Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip To Hawai'i (1996)--The Honeymoon
2/17/1996
The Honeymoon
Who knew that waking up to your new bride would be so special? Other than the millions of people who had done what we just did, that is.  We spent the day relaxing, only going out to walk down to the Lahaina Harbor to scope out which slip tonight's dinner cruise would be leaving from. We booked this dinner cruise on the Lahaina Princess and had a ton of fun that night. Our four-seater table included a couple from Atlanta--he was fairly quiet, she was chatty, chatty, chatty! We shared our Maui experiences (limited as ours was as we were only on our fourth night on Maui!). Dinner and dancing were included and everyone seemed to really enjoy this.
Lahaina Princess
After the breakfast orientation we had attended on Thursday morning, we had booked several activities, basically locking us in to an activity every day except for Wednesday when we had a self-tour to Hana planned. We did the Atlantia Submarine tour on Sunday morning. While it was nice, it wasn't one of those "Oh wow" experiences we were hoping for. Afterward, we had more fun in the sun and then dinner at the Hard Rock restauarant on Front Street. It was okay but rather overpriced, as you'd expect from a chain of this type.
Fantastic view from our balcony
Monday morning found us rolling out of bed at 2 a.m., grabbing a quick snack and then rushing downstairs for the Polynesian Adventures bus pickup. Destination--sunrise at Haleakala! The drive was interesting with a lot of 180 degree curves as we curled our way up the mountain. Our tour guide, Kimo, kept everyone engaged with a constant patter of info, quips and jokes. Not a dull moment to be found on his bus! He told us this was the steepest paved road in the world, and it sure felt like it. At the top (10,000 foot elevation), we stepped off the bus and was greeted by a windy, 30 degree morning. While this was still quite a bit warmer than Duluth was when we left it, we had quickly gotten used to 65-70 degree mornings. This wasn't fun! But the views as the sun rose over Haleakala crater made the shortness of breath (remember, we were at 10,000 feet!) and early morning chill more than worth it. I got some nice video of the sunrise. Pictures would have been better but I was still 2 1/2 years away from owning my first digital camera.
Back at the hotel, we caught some sun. We're basically wiped out after the 2 a.m. wakeup call so we weren't particularly interested in doing much else other than walking over to BJ's Chicago Pizzaria on Front Street for dinner. They do deep dish pizza here and they do it very well! It was one of the best pizzas I'd ever had. Our sunset luck finally turned positive tonight, catching our first one not obscured by clouds. What a sight!
On the beach giving attention to a dog named Tiki
Late Tuesday afternoon we walked next door to the Shops at 505; behind the shops near the beach was the site of the Old Lahaina Luau. We'd never been to one of these before and were eager to see how the entertainment (and food!) were. While listening to Hawaiian music prior to the unearthing of the pig from the imu (underground pit where the pig is cooked) we were treated to a number of humpback whales playing not far offshore. The sight attracted quite a crowd of luau attendees! While my camcorder only had a 10x zoom, I still managed to capture some wonderful footage. As for the food, it wasn't bad. Being our first luau, we had no other luau meals to compare it to. The show which followed was stunning and lasted a good deal of time, taking us through Hawaiian history, complete with dance and song. We had a fantastic evening!
Patty was getting burnt out on all the things we had done so she slept in Wednesday morning, leaving me to travel the road to Hana solo. I was out the door at 6:30, looking forward to driving this road I had heard some things about but had no real experience with. This turned out to be a long drive, not from a distance standpoint (only 31 miles from Kahului) but once you get past Kahului, much of the road has a speed limit of 15-25 mph with over 600 curves and over 50 one-lane bridges. You have to pay attention to the road! And this means that, as the driver, you won't get to enjoy as much of the scenery as you would want to. If you drive straight through to Hana with no stops (as I did, not knowing any better), you miss the point of the trip--it isn't to get there, it's to enjoy the journey as much as possible.
I was back to the room by 3 p.m. where we freshened up and headed out to dinner.
Thursday was our final full day on Maui and we took advantage of it with a 30 minute tour of West Maui on Sunshine Helicopters. This was (other than the wedding, obviously) the high point of our trip! The winds buffeted us about a bit and Patty nearly lost her breakfast into one of those "special bags", but we got to see parts of West Maui which are inaccesible by road or foot. Compadres was our dinner destination tonight--with an outside table and reasonably tasty Mexican food, it was a nice final meal on the island we had quickly come to love over the past nine days.
Friday morning--time to pack everything up and head back to Duluth! They offered us (for no additonal charge) an earlier flight to Honolulu which resulted in us spending four hours in that airport instead of a quite boring Maui airport, smoking cigarettes, eating, talking about our experiences and basically waiting to board the plane which would spirit us back to Minneapolis and then continuing on to Duluth. Sleeping on a plane? Yeah, no chance of that happening. It was a long night and we didn't arrive in Duluth until after 10:00 the next morning.
But, man oh man, what a trip! As it turned out, many trips to Hawaii (and especially to Maui) would follow, but we'll always have fond memories of this first trip.
Previous: 2/12/1996--Our Trip to Hawai'i (1996)--The Wedding
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