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!!