Chillin' in Maui

Where to start? We've been doing a lot of chillin' in the fabulous sunshine. It's really great staying in one place for the entire trip and not having the hassle of switching hotels, but I'm still torn on whether I prefer Wailea over Ka'anapali. Both are really great places to stay at. Our resort isn't overly busy this time around which is nice.

While the Marriott doesn't have direct beach access, there are two really great beaches on either side, Ulua and Wailea beach, and access is just a short walk along the boardwalk, which is also a great running route- very scenic with the ocean.

The snorkelling at Ulua beach is good first thing in the morning, but during this week we have found that the visibility hasn't been the best. I decided that I wanted to try out snorkelling with fins this time around to see if that would make things easier for me. I always get tired quickly when snorkelling, so we rented a pair from Snorkel Bob's for the week at a cost of $8. Out front of our hotel there are a bunch of "resident" turtles, but with no direct access point we needed to swim a ways out from Ulua beach so I'm glad I had the fins otherwise I wouldn't have made it out there. We saw 5 turtles this time out just swimming around. One of them swam under me which was cool though the entire time I was thinking that it better not swim up into me. One of the turtles was gigantic, it was probably a good 4-5 feet in length. Ulua beach is a great beach to just bob in the water too; the surf is usually quite tame. We ended up buying a boogie board for $10 and in the afternoon when the surf gets a little rougher, this beach is great for body surfing too. Buying the board was cheaper than renting one and some lucky kid will get a free board when we leave.

On the other side of our hotel we have Wailea beach. This is also a good beach for bobbing in the water. But it's also a good area for stand up paddle board. Z rented a board and after he was done paddling around he got me to try. It was fun, but harder than it looks. I had a lot of trouble actually standing up, so ended up kneeling instead. Maybe next time I'll get up.

We've hung out at Big beach where Z enjoyed playing around in the waves. I didn't go in the water here because I'm still gun shy from our last visit there where I got tossed around in the waves and felt like I might drown. We had read that the snorkelling at Little beach was supposed to be good, so we trekked over there but the waves were quite rough and so we didn't bother. Little beach is also famous for being clothing optional and well there was really no need to be surrounded by that.

One of our best beach times was up at Ka'anapali beach where our friends are staying. Here the snorkelling is amazing. The water is so clear and the afternoon we spent there the water was very calm. We got to see a bunch of different fish. The bonus treat here was when a pod of dolphins appeared and started jumping out of the water. It was such a cool sight. I've never seen dolphins in the wild before. One of them jumped out of the water and did a back flip, it was amazing to see. They played around in the area for a bit and actually swam quite close towards the beach just down from us. Definitely a highlight of this trip!!




Attempting stand up paddle board.



Big beach in the background.



View of Molokini from Big beach.



South view from Ulua beach with Molokini.



Sunset at Ka'anapali beach.


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Third time's a charm....back to Maui

Well so much for "I don't want to always travel to the same place" - this is our third consecutive year travelling to Maui. Now we have travelled to other places as well during this time, so I don't think I'm really breaking my own personal commitment to myself at this point. And even if Maui were the only yearly destination, would that actually be that terrible? It offers a lot of the things I look forward to for vacation.....warm sunshine, gorgeous sandy beaches, good snorkelling, and well a break from reality!

Our day started early....5:30am early. You know, it's only for vacations where I don't mind getting up at such a hour. We travelled through LA with a 2 hour layover there. That 2 hours went by real quick with having to make our way from one terminal to the other side of the airport to our departure terminal, to having to sort out seat assignments which got really messed up at check-in, to re-clearing security to having lunch and being at our gate for boarding. We flew United from LA and for whatever reason United hasn't retrofitted their planes with individual TV's so we had pre-decided to watch the movie "Now You See Me" on the computer. This would not have worked well with our original seat issue of being seated in different rows. The movie was fantastic, worth seeing especially for anyone who enjoys a good magic show.

We arrived in Maui around 4:30 local time and made our way to our hotel in Wailea. Our rental car is a Ford hybrid and it has a bunch of neat features including in car navigation. The drive to our hotel started getting us on Island time and into the relaxed atmosphere of the Island. We checked in and were upgraded to a lovely and overly spacious junior suite with an ocean view. How awesome is that? Or should I say how awesome is Z and all the hard work he puts in to get these perks?!?!

Just as I was quickly settling into vacation mode and relaxing, I went to my suitcase to unpack a little and found that a lovely 3-lettered agency had picked my bag for additional screening. But what really annoyed me about this "exercise" of theirs is that my lock which is approved by this 3-lettered agency appears to have been cut off instead of being opened by the master key they are supposed to use. Now of course I did not witness this so I cannot be 100% sure they cut it off, BUT inspecting what's left of the zipper it looks like a clean cut versus my bag getting stuck somewhere on the conveyor belt system. What's more to support my suspicion is that my suitcase has a 2 zipper system and the 2nd zipper is also gone along with not so cheap lock, and to top it all off, there is no visual damage to the zipper track itself. So it would seem in my humble opinion that my suitcase did not get stuck, as this 3-lettered agency would tell me if I complained to them, and in fact was accessed by them by cutting off my lock. So I was rather annoyed at all this, but on the bright side I get to go suitcase shopping when I get home. After having had a day to disgust this, it also struck me that the extra "security" gained by them searching my bag is a farce because absolutely none of my contents appeared to have been moved while they "searched" my suitcase. Everything was exactly as I had placed it except that I found a lovely card from them saying they searched my bag. OK...I'm done ranting on this topic. Anyone interested in knowing how frequently this occurs, just google search it. You'll be amazed at the amount of similar stories out there.

We had a great dinner at Cheeseburgers at the Shops at Wailea and I'm looking forward to heading there for happy hour so I can enjoy some half price Piña Coladas!! They make a GREAT PC!!


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