Maui Westin Nanea Ka'anapali
There is little to beat a week on Maui although I’m willing to try a week on the Big Island as well, what I won’t do for Work. (As Mel Brooks said Work work work).
Walking, Dining, Drinking so little to do and not enough time to not do it all.
We spent the whole week in West Maui, no Road to Hana, no Aquarium, oh well there is lot to do here.
The Dining
There are a lot of choices in both Ka’anapali and Lahaina and we tried a bunch of them. From Gourmet sunset at Fleetwoods on Front to burgers at Cool Cats. Some favorite or must try places. During the Pandemic make your reservations well in advance or accept that you will need to find new places or longer (much longer) waits with a real possibility of a no seating after waiting an hour.
In and near Ka’anapali, our favorites were Dukes Beach House, impossible for dinner right now but usually had room at lunch. Great seafood and meats with Ocean views to die for. The Monkey Pod is another favorite with IMHO the best Mai Tai in the free world. The Hula Grill nearby is also excellent.
Lahaina is a touristy sea town with about a mile of Ocean Front Dining. If you are a fan of bad puns (on the menu) or Fleetwood Mac (yes they have Fleetwood Mac and Cheese as a side) Fleetwoods on Front is fantastic, Great food (check out the specials) great drinks and a sunset spectacular each evening at happy hour on the roof. This is one of our must stops and we got reservations a month in advance. Down the road by the outlet mall is Tommy Bahamas new concept “The Marlin Bar” a bar and bar eats that has some things to work out but it is an easy and fun place to Happy Hour. The part they need to workout is you order as you walk in than you seat yourself, it is a little to big for that to be great. A long line as no one is ready to order when they get to the host stand, than absolute confusion as you look for a table while the server is looking to give you your drinks. Pro tip order a drink at the host stand and your server will take your food order (nope they do not mention this option at the host stand). We tried for the first time Cool Cats and you have to go there for the big beer and Burger. They have dozens of Burger choices and I dare you to finish one. Maui is famous for it’s onions and Cat’s has Onion Rings that should be world famous. We got rave reviews for Star Noodle but did not get in. Mama’s Fish house has a 3 month wait, a pro tip from one of our new best friends was call the local Maui number (not on the website) and you may get a real live human and if there is a cancellation you might get dibs. They got a 10:30 am lunch reservation and were thrilled, that is a lot to early for me. Hope to try there next time.
Activities
Our 2 big activities were Scuba Diving with Lahaina Divers and a Sunset Sail with Hula Girls Sailing Charter.
Hula Girls is a little different from most sunset sails in that it is not all inclusive. You pay a slightly lower price for the cruise and pay as you go for gourmet pu pu’s and top shelf drinks. We found this to be true. Fewer people on board, drinks and food were easy to get and the prices were very fair $7.00 for a Mai Tai and $3 for Maui Beer. Most of the other Sailing’s had 1 type of canned beer and Rum punch as the drink. I would highly recommend Hula Girls for sunset or snorkel for a more upscale experience.
Lahaina Divers is more of a “commercial” diving operation. Divers of various abilities in each group, training divers and snorkelers all on the same boat and the groups were not sorted on ability. That being said it was a 2 tank turtle dive (around 35ft), and turtles we saw. we were down for 50 minutes for each dive and saw a lot of new reefs forming on a Pier that was destroyed in the late 1990’s. Try to get local recommendations on the things to do, I always go to my local partners to find the best options for you. The Scuba Diving has been affected by Covid so there are fewer dive operators and fewer dives, we were lucky to get on the one we did.
Next Inter Island Travel, the Nasal Swab that almost didn’t happen and the state of Hawaii’s airports.
