Our late Monday afternoon flight from Kona to Maui was only 20 minutes long. Our four nights on the island known as the Valley Isle seemed to pass just as quickly.
We stayed at a Westin Villas timeshare located on Kaanapali Beach, just a few miles north of the town of Lahaina. As usual, Beth did a great job finding it (Airbnb) at a tremendous discount. Speaking of discounts, we stopped at the Safeway in Lahaina on the way in to pick up a few items. Residents and tourists alike were searching in vain for food bargains. Our next shopping will be California, where compared to Hawaii prices, things will now seem discounted. There's a huge price to be paid to live in Hawaii, and we understand it's taking its toll on families that have lived there for decades. Many of them are now moving to the mainland due to the high cost of living.
The stars at night are big and bright on Maui!
Although we enjoyed roaming around the historic Lahaina waterfront district a bit, and driving to the more "uppity" area of Wailea, we saw less of Maui than we did of O'ahu and the Big Island. We had been to Maui several times previously and had already enjoyed many of the top "things to do" like watching the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala, and both enjoying and enduring the all day drive on the road to Hana, twice! The 64 mile drive to the tiny town of Hana includes 620 hairpin curves and 59 one lane bridges. While I can't say never, I can say it's pretty likely that I won't be back in Hana in this lifetime. I also think that we left Ben and Sarah somewhat scarred for life for having them in the car with us for one of the two adventures.
Is it worth devoting a full day of your time in Maui? You'll have to decide that one on your own. Chances are you'll end up both loving it and asking yourself "why did we do that"?
One thing I would recommend, if possible, is to spend some time on Maui during "whale season". We learned an easy way to remember when it's "whale season" is that it starts around the time the NFL playoffs start and ends a few weeks after the Super Bowl. During this time thousands of massive Humpback Whales make their way from their feeding grounds off of Alaska to the warm waters around the Hawaiian Islands. While in the Hawaiian waters the females give birth to their young, which are about the size of a pickup truck. They also frolic about in a whale of a mating orgy, assuring more baby whales are born the next year (the gestation period is approximately one year). We spotted some of these amazing creatures off O'ahu and the Big Island. However, the best whale watching is around Maui.
The whales are easy to spot from the shoreline, or for a closer encounter consider taking one of the numerous whale watching tours. Some excursions are just whale watching while others include reef snorkeling or diving adventures. The lengths and cost vary accordingly. We did a two hour "whale watching only" excursion on the Quicksilver out of Lahaina. There were plenty of whales to see, including several that swam close to the boat, giving us a close up look at them while they got a close up look at us.
Whale watching is something that we could do practically all day, every day while on Maui, but at some point we'd have to stop for a slice of Hula Pie. Our favorite Hula Pie comes from some of the T S Restaurant Group locations. We typically indulge at Leilani's in Whalers Village. This time we opted for Duke's Beach House. Same amazing pie, just a different location.
As the sun was setting on our final night in Hawaii we stood on the shoreline and enjoyed seeing several small pods of whales, including at least one baby swimming lazily close to shore. They seemed to be appreciating their time in Hawaii just as much as we did. Soon we'll be heading towards their northerly home and feeding grounds........(we'll beat them there this time), but that's a story for another day, and there's a few more adventures up our sleeves between now and then!
