Kamaole Beach Club-Day 3

We snorkeled this am with Seafire Snorkeling Adventures. The boat takes off from Kihei Boat Ramp, which is probably less than a mile south of us at Kamaole Beach Club. We have never heard of them before even though they have been in business for years. The morning snorkel to Molokini was $60 pp, most are $100+ now. This is no frills but we liked it. The boat is a “shell” of a Coast Guard boat so very safe, new, and smaller so it is a more intimate group. They serve only soft drinks (wise in my opinion), muffins, and fresh pineapple. They are helpful and very friendly, fitting your gear to your face size, etc. John and I only snorkeled for a little bit but it was really fun watching S&S. Saira has never done it before but she is athletic and caught on quickly, we joke that Steven is a "merman" so he was diving, etc... well, he was diving until his ears started to hurt. They advised him not to free dive when he has a cold, so he stopped after that. He is using his GoPro that we got him for his BD. There is an obvious learning curve, but it is all the latest for young people who are athletic. He did pretty well for his first time using it underwater. At some point I hope to post a video he has edited of his trip. I want to add that we snorkeled the back side of Molokini as well and I hope I will have a lot of Steven’s photos to share, if not today, maybe tomorrow? We came back starved and ate at the condo, BBQ beef sandwiches on purple taro rolls, Hawaiian potato salad, and veggie platter. John and I showered and redressed his foot. It is looking better. He has a few large, special, waterproof bandages the nurse gave him and I do believe it kept the area dry. John and Steven both napped after lunch, soon Saira joined them. The afternoon was restful for us. S&S went to Wal-Mart and perhaps other places, I’m not sure. He was going to buy some GoPro accessories but they were too expensive. They also ate dinner at Eskimo Candy, a little fish restaurant we found on our last trip, and they loved it. Another beautiful sunset and John and I are ready for bed! I did wake up before 5am, still on Pacific time I guess. S&S took towels and snacks and headed to the beach. I love the beach at night but we’re just too tired tonight. We had a LOVELY day!

KBC, Help yourself to local bananas!

Our Ride This Morning, special photo taken by Steven

S&S doin’ it up right!

White Tipped Shark

S&S Arrive-Kamaole Beach Club-Day 2

The kids texted from San Jose waiting for their flight to board. It’s fun to see them so excited about this trip! Today we took a short walk on the beach, even before coffee! It was so lovely and peaceful, the water is so calm this morning, before the trade winds begin. Lots of dogs and their owners walking on the beach, we sure miss Tony.  It was a short walk but had to get my feet wet at least! Back for coffee and fresh pineapple. We are eager for S&S to arrive! Of course their flight was on time and we are happy to see them. We had a nice lunch at Outback Steakhouse and then home to the timeshare where they unpacked and got settled in. Steven is not feeling great and took a short nap while Saira and I booked a snorkel trip out of Kihei for tomorrow. I didn’t even know they had a trip like that out of Kihei but she found it and it was a good price. They ran a few errands, we relaxed, and took another short walk on the beach. Saira wore Steven’s GoPro in the water but it was pretty dark by then and we didn’t see much. Another lovely sunset tonight, with a brief Lana’ i interruption.

Hibiscus

Flowers From Costco

They Arrived!!!

Lunch, livin’ large!

Steven in the Hawai’i spirit!

John-Hang Loose!

The sun slips down behind Lana’i

Kamaole Beach Club-Day 1

We were up early but just relaxed and got ready to go by the noon check out time.  We did order breakfast from Tante’s Restaurant just down stairs. We had Eggs Benedict and it was delicious, with fresh pineapple as the included fruit cup. We left just before noon and headed to Costco. At least Costco setup seemed much the same and we did the majority of our shopping there. As we were leaving I got a call from Patti at Kamaole Beach Club and she wanted us to know our unit was ready, in fact it was ready last night. She was sorry she did not let us know sooner, I was sorry I didn’t ask!!!  Anyway, it worked out fine. We headed directly there, unloaded and got all our groceries put away, then unpacked. After that we took a quick trip to Hilo Hattie’s to get new “slippers” and we were shocked to find out they had very few and NONE in the size we wanted.  They suggested the shop next door, that did have them.  I was very happy as that is all I wear here and most of the summer at home too. Then it was on to Safeway for a few small things we could not find other places, or didn’t want to buy a huge container of at Costco. Back to KBC and we had our lobster ravioli for dinner, delicious! (Costco) Took a short walk after dinner, can’t go far with John’s foot ulcer. The sun is in a different position, going down behind Lana’i so we will have different sunset photos this trip, didn’t even get one tonight. Lots of clouds in the sky but lovely colors. 

Like coming home again…

The Fridge is stuffed!

My breakfast, please ripe quickly!

Ginger Flower

Maui Bound

Up at 5am, well I barely slept so I was up anyway. The shuttle was prompt as was self check-in, and we got put in the Pre TSA line so we didn’t even have to take our shoes off, etc!  We boarded early, a privilege of being older or with young children. Our flight even left early! Departure was 7:15am and we got here at 9:15am. Hawaii is 3 hours earlier right now, sometimes it is only 2 hours because they don’t have daylight savings time here.  We picked up our rental car and headed over to Maui Seaside Hotel for our one night before moving to the timeshare in Kihei. We did this one day early as it was the only way I could get free flights in one direction. Same reason we went in and out of OAK, the free flight with points. When searching for a good price I noticed the price is really a lot higher in just 2 years since we came last. Our room is not ready and they said to come back at 3pm, they did say we could park now, use the pool, etc. but we did want to shop for a few things at Wal-Mart. First we went to the Whole Foods store and bought lunch. It is a nice set up for lunch with even more choices than we have seen at Whole Foods on the mainland. We ate outside listening to a couple of locals playing the guitar and singing, they were pretty good. On to Wal-Mart… It was very run down and not terribly clean. Several selves were empty. Unfortunately I noticed the price increases even here. I hoped to get the calendars for 2015 I like so much and they didn’t even have them. Everything in the Kahului area seems much more crowded than I remember it being. But we love Maui and we are not unhappy, just noting the changes we are seeing. We did the Wal-Mart shopping, sat in the cool breeze of the lanai at the Maui Seaside Hotel when we got back and shortly our room was ready. I was horizontal moments after arrival and slept for about 12-13 hours, I really was exhausted. John watched TV I did hear that going on but it was so relaxing, so I can say the bed was nice and comfortable! I did wake up a little before 4am, and really never went back to sleep after that. I will say that is the usual time I get up anyway at home (6-7am). This hotel is not bad, it is not special either. It is clean and that means the most to me. Staff is friendly. Most of the rooms had a balcony, ours did not because they said we had the “Expedia rate” – which was the case. There is coffee in the room, Bath and Body toiletries, and nice hot water. There is a very narrow beach and it does not actually “meet” the ocean, it is more of a channel with a rock jetty on two different sides. Still nice for swimming of one chooses to do so. The price is decent for a one night stay. I couldn’t find any Airbnb.com spots willing to do one night. It is on the opposite side of the island where we usually stay and surrounded by a lot of the city, I suspect it is quite old, but nicely kept.

This and a soft drink, coffee, or water is ALL you get for free anymore…but wait, we did get a free Mai Tai just before landing!

Maui Seaside Hotel

Sparkling Coconut Water…Yum!

Oakland-OAK

Today we traveled to Oakland Quality Inn, just a short shuttle ride to OAK. This is not our favorite place to be but I got a one way flight free with points from here so, here we are. We had a nice visit with our friend June, and left Tony at her house.  I still wish the timeshare would take dogs!  He would love running on the beach, even if he didn’t like the flight over. Our trip was uneventful, the best kind. There was a little traffic around the 680, which is typical no matter what time of day it is. Then of course we took the wrong turn off and had an excursion though apart of Oakland most people don’t care to see.  Eventually we found the hotel, ate our caprese salad I made ahead with a glass of wine, then slept the best we could waiting for our alarm to go off. 

Another Reservation

While we are up in Ka'napali we will go see Ulalena, which we did see a number of years ago. It was fabulous when my sister took us to it then and we are eager to see it again. It is a story about the people of Hawai’i. We got some really good seats in the second row so it will be really nice.

More Reservations

I have procrastinated about some reservations for various things for this trip so I really needed to get on top of that today. I was very disappointed that I could not book the Old Lahaina Luau but I did book the Feast at Lele luau that is supposed to be very nice, I’ve been told it is “even better” than Old Lahaina Luau. That’s hard to believe but I hope it is nice for Steven’s birthday. We now have our hotel room in place for the preflight night and the one extra night we need in Hawaii because we are arriving one night before the timeshare starts. It was cheaper to fly a day earlier and rent a hotel than fly the day later. It all worked out. We will stay at Maui Seaside Hotel very near the airport so we can make out Costco stop the day after we arrive and then head to the timeshare. I also made the rental car reservation at a new site I haven’t used before, Discount Hawaii Car Rental, and I do believe we saved a few dollars.