Day 1 - Our journey to Maui
The Aloha Experience for the Maui group commenced at Sydney Airport on Friday evening. Following check-in and meeting our companions we would be spending the next week with, shortly after we boarded our Hawaiian Airlines flight to Honolulu.
Hawaiian Airlines offers thrice weekly services from Sydney to Honolulu, with a flight journey of approximately 9 hours.
On arrival at Honolulu airport we collected our luggage and made our way to the InterIsland terminal where we checked-in for our afternoon flight to Maui. There was no time for reading a magazine as 27 minutes after take-off we had landed in Maui.
The Hertz depot was a short bus trip from the airport. It was here that we collected two vans and made our way to Lahaina, our home for the next three nights.
After a 45 minute drive, we arrived at Kā’anapali Beach Hotel, known as “Maui’s most Hawaiian hotel”, and it certainly lives up to its name. From the moment you step inside the hotel, you instantly feel like part of the Kā’anapali family.
At Kā’anapali Beach Hotel, the staff greet guests as they would family and friends in their own homes. Guests can freely wander in the gardens, pick a flower and play on the lawn with their families. Here, you get to experience first hand the aloha spirit and generosity of the island lifestyle. On the last day of your stay, you are presented with a kukui lei on your shoulders (made of oil-rich nuts picked from trees in the hotel’s gardens) and staff gather to sing you a farewell song.
The property is set in a spacious Maui garden, ocean front on Kā’anapali Beach and is adjacent to Kā’anapali Golf Courses and Whalers Village Shopping Centre.
The hotel features 430 guest rooms and suites, a whale-shaped pool, three restaurants and bars, a Deli Corner store and a free kids program, as well as offers a host of complimentary activities including a sunset hula show and live Hawaiian entertainment, Lei making, Lauhala weaving, Poi making, Ukulele lessons and Hula classes.
We proceeded to our rooms for a short rest and freshen up prior to meeting Luana, director of sales of Kā’anapali Beach Hotel, who provided us with a guided tour of the property and enlightened us with stories about the hotel’s history, family philosophy and recreation programs and activities.
Our stay at Kā’anapali Beach Hotel coincidentally happened to fall on the weekend of the 17th Annual Hula O Na Keiki Competition, Maui’s only children’s solo hula competition featuring students contending in interview, dance, chant and costume categories.
Hula O Nā Keiki is a non-profit event established in 1990 by the staff of Kā’anapali Beach Hotel where employees, family members and friends volunteer their time for the event and operate stalls in the hotel gardens selling locally made Hawaiian items and island style dishes. The festival is a celebration of culture that is a labor of love from the Kā’anapali staff to its guests. Our group was privileged to get the opportunity to watch some of the hula performances this evening.
We were then met by the delightful Tom Risko from Maui Visitors Bureau who welcomed us with a flower lei and his well-known hugs, prior to hosting us for dinner at the hotel’s Tiki Terrace Restaurant.
The hotel’s garden area was buzzing with hundreds of guests this evening enjoying Mai Tais, live music and Hawaiian dancing…what a spectacular scene and welcome to Maui, Hawaii!
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