Decisions decisions…that was how Saturday got started. I wanted to go to breakfast at The Plantation House that I had heard so much about and Crystal wanted to lay out at the pool. Somehow I ended up winning and we went to breakfast! After we got there, I think she was glad we went because the view and the food was amazing. The restaurant is on a golf course where the first PGA (pro golf) tournament of the season is held every year. It’s on a hill that overlooks the island, the golf course, and the ocean with a view of other islands in the distance. It’s just stunning. Check out the photos by clicking on any pic over on the top-right of this page. I ordered crabcakes benedict and she got Hawaiian sweetbread French toast with bananas. Then we got a side of fresh pineapple with cinnamon sour cream sauce. The food was out of this world. We had the best seat in the house which was in the corner by the windows overlooking all of Hawaii…simply amazing.

After breakfast we headed to the Westin Spa for a couples massage. She went to the ladies locker room and I went to the men’s to get ready. Inside the locker room was a robe, slippers (or slippahs as they say here in Maui), and all sorts of gels and soaps to shower and get ready with. I tried about everything they had and sprayed off….then tried more stuff…cause, heck, it was free! We then met up in the spa lounge area and went to a room that had candlelight and soft music playing. We laid on massage tables side-by-side and was treated to a 50 minute full-body massage. WOW. I’ve never had one before, so I was making some ooh’s and ahh’s…the lady told me to be quiet. I tried…

The massage was incredible and was a nice end to a GREAT week in Maui. I’ll never be able to give Crystal a massage that comes close to comparing, but I think I can hack the candlelight and music at least…

After the massage we came back to the resort and went snorkeling. We saw some large sea turtles and lots of fish. We even got to see the unofficial state fish…the humuhumunukunukuapuaa. Say that 6 times fast…heck…just say it once! We snapped up a ton of pics with our underwater cameras, so hopefully they turn out ok. After the snorkeling adventure, we laid by the pool for a bit and soaked up some more Maui sun.

We asked around for a good place to eat dinner that had a variety of food….Crystal needed some chicken after all the seafood we’ve had. We decided on Longhi’s, which is mostly Italian with a load of variety. If you ever get the chance to go to Longhi’s in Maui…I wouldn’t suggest it. The service was slow and the food was way overpriced and bland…I swear I could whip something up tastier and you all know how I don’t cook! Crystal never got a coke she ordered (but she was originally charged for it) and she sent her food back cause…well…it had no taste. My fish was $36 for just the fish! Their food is a la carte, which means you don’t get anything with it. Not exactly my idea of a “meal”. If anything, it made leaving Maui just a BIT easier.

After leaving Longhi’s, Crystal spotted a McDonald’s and craved a burger. I pulled in and she was a happy camper. We even snapped a pic of a special menu item here in Hawaii…spam. Yep…McDonald’s sells spam, eggs, and rice as a breakfast item! Hawaiians didn’t think it was as funny as we did. Apparently they grew up on it dating back to WWII. It seems the military used up the majority of Hawaii’s livestock and gave the communities spam in return. Hawaiians enjoyed it so much that they raised their kids on it and now it’s just a cultural delicacy. Whatever the story, it’s still funny to see it on a McDonald’s menu! Oh…and, no, they don’t have a McSpam sandwich…

We’re currently packing up to head back home and I can’t say that either of us are exactly excited. We’re going to soak up some more sun at the pool tomorrow and grab dinner before heading to the airport. Our plane leaves at 9:50 (2:50am back home) and we’ll be back in GA around 2pm on Monday afternoon. We’re looking forward to seeing family and friends again……..but don’t be surprised if we try to get you all to move down to Maui…or at least visit us when we move here! Ha! We’re already trying to figure out when we can come back. This place is just paradise.

Wednesday & Thursday seemed like tough days to beat, but we gave it our best shot today. I’m currently sitting on the Lanai (back deck of our room) overlooking palm trees and tiki, torches while listening to a water fountain about 30 feet in front of me…it’s about 72 degrees out with a slight breeze floating through…this is just paradise!

The day got started a little rough for me as I have been dealing with a financial mistake that Westin had made on my account. I had used a debit card to book our activities earlier in the week (about $400 worth) and thought I’d only be charged $400. Boy was I wrong! Apparently, the computer system reads peoples minds and automatically puts a hold on their accounts for an amount it assumes you’ll spend for the rest of your stay. What this amounted to was an extra $1000 being held on my account….yes…$1000! Someone was supposed to warn me about this, but failed to mention it and so I’ve spent the last 4 days trying to get the hold cleared off of my account. After speaking with 3 people over those days that managed to get nothing done about it, a manager named Ben stepped up and did everything possible to get it fixed…which he did. On top of that, they are giving us a 50 minute couples massage at the Westin spa to compensate for the mess. It’s a nice end to the whole financial mess I’ve had the last few days because of they screwy mind-reading computer system that works about as good as a screen door on a submarine.

While I was dealing with that, Crystal was busy baking laying out in the sun. We ended up heading out to the ocean to snorkel a bit, which was fun. I quickly figured out that facial hair and snorkel masks don’t play well together. I got tired of constantly blowing & rinsing out my mask an just went back to the beach. Crystal stayed out and saw a huge sea turtle, which she has talked about all day…she even wanted a sea turtle Christmas ornament. She probably would have brought the turtle home with her if I would have let her.

We ate lunch here at the villas. We got a Hawaiian pizza, which was quite tasty. After that, we laid at the pool a bit longer and then got ready to go on a sunset sail. Now, this “sunset cruise” was called an “Appetizer Cruise” because they served…well…appetizers. The Hawaiian word for appetizers is Pupus. I suppose Appetizer Cruise sounds a bit better than Pupu Cruise. We boarded a sailboat and met some entertaining people as we were served drinks and pupus (haha…I just love saying that) until sunset. There was a musician on board playing Hawaiian music that just made the entire experience more enjoyable.

After the sunset cruise, we walked down Front Street to snag a few gifts for people. I then got the urge to eat at the Hula Grill again. Crystal couldn’t believe I was hungry after the “Pupu Cruise”…but pupus don’t fill me up. (tired of hearing the pupu jokes yet?) We went over to Hula Grill and sat outside at the edge near the beach. The tables closest to the edge are on nothing but sand with tiki torches around you and a large straw & bamboo umbrella covering your table. To top that off, there’s a live band playing Hawaiian music about 10 feet away! The whole experience is just…Maui. I ordered the Opah again and Crystal got a salad. We finished it off with some sort of ice cream sandwich dessert cake thing that was quite tasty. We both agreed that Hula Grill is our favorite place to eat in Maui.

So here I am on the Lanai at 11:14 pm, which is 4:14 am back home. Saturday is our last full day in Maui, so we have to make it count!!

Today we took an adventure down the Road to Hana, which is a road back into “old Maui” which is about 52 miles long with 617 curves with around 50 bridges…seriously. Many stretches of the road are one-lane and you have to be careful and yield to oncoming traffic. The road itself is an adventure, but Crystal and I wanted more. We were told by many people where we’re staying to not bother with the trip…that it was a waste. Boy are we glad we’re stubborn southerners that don’t always listen to others! HA!

We started off around 8:30am or so to Pai’a and stopped for breakfast at Charley’s…a popular local joint in town. The service was slooooowwww and we spent more time in there than we planned. Because of that, we got a later start on the Road to Hana than we planned. We stopped by The Juice Box Company and grabbed a cooler and boxed lunch to take with us and we were on our way!

The first reaction to entering the Road to Hana was, “WOOOOWWW!” It’s such a sharp difference from the “touristy” parts of Maui. The area gets a LOT of rain and is basically a tropical forest. There are lush green plants and trees all around and driving a convertible allowed us to see, hear, & smell just about everything.

Our first adventure was a hike that led to what is called Four Waterfalls or something…I may have just made that up since there were…um….four waterfalls on the hike. We walked through an absolutely INCREDIBLE bamboo forest. I have never seen bamboo that dense and tall. It was just amazing. We ended up taking the wrong trail and found ourselves in the middle of Maui probably near the set of LOST. After getting covered in mud and working up a nasty, stinky sweat, we decided to turn back. We were having laughs along the way, so it wasn’t a big deal…Crystal may say otherwise, but this is my version of it! We made our way back to where we branched off the trail and then proceed down the CORRECT trail. About 50 yards later we found the first waterfall. It was the first waterfall we had seen in Maui and it didn’t disappoint. Just as we were leaving, I slipped on a rock. One foot went one way and the other foot decided to go the opposite way. I ended up straddling the rock as I banged up my shin pretty bad and busted my coconuts. Thank goodness for cold, Hawaiian mountain water! We glanced at the second waterfall and decided to get back on the road.

The next stop was the Garden of Eden. It’s an immaculate Arboretum with all sorts of flowers, trees, birds, etc. This is where we decided to open up our boxed lunch as they had a nice little pavilion with an awesome view of the ocean. Crystal decided to pick some fruit from a tree (in the Garden of Eden…anyone catching the irony?) and tried to eat it. Well…she couldn’t even peel it (neither could I) so she tossed it through a tree in front of her….completely unaware of the couple on the other side of the tree having a nice romantic chat on a bench. Luckily it just landed beside the lady’s foot and was enough for Crystal and I to get a good giggle out of.

We continued up the coast and snapped some incredible pictures of the mountains, ridges, coastline, and ocean. We ended up making our last stop at Blue Pool, which is about 3 miles off the main road. We had to take a dirt road and hike about 100 yard up the coast on lava rock to get to it, but WOW was it worth it. What we arrived at was this huge, beautiful waterfall with crystal clear water beneath it facing nothing but ocean. The area is completely closed off on both sides with a waterfall in front and ocean behind….simply amazing.

Our trip back was unfortunately at night. I had to drive allllll the way back up the 52 miles, 617 curves, and 50 bridges in the dark (not recommended). Somehow Crystal slept the entire way. There was no radio station available and no cell phone service…so I was on my own. Luckily I can keep a decent conversation with the voices in my head.

We rolled into the resort around 8pm and proceeded to shower the “Hana Funk” off as we both were pretty rank. We then went to Leilani’s to eat dinner where Crystal ordered Fish Tacos. Your nose just curled didn’t it!!! They are actually pretty good!!! It sounds a lot worse than it really is. After eating we came back to the resort and called it a day. Hana was simply amazing and was everything we pictured Maui to be. Check out the pictures mixed in with the others by clicking the photos up on the top-right of this page.

Our day began at the big time of 2:15 am. Yes, boys and girls, you heard it right. We were going to bike down the Haleakela Crater—one of the world’s largest dormant volcanos! We were picked up at 2:45 am and driven to the Mountain Riders place where we watched an informational video. We all then piled back in (there were 13 of us, a driver named Kona, and our guide- hillbilly Bobby from Kentucky who was hilarious!). We had a sleepy 2 hour drive up to the top of the crater, where we got out of the van into about 30 degree temperatures and wind gusts of about 100 mph. We literally had to hold on to the rails to stand up—I about fell over several times. We had to wear these lovely bright blue (Shane) and yellow (me) wind suits and ski gloves (in Maui!). We already had on a couple layers of clothing, and these wind suits on top of them still didn’t do much good. The wind was fierce and we were struggling to even look out into the sunset, but boy oh boy was it worth it. The colors were just brilliant, pictures just don’t even do it justice, and the clouds were below up blowing UP the side of the volcano. We stayed up there as long as we could to try to see all of God’s wonder, and then headed back down to the van to have juice and a muffin. They had already decided not to bike down from where we were, due to the windy conditions, so we traveled on down to see if it might be less windy back down the crater a little bit. We got to the visitor’s center and it was still just too windy—they were worried about our safety—being blown off of a bike on the side of a volcano on your honeymoon trip to Maui is just not a good day. We traveled on down and little more and the winds died down a lot. We actually decided to travel back on up a little and go ahead and bike the remaining 29 miles (we only lost about 9 miles or so and we all felt a little safer at a lower elevation!). We wore motorcycle helmets and used our brakes very minimally. It was scary at first, but we all got the hang of it. They didn’t want us to brake, they wanted us to coast down, but that gets a little scary at some points in time! It was incredibly beautiful and such a neat experience. We stopped in a little cowboy town close to the bottom for breakfast. It was actually at a Mexican restaurant, but it was yummy. We met some fun people and enjoyed spending time with them. We hopped back on the bikes and continued down to to ocean level in the little town of Pai’a. We took some pictures at the beach (we had stripped down layers of clothing since it was hot again!) and got back in the van. We went back to the Mountain Riders place, tipped the dudes, got a t-shirt, and Kona drove us back to the hotel where we crashed for a little while (me for an hour, Shane for about 3 hours). I went down to lay out at the beach for a couple of hours.
I returned back to the room and we got ready to head to dinner and Warren and Annabelle’s Magic Show. We chose a restaurant called Kino’s for dinner. It was right on the water and we had yummy food (Shane had Opah again and I had Polynesian chicken). We ordered a “Hula Pie” for desert—that thing was HUGE and yummmyyy…we couldn’t even finish the one we shared. We left there and walked down to the magic show. Warren is a comedian/magician and “Annabelle” is a ghost that plays a piano in the parlor while we are waiting to go in. She will play anything anyone requests…it was really cute. We finally went in and the show was just wildly funny! He was very southern and had such fun, clean humor. He picked on people in the audience and named them characters on the Andy Griffith show. The guy that he picked for “Gomer” really got it good—it was hilarious. Shane answered a question during the show about the lady that owned the restaurant and made pickles. We got a buy one get one free meal voucher for that one! The rest of the show was so good and we would highly recommend it to anyone who visits! We left at around 11:30 and returned back to the hotel!

Again, I woke up SO early this morning. I woke up at around 5:30 (10:30 back home) and made myself lay there until about 6:15. I got up and typed for a little while before Shane rolled out of bed. We got ready and went to the town of Napili to eat at the Gazebo Restaurant for breakfast. We had heard some fantastic things about it and wanted to try it out. It is a small restaurant and we literally just stood in line to eat. We ordered white chocolate macadamia nut pancakes (they had a coconut syrup—holy moly!) and fried rice—weird, huh? It had eggs, bacon, ham, and vegetables in it. We put soy sauce on it. It sounds like a weird combination, but it was incredibly tasty. After we ate, we went down to the beach, where there were beautiful volcanic rocks that we could walk on, an amazing view of Moloka’I (another island), and a rainbow out over the water. You just don’t get much prettier that that! We returned to the hotel and layed out by the beautiful pool area for a little while. The wind really started picking up (the “tradewinds” were coming in—new word for me). We went inside and got ready to go to the luau, “The Feast at LeLe”. When we arrived, we were given beautiful lei’s and a choice of drinks—we chose the fresh “POG”. The luau was set up into different Polynesian areas, with food from each. While we were eating, there were various luau-type dancing performed by men an women in beautiful traditional dress. They did a really good job, but the food was a bit too weird and we didn’t much care for it. The views and the show were beautiful, so we still had a good time. After the feast, we returned back to the hotel where we crashed so we could get up extremely early the next morning!

We both woke up quite early, since we aren’t on “island-time” yet. We are five hours behind Georgia here, so that is taking some adjusting. We walked down to the concierge and booked the biking down the volcano tour and a sunset cruise. We walked around a little and took some beautiful pictures. We started getting a little hungry, so we decided to go get lunch at the Hula Grill, which we’ve heard wonderful things about. We took the shuttle to Whaler’s Village and were seated immediately, right on the water. We ordered the “Banana Mac” drink (wowie Maui yummy yum!). I ordered a barbecue sandwich with guava flavored barbecue sauce. It was served with fries and macadamia nut slaw, mmmmmm good! Shane ordered a fish plate which had “ Opah “ served with a white wine sauce….I tasted it and it sure was tasty. The view was lovely and we had a great time. We shopped around Whaler’s Village for a little while, then returned to the hotel, walked around a little more, then went back to the room to begin getting ready to go to dinner at Mama’s Fish House. Before we left, we discovered a Hawaiian drink called “POG” (Passion Fruit, Orange, Guava juice—mmmmm). We got dressed and once I put my new little polka-dot dress on, I realized a seam was torn. It was too late to iron something else, so I got a travel sewing kit from the front desk and literally sewed my dress, laying down in the seat of our silver PT cruiser convertible as we were driving down the road. You should just SEE the scenery as you drive. Between the mountains and the water and the smells….it’s just breathtaking. Mama’s Fish House was about a 45 minute trip. When we arrived, we were a bit early, so we had some great picture taking opportunities. When we were seated, they brought me a lei-since we are honeymooning. We were sitting right on the water, in the breeze. I ordered Mahi-Mahi with a coconut sauce. Oh MY Lord! It was served with pork, Hawaiian sweet potato (which is oddly purple), fried banana, starfruit, mango, friend pinapple, and poi (it soooo tasted like cement- ick!). Shane orderd the the macadamia nut crusted mahi-mahi. It was stuffed with lobster and crab. I don’t eat fish, but both of our dishes were SO fresh and not fishy and just incredible! For desert, we had the “Black Pearl”…yummm! On the way back, we stopped on Front Street at Ka’anapali beach and did a little shopping and looking around. We returned to the hotel and sat in the hot tub and took a late-night stroll on the beach. It was a wonderful, wonderful first full day!

There’s nothing like having an insider to scope out potential places to stay on your honeymoon! My mom has been in Maui all week and spent quite a bit of time checking out each resort and even taking video of the rooms! She called one night and sounded somewhat disappointed as she said that every room looked like a basic hotel room. We asked her to check out the Westin Villas and being the loving mom that she is, she went straight down there and videotaped the resort. Below is a shot of the outside of the resort.

She immediately called back and said, “I guess this is it.” She loved it and from what we have seen on the website at http://www.westinkaanapali.com it looks perfect for what we want! It even has a ceiling fan over the bed (which Crystal has to have anywhere she goes). The reviews look great and we’re excited to say the least. This should make for a great first week as husband & wife!

Wow…just when you think that everything is going well, something comes along and makes it even better!!! My dad called tonight while I was laying sick in bed. Him and Gina (my step-mom) were on speakerphone and asked if I was sitting down. I told them I was laying down in bed and dad says, “Well maybe this will make you feel better.””How would you like to fly first-class to Maui for your honeymoon?”

I ABOUT CAME OUT OF MY BED!!!!! You heard it right! Crystal and I will be flying first class to Maui enjoying the comfy leather seats, legroom, increased food, free drinks, etc. I will be printing out the confirmation and giving it to her after I give her the ring. She is going to flip!!!