We stayed at the Sheraton at Black Rock, located on Ka'anapali Beach, a resort area near Lahaina on the west coast of Maui. The grounds are really lovely.
And our room had a great view!
Our first full day in Maui, we decided to do the crazy thing and get up before dawn to go watch the sunrise on the top of Haleakala, the volcano that makes up East Maui. We had fun with the tripod, as evidenced by our silly poses.
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Later, after a rest, we went to a beach with mild surf to practice our snorkeling. Raj was not a big fan of our cheap-o snorkel gear.
But I had a great time doing a little bit of snorkeling there.
Later, we watched the sunset from the beach at our hotel.
The Sheraton does a little show every night at sunset: a torch lighting and cliff dive ceremony. (Move the speed slider to the left on the slideshow and it could be a slow stop-action movie.)
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The next day, we drove the Road to Hana. It was nice to see the lush, tropical side of Maui. We were both a bit surprised by the desert area around our resort--not what you expect in Hawaii. The Road to Hana showed us what we'd expected to see--forests, gullies, waterfalls. We made many stops along the way and didn't get back to our hotel until after dark.
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My favorite picture from the day:
The following day was our snorkel trip, followed by a couples massage at the hotel spa. For the snorkel trip, we were thrilled to be upgraded to the fancier boat (hot lunch, sail past stars' homes). It made two stops: Molokini and Turtle Town. We had this nifty little waterproof digital camera bag that I bought before we left--it took a little finagling to get the lens centered in the bag, but we got it to work pretty well. All these pictures from the snorkel trip were taken by the camera in the little waterproof bag.
We did see a couple of giant turtles--that was pretty awesome!
Wednesday we went off to the Maui Ocean Center, an aquarium in Ma'alaea.
After the Maui Ocean Center we did some roving around the island, including a stop Fabric Mart in Kahului. This fabric store is practically overflowing with Hawaiian print fabric.
Our last full day in Maui, Friday, we took a drive heading northward from our hotel, experiencing another type of Maui landscape--craggy cliffs.
Then we took a stroll on the beach walk.
Later that night we got "dressed up" for the luau.
We went to the Royal Lahaina Luau, at the Royal Lahaina Resort, just up the beach from us. It was super cheesy but fun nonetheless. And the sunset that night was another beauty.
You can see all the pictures from the trip here.
I could do an entire post about the food we ate. We took pains to find interesting and unique, not-super-touristy places to eat. None of these places were fancy (in fact, Ba-Le is in food courts) but the food was the best value for money we could find.
Aloha Mixed Plate (hawaiian)
Paia Fish Market (great sea food)
Four Sisters Kitchen (filipino-hawaiian)
Ba-Le (best Bahn Mi ever?)
