

Very busy and enjoyable first day on Maui.  Tomorrow is cabana day.