Maui Part Four

Tuesday was our last morning at the Kaanapali Beach Club. We took a walk along the beach and took our pictures underneath the waterfall, then packed our stuff up. We needed somewhere to stay for one more night. We had tried to find somewhere to stay that was cheap but nice and definitely on the beach. There was a house on craigslist that advertised "$99 rooms" at an oceanfront estate. Sometimes families rent out rooms in wings off their homes. The guests have access to the grounds, but not the rest of the house, so we figured that's probably what it was. But we also noticed they had a hot tub, so we were sold. When we emailed the first day, the manager said she had one more room and that we could have it. She told me to call herlater, so I tried, but our phone kept hanging up on it's own.(We had to get a new cell phone when we got home.) I finally got ahold of her that night and she sounded a little concerned because she said, "I just rented that room to a regular guest of ours at one of the other properties. But, I guess you could have a room in the house." I didn't really care where the room was, just as long as we had one, so I agreed and gave her our credit card number.

When we showed up at the house and she took us in, I almost gasped out loud. It was called Maikai Hale through Lahaina Oceanfront Estates. www.lahainaoceanfrontestate.com
It didn't look that impressive from the outside, but the inside was fabulous.

Stained glass in the front door. Chandelier above the curved staircase. Antiques everywhere. Hardwood floors. A covered porch out of the kitchen. A breakfast nook with a bay window overlooking the ocean. Huge kitchen. Built in china closet with leaded glass. A big veranda on the second floor overlooking the ocean. Wow!

Our room was adequate, but since we had the run of the rest of the house (no one else was staying there), it was amazing! Especially for $99!!!!!!! When the manager took us upstairs to our room, she said, "Oh, there isn't a refrigerator in the rooms inside the house, so I guess you can use the one down in the kitchen." I asked if we could use the microwave and she said, "Yes. That would be OK. Oh, I guess you can use the kitchen, just clean up after yourselves so I don't have to pay the maid to come clean it." Wow!

We noticed that a couple of the other rooms in the wings were locked, but one was open, with the key in the door. We assumed that would have been our room, had it not been for the "regular guest". We checked it out and found it to be nice, but small, with a small refrigerator, bathroom and door to the outside hot tub and pool.

We unpacked our things, then had a nice stop in the hot tub. We picked dinner up at Thai Chef then took it home to eat on the back porch. We poured our milk in goblets and served our meal on china with real silver. It was delicious! We had Pad Thai and Peanut Curry. They were out of Mango with Sticky Rice, much to our dismay. Mangos are out of season right now. Too bad. But the rest was SO good! And great ambience.

We watched the news and the weather for awhile, then went upstairs and watched the moon come up over Lahaina Bay.

Sigh. Our last day. We ate breakfast Multi Grain Cheerios in the breakfast nook overlooking the bay, then stopped by Maui Dive Shop to pick up snorkel gear. Then we were off to Black Rock on Kaanapali Beach. Lovely beach. Best snorkeling of the trip. It really does look like this! Tons of fish, lots of different colors, and TWO turtles. When the first one swam beneath us, I almost died. It was HUGE! Wow! Then I accidentally "fed the fish". Oops. I felt like I needed to burp, but other stuff came up. Multi Grain Cheerios. After the third or fourth eruption, I looked down and saw a whole bunch of fish right near me!!!! Feeding frenzy!!!!!!! After floating on my back for awhile, I felt better and we snorkeled back to shore. It was still worth it.

Then we returned to the estate to pack for the trip home. I laid down on the veranda and watched the waves for a few minutes til I felt better. Then we packed up and took a shower (with an ocean view) and took one last longing look around the house. Sigh. Amazing. We drove away sadly.

Stopped in Old Lahaina Town. We really like that place. I don't think we would have even visited there, but ended up really feeling something there. Also saw a lovely church that was called "Hale Aloha", or "House of Love". The Hawaiians built it to thank God when their island was spared from the great smallpox epidemic that killed 5,000 to 6,000 people on the island of Oahu.

Another interesting spot, the Pioneer Inn, (where we could have gotten a room for $120) was fascinating. It had big whale teeth inside, old ship's wheels, etc. Supposed to be really old and antique.

Next stop: Big Beach at the south end of South Maui. Huge beach 100 feet wide and long. Beautiful! But not good boogie boarding. Or snorkeling. So went to Makena Beach in front of the Maui Prince. Bingo. Found some great snorkeling–a huge school of big fish. Also the best boogie boarding of the trip.

I had to drag David out at 6:30 because it was getting dark.

Had to return our snorkel gear to Maui Dive Shop, then went to Jawz Tacos for Mahi mahi Tacos. Not too filling. Tasty, though. Headed up to Costco to return our unused boogie boards and snorkel gear. (Thought we'd be using them more than two or three days. Renting snorkel gear at Maui Dive Shop and buying boogie boards at Salvation Army was cheaper.) We also bought pineapples and chocolate macadamia nuts to take home. Yum.

Then had pizza and a berry sundae at Costco. (Much more filling than the tacos.) A trip to Kmart for souvenirs, then off to check in and return the car, repack the bags, and go through "agricultural inspection". We checked our "new to us" boogie boards and umbrella and sadly bid the island of Maui good-bye. Then it was home. We were greeted by 18 degree weather and snow. Brrr......

I told my husband it was the best vacation of my whole entire life. We hope to return someday!

Post "Vacation to Maui" Depression

We've been back from Hawaii for 4 days now and I'm still having a hard time getting back to "real life". I should be shopping for Christmas presents because as my 4 year old son, Micah, just reminded me, "It's only 8 more days until Christmas, Mom". That should send me into a panic, but instead I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to "blog". And trying to choose a few "favorite pictures" from the 273 we took on our trip. Well, some of them are videos. Sigh. They're all beautiful.

We were a little worried before we left because Maui (along with the rest of the Hawaiian Islands) was experiencing the worst winter storm in 16 years. We heard reports of winds up to 60 miles an hour, road closures, flooding, and power outages and pictured the worst. http://www.mauinews.com/story.aspx?id=36668 As it turns out, we ended up staying in West Maui rather than South Maui where all the damage was. There power was out for 2 days, 3 of their beaches were closed for 3 or 4 days. One of their main thoroughfares was closed. Parking lots were mud bowls. It was a mess.

We stayed the first 5 nights at Kaanapali Beach Club, a resort north of Lahaina. Granted, the building was pink, but we had a beachfront corner suite on the third floor. The bedroom was luxurious.

The bathroom had tile and marble with a deep tub.

The beach was right outside our room. After staying right on the beach, I'm afraid we're spoiled and won't be able to stay anywhere else. It was heavenly being able to open the sliding glass door and hear the waves crashing on the shore.

And watching them is hypnotic. Each night, we were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the surf. OK, to be honest, the first night we were awakened about 3:30 AM by the sound of our patio furniture being blown into the metal balcony railing. The winds were heavy and so was the rain. Since that was about the time we'd usually wake up back on the mainland, we had a hard time going back to sleep.

The rain had washed lots of run off into the ocean, so even though we thought it was beautiful at first, looking back we can see how dirty it really was. (See the blue-gray strip of less dirty ocean in the back?) We didn't even go out in it until Monday, 4 days after we arrived. The wind was blowing fiercely, although maybe not as hard as it looks. That palm tree is actually missing all its branches from the left side. We read later that there had been two sewage spills on Maui as well as dirty run off, so we're glad we didn't go in those first few days.
We did, however, take lots of long walks on the beach. The original weather forecasts called for heavy rain on both Friday and Saturday. (We arrived Thursday afternoon.) But, it was just cloudy when we woke up and remained clear while we had breakfast, so we went for a walk. We walked from our resort all the way down the beach to Black Rock, probably about a mile and a half away. Just as we were turning around to go back, it started sprinkling. Within seconds, it was pouring (that heavy rain they were talking about). We found a private cabana in front of the Maui Eldorado resort and sought shelter along with a few other unlucky folks until the rain let up. Then we made a mad dash for home. We found a covered picnic table at a beach park for the next downpour. It was almost like someone was controlling the rain like a faucet--on just a little bit, turn it on harder, turn it down, harder, down, almost off, harder, then off. We started back during an "almost off" rain, and started a slow jog. When it started a "harder" phase, we just walked, as we were already pretty soaked and the rain was so warm. Temperatures that day were around 70, so we weren't shivering at all.

We ended our walk with a dip in the hot tub in the rain. Ahhh........

Since we couldn't surf in the ocean, we decided to do a little surfing on the Internet.

Our resort had free wireless in the lobby, and we found this little cubbyhole on the mezzanine opposite the miniature golf course (closed due to flooding).


We caught up on our mail and the news and then decided to go exploring in Lahaina. Every time Dave went to get the car, he had to take off his shoes and roll up his pants, as there was about 5 inches of water on the second level of the parking garage. They finally got it pumped out and dried out by the 4th day or so. There were sandbags and "wet floor" warning cones everywhere.

Well, that's all for today. Stay tuned for "Part Two".