Nathan's Occasional Blog

Alicea and I got back from a week in Maui on Wednesday morning.  This was our first time to Hawaii for either of us.  What did we think of the trip?  We both shed a tear or two when the plane left the runway in Kahului.  It was incredible!  Here are a few things that you MUST SEE/DO if you visit Maui…

• Sail & Snorkel charter out to Molokini crater.  There’s nothing like snorkeling in a tropical ocean with visibility measured in hundreds of feet.  And there’s nothing better than getting there on the wind at 18+ knots.  LOVELY.  Take the Paragon II out of Maalaea – check out www.SailMaui.com.
• Road to Hana: swim in the Seven Pools, take the side road down to Nahaiku, visit Waianapanapa State Park, hike through a bamboo forest.  It’s a LONG day to make the trek to Hana and back, and we’ll probably not do that again when we make it back to the island.  But the sights were amazing.
• Hit downtown Lahaina around 6a in the morning to catch the Banyan Tree when nobody’s there.  Once you’ve got a lot of pictures of that, walk across the park to the marina and watch the boats head out and the kids surf.  At 7a the Pioneer Inn Restaurant, next to the tree and the marina, opens.  You can’t go wrong with the Hawaiian sweetbread french toast or the gargantuan pancakes.  🙂  After breakfast continue to loll around Front Street as the shops open – you’ll have the street and the shops to yourselves.  When you’re done go back to your room and sleep for a while … you’ll still have most of the day left to do other stuff (or nothing).
• Go to a luau.  It’s cheesy, but you’ve got to do it just once.  We went to the Old Lahaina Luau and from what I’ve heard of the others this seems like a good bet.
• And this is a must … GO TO WARREN AND ANABELLES!  It’s a nightclub and magic/comedy show.  21 and over only, so find a sitter if you need to. Simply amazing and a LOAD of fun.  The first half of the entertainment (nightclub parlor) was a bit lame, but the show is indescribable.  You’ll need reservations well in advance … as in when you book your trip a couple months in advance.  Go to www.warrenandannabelles.com.
• Go to a time-share presentation.  Everybody does it.  😉

Alicea and I stayed at the Westin Maui Resort and Spa in Kaanapali.  Awesome place, but a bit pricey (we had a special package deal otherwise we wouldn’t have been there).  If you can afford it, though, stay there.

On the flight over (United from SFO to Maui) they did a “Half way to Hawaii” game.  The pilot gave us the distance we were covering, our speed, the tail wind, and the time we lifted off the runway from SFO to the second.  Whoever guessed the correct time we’d be half way won the prize … unfortunately they didn’t say that they were doing it closest but not over.  Anyway, Alicea was the runner up – she was about 6 minutes off.  Someone else was the winner.  BUT I was closest … I was 5 seconds over (I did a lot of math in Excel on my laptop and rounded the seconds for .982344565… of an hour – should have figured it out!).  I got a runner up prize too!

Yeah – we need to find a way to do that trip again.  Special thanks to Alicea’s mom for staying with Kaitlyn back here at home so we had a week to ourselves.  I love Kaitlyn … but it was awesome to have some time without her to be “us” again.

Well, that’s enough rambling for now.  Mahalo (thanks) for the memories Maui!