gabbabie

Sunday and Maui!

 

Our sweet ride docked at Kahului.

 

 

I had been to Maui many moons ago with my parents and I was anxious for my family to see how beautiful it is. We had plans to rent cars the first day and do the Molokini snorkel excursion through NCL the second day.

 

We were on the shuttle bus to Thrifty by 8:45 for our 9:00 pick up time. They offered us an upgrade to a Dodge Charger for only a little more, and since we knew we might have Mom with us for part of our trip, we went for it to have a little more room. Plus, hubby’s a huge Charger fan, having owned a couple of the classics back in the day. He was excited!

 

Off we went to our first stop that we were all doing together, Iao Valley. I had forgotten how beautiful the entire area is. We all loved this stop.

 

The Iao Needle

 

After viewing the needle, we made our way down another path, down to where the stream flows. Just gorgeous. We ventured out on the rocks while Mom stayed on the path and snapped pictures of us. I took this one of our girls.

Mom decided to go with us when it was time to leave Iao, as SIL and BIL weren’t sure exactly what they were going to do. They thought they might want to hit the beaches on the west side of the island, Ka’anapali or maybe Napili. Our plan was to head south and west also, but we wanted to stop in Lahaina and also Whaler’s Village. And to hopefully see some whales along the way! I had yet to see any and was anxious to. That appealed to Mom more than huffing it around on the beaches.

 

We pulled off at an overlook just past Ma’alaea and were rewarded! Our first glimpse of the whales. They were too far out to get decent pictures, so we didn’t take any. I knew we would see more the following day on our snorkel trip. We continued on and stopped further down at small beach Mom could navigate and the girls waded in the water for a little while.

 

We eventually made it to Lahaina. I was disappointed in how much the area has been developed in the 20 years since I’d been there. Sign of the times, I guess. But we parked and walked around and did a little shopping. We had lunch at Cheeseburger In Paradise. The girls asked if we could have lunch at one of the restaurants on the waterfront and this fit the bill perfectly. Hubby and I had burgers. They were good, not outstanding, but good. Mom had Mahi Mahi that she enjoyed, and I can’t remember what the kids had. Something “kiddish” I’m sure.

 

On to Whaler’s Village and the whaling museum there. We all really enjoyed it and it filled the remainder of the afternoon. We started heading back to Thrifty to drop off the rental car around 4:30 and were back to the ship by 5:30, I do believe. We met up with SIL and family for dinner at the Aloha to talk about our respective afternoons and share our stories and pictures. They had been to Whaler’s Village, too, and the museum, just earlier in the day because they had skipped Lahaina and gone directly there. After, they found a beach that BIL said would’ve been perfect for snorkeling. I’m not sure which one he was talking about, but it was out past Ka’anapali.

 

The kids played ping pong for a while after dinner, then asked if they could swim and use the hot tubs. The pool deck was virtually deserted every night by seven, except for the eight of us. The pool deck bars were closed, the loungers and chairs stacked away. We just took what we needed to sit on and then re-stacked them when we were done. The Gold Rush Saloon is directly aft of the pool deck and accessible by walking through the ping pong area. It was a good place to get a drink in the evenings while we were watching the kids swim. I loved their Bahama Mamas. Hubby tried several new beers and his favorite of the trip ended up being the Kona Longboard.

 

Speaking of the kids, besides ours, we saw maybe six or seven other kids that were our kids’ ages, and about that many really little ones. Ours didn’t utilize the teen or kids clubs at all, so I have no information on that.

 

We were in bed early again. Our meeting time for our snorkel excursion was at 8:20 the following morning out on the pier. We were all looking forward to it very much, especially our older daughter. This was her gig, the one thing she really, really wanted to do. It appealed to all in our group and so we pre-booked on-line as soon as the shore excursions became available.

 

I wanted to add a pic of our 1st towel animal, but I can only include six images at a time, so I'll do it in another post.

Thanks very much greatlakesgirl! Your review is wonderful and helping me to figure out what to do on our POA trip this coming July! I can't wait for your next installments -- particularly about Molokini -- that is MY big want! Thanks again!