Sweet Willie
Apr 2, 03, 9:30 pm
FYI, more detailed hotel and restaurant info is posted in Hilton/Starwood forums and dining forums respectively. (coming soon)
Started the day before we left at my normal 5am wakeup time, did my last company to-do item at 4:45am Friday Morning, no sleep and just enough time to hop in the shower before the cab came at 5:15am to pick us up.
Friday:
UA flight ORD-SFO depart 7am arrive 9am – economy class. PURE HELL I wanted to sleep, but just can not sleep sitting upright. One of the longest 3+hour periods of my life. UA flight SFO-KOA depart 11:15am arrive 2:30pm. Flight is severely overbooked and UA is offering $600 in vouchers and a trip to HNL, but can not guarantee KOA arrival on the same day. D_ mn! Wife never wants to take advantage when we are on our way to a destination. $1200 worth of vouchers would have gone a long way to our summer vacation(s). As pax were boarding this flight a mother and her daughter had seats that were 5 rows apart, young daughter sat next to my wife and was crying. My wife introduced herself as a teacher of 4th grade, the girl immediately smiled and said she was in the third grade and was looking forward to 4th grade. Man, how different I was, if I had been sat next to a teacher at that age I would have cringed and maybe started to cry not be happy about it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
I thought for a second and then offered to switch seats w/the mom so she could sit next to her daughter; you know the good karma polite thing to do. The mom and the daughter were very appreciative. Second leg even though longer was not near as tortuous. Must have got my 4th wind by now. During the flight the cabin played the “halfway to Hawaii” game where you try to guess at what time the plane will be exactly halfway from SFO to KOA. My wife made a gallant attempt, I tried to sleep, and the mother and daughter worked for almost ½ an hour on the problem. Turns out the mother and daughter nail the time and win a bottle of champagne. Mother walks up to me and gives me the bottle of champagne for switching seats with her, see good Karma does pay off, sometimes almost immediately. Land at KOA on time.
Pick up a jeep at Alamo for $59 a day. Alamo is strange, no credit card to hold my reservation. Almost brand new jeep wrangler with less than 1000 miles on it.
We’re hungry after no acceptable dining options in UA economy so we head to the town of Kailua-Kona which is 10 minute south of the Kona airport. Eat at Oodles of Noodles, incredible food and reasonably priced. On way north to check into Hilton Waikoloa Village we must have spied 10 whales in the ocean, stopped to watch a few that were close to shore.
The Hilton Waikoloa Village – if you have kids or are a “sit at the resort” person, great. Go to the Hilton, you and your kids will love it. If it is just the two of you and are active like w/my wife and I, skip it. WAY TOO DISNEY like, pain in the a_ _ to get from your room to your car, no beach. (details in the Hilton forum).
Watched the sunset from our room balcony. Was VERY tired and wanted to go to sleep, but it was only 7pm, so I forced myself to read the oh so exciting Hilton resort description book (even tried reading the Japanese part). When lo and behold in the activities section, is a paragraph about the observatory at Mauna Kea, sounds good to me lets go! Tip: take Waikoloa road as a shortcut to Saddle rd, the concierge suggested going all the way up to Waimea before coming south to Saddle Rd. Tip two: Saddle Rd. is a long and bumpy road but fine to take any car on (forget what your rental agreement says). Tip Three: you know you are getting close to the turnoff for the Mauna Kea observatories when after you pass a small military base w/airstrip, turnoff is near MileMarker 28. Total travel time to the observatories from the Hilton was about 45 minutes (I was driving fairly fast over the speed limit). They had 6 very very high power telescopes, but only three were set up. I think someone had knocked one because it really did not focus on anything, but the other two were incredible. One was turned to Jupiter; you could clearly see almost all of Jupiter’s moons and the “eye” of Jupiter. The other was focused on the three star belt for the constellation Orion. The three stars sit w/in a nebula (think spider web effect), just stunning. Well worth the trip up here even though it is cold (45 degrees) and very windy. They also have some small displays set up inside a building and serve hot chocolate. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/
Drove back to the Hilton, showered and fell promptly asleep.
Saturday:
Swear I did not move the whole night, slept right through to the alarm. Good thing we set an alarm because we have an appointment at 8:15am w/the Flumin Da’ Ditch people up in the town of Hawi (pronounced Havi). In an effort to help irrigate sugar can crops, a 21 mile 4’deep x 4’wide ditch was dug up in the mountains to help direct the intense mountain rain water to crops. Flumin Da Ditch takes you on a rubber kayak through 3+ miles of this ditch. The company gives you a briefing about why and how it was built. You then take a 4WD van ride w/the rafts up to the launching point in the ditch. It was raining when we started and the jungle was very green. After going through some tunnels we came out in the bright sunshine. It was just 8 of us in two rafts w/our guide Tidah. Tidah is a born/bred local whose father is a 4th generation paniolo (HI cowboy), Tidah is the 5th. She was lots of fun and I highly recommend her. Because our group was so far ahead of the other, she stopped our kayaks and got out at one point to pick some fresh guavas for the group. YUM! And floating on the water through the jungle in the sunshine eating a fresh picked guava…..ahhhhhhhh…..Hawaii!!!!! Actual kayak trip lasts just shy of 2 hours. A picture and details are at: http://www.flumindaditch.com/flumin.html
On a nearby plot of grass is a small flea market where you can buy some fresh fruit. I purchased some apple bananas that Tidah had talked about and some churaso(sp?) it is fried pieces of dough w/a honey glaze on a stick. Apple bananas tasted like regular bananas to me. Ate in the town of Hawi at the restaurant Bamboo. Excellent. Well worth a stop.
Drove back to HWV, while on the way back just south of Hawi, there was a section of Hwy from which we saw a min of 15 whales; most cars were pulled over to the shoulder to watch the show. Relaxed at the lagoon area and talked w/the 1/2way to HI contest winner from our flight who we bumped into.
Our dive boat was departing from the harbor just north of Kailua-Kona at 4pm so we had to get going. Wife forgot her regulator in the room, Pain in the a_ _ trams/boats were too slow, she walked and it still took 13 minutes. Our late afternoon dive was tremendous, the reef was preparing for night, and you could hear the whales calling in the water. Got up on the boat just in time to see the sun set. When it is dark, the dive boat sinks a 4 high power lights to the bottom and turns them on. Plankton come, fish come and the hopes are that Manta Rays will come to feed on the highly concentrated plankton that are attracted to the lights. After two hours still no mantas http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif so we just watched the planes take off from KOA as we were w/in ½ mile of it. Divemaster decided that it would be just a night dive. Saw lots of lobsters (slippers as well), crabs and eels. The eels have also become accustomed to dining on the fish that are attracted to the lights. It is pretty neat to see some 4-6’ eels swimming vertically in this shaft of light trying to snag a fish. When we got back onboard this time, there was a campfire smell. Some brush fires were occurring in the hills and it almost looked like seeing the lava on the hillside at Volcanoes National Park. By the time we got back to the harbor it was almost 10pm and many restaurants had closed so we grabbed sandwiches from a supermarket. Man food tastes great after diving! http://www.konacoastdivers.com/
Sunday:
8am we are woke up by the alarm, so much for my internal alarm clock. Outside on the executive lounge balcony we sipped our juice and watched whales breaching far off in the ocean. Did the hour and ½ long power walk. Do yourself a favor and head to the left when exiting the HWV, almost everyone else goes right which has more traffic/people etc. There were a few other couples and I swear we (the males) gave each other the “yeah I’d rather be fishing but it makes the wife happy” look! And seeing as my mantra is “Happy Wife, Happy Life” I obediently followed my wife on “our” walk.
11am wife went for her pedicure at the Kohala spa at the HWV. I go to the spa to lift a few weights to get back my masculinity. Spa is very nice and is very peaceful. It was free for diamond members. The weight room is like most at a resort, crammed into some room that was not designed to be a weight room and w/limited machines/free weights, but you will still get a good workout.
Had lunch at the Kirin Chinese Restaurant, dim sum. Very tasty and lunch is affordable at the HWV, we ordered quite a few dim sum dishes and our bill w/tip was only $40.
We goto one of the pools and lay out a couple hours. That gets old, plus we still can not handle a whole day of sun so we go to the Dolphin Quest area and watch some groups go through the experience. Looked really cool but at $130 or whatever it was, just a little too rich for my blood.
Get back to the room and freshen up, head into Kailua-Kona to eat an Indonesian place called Café Sibu. Excellent, we really liked it.
Monday
Woke up 7:30am, later than I wanted. Grab some muffins and juice at the exec lounge and were out the door. Took the south route to Volcanoes National Park (VNP) http://www.nps.gov/havo/ . I’ve read/been told that the north route is faster, but the views are stunning when traveling the south route, I highly recommend the south route on your way TO VNP, not back from VNP and it only takes 30 minutes more than the north route. Just south of Kailua-Kona is Craig’s which serves hot malassadas the Portuguese “doughnuts” Only plain here, no filled ones like Leonard’s in Honolulu. There is also a malassada place in this quaint town called Naalehu on the south shore. Arrive at VNP and drive to the lava viewpoint. The lava was running like the oil in the opening of the Beverly Hillbillies (“up come a bubblin’ crude”). Very HOT!!! I thought all was fine, but then looked back over the cooled lava humps we had hiked on to get to where we were, THERE WAS RED LAVA BENEATH THE HUMPS WE HAD JUST WALKED ON!!! No wonder the ranger is standing almost 50 yards from where we are. I was not comfortable w/this and we quickly scampered back to safer ground. Went to the vents, saw some Ne Ne the state bird of HI. We also hiked a neat trail for 2 ½ hours. Ate at the Lava Rock Café in Volcano Village. It was OK, I had a shrimp/crab wrap and my wife had the fresh Mahi Mahi sandwich. Took the north route home, did that stink! So much construction led to many one lane only roads where you had to wait for a long time. Trip back to HWV took over 4 hours.
Time for some cooling off (mentally and physically) for me. I take a quick dip in the pool. Ahhhhh! Water………Sun………..Hawaii……….OK, now I’m back in relaxed form. Get back to the room and mention we should watch the sunset w/our karma champagne. Wife loves champagne and sunsets so it was pretty easy to convince her. We also took along some passion fruit/guava juice. Like a mimosa, we created the “Waikoloa Sunset” Very delicious and the sun setting in the bay in front of the palace tower was great.
Went north from HWV for dinner this time, saw a place called the Kawaihae Harbor Grill http://www.kamuela.com/busdir/business.asp?ID=322 . Menu looked good, but was packed and had a long wait. No way, I’m hungry and I severely dislike waiting for over an hour for a table after the sun has set. We head slightly further north to Tres Hombres http://concierge.fairmont.com/details.process/OID_8C536BEE/OLID_13571/CID_8/SID_2 2/BID_56337/ (http://concierge.fairmont.com/details.process/OID_8C536BEE/OLID_13571/CID_8/SID_22/BID_56337/) . Yes I know, Mexican in Hawaii? But the place had immediate seating and had some tremendous fish tacos w/fresh local mahi mahi. Also great guacamole and cold beer is well….cold beer. Very good food and cheap.
Tuesday
Get up at 6am, bellman is at our room 6:15am, we grab some fruit/muffins and juice from the exec lounge when it opens at 6:30am. We return car to Alamo who did not charge me for gas even though my tank was at 7/8 full. 8am flight on Aloha to HNL, then had to walk to the commuter terminal at HNL to catch the 9:55am flight for Lanai on Island Air, an arm of Aloha. We arrive into LNY at 10:30am. On the way into LNY you can see how uninhabited Lanai is, I’m getting excited now.
We make it, but our checked bags (and those of three other pax from KOA do not). Greeter from the Lodge at Koele (the lodge) http://www.lodgeatkoele.com mentions that it happens all the time and the bags will be on the flight from HNL which arrives at 11:55am. Take the shuttle to the lodge. Are greeted by the concierge Fiona who presents us w/leis (wife loves the leis) and takes us on a brief tour of the lodge and shows us to our room. The corner room on a second floor we had has tons of character; it feels more like a Ritz in the northwoods than a resort on an island in HI. Call Lanai Eco Center (LEC) to pick up our jeep. Dollar is the only major rent a car agency in town and I really dislike the fact that they gouge because of it $130 for a jeep?!?! C’mon. Don’t rent from them! Full details on the Lanai Eco Center at: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum131/HTML/000022.html
We end up w/a topless jeep that has some huge ribbed tires. Cool. Those 4 wheel trails will be a piece of cake in this thing. Ate in the town square at the “new” place called 565 Café. I love Hawaiian plate lunches and that is what we had. Good food cheap. Went to the local grocery store and purchased water and two 12oz bottles of Bacardi’s malt beverage drink. Drove back to lodge to see if our bags had arrived, sure enough they were in our room waiting for us. You just have to love that kind of service!
Drove off road to Polihua Beach on the NW tip of Lanai that you see when flying in. On the way there you drive through an ironwood forest where all you see is Ironwood trees, nothing else. When you are in the forest, stop your jeep, turn off the engine and just listen. I love the sound of the wind through the “pines”. You’ll also drive through “Garden of the Gods” a plantless red earthed area w/strange rock formations. Very weird, feel as though you are on Mars. After the “gardens” you start to descend to the beach and see the island of Molokai in the distance. We arrive, drive up on the sand and park our jeep. AHHHHHHHH! Only us, NO ONE ELSE! Just as we lay our towels down, my wife exclaims, “Whales!!!!!” Only ¼ mile off shore was a mother and her young calf that was just delirious spouting, breaching, slamming his head into the ocean. The show lasted 40 minutes, we just oohhhed and ahhhhed. Every other hour or so, a jeep would come down to the beach, the people would get out, walk around for about 5 minutes then drive off back to town. So we had the beach all to ourselves for the most part. Much to the relief of my wife, we make a leisurely trip back on the rough road (no 20’ plume of red dust behind the jeep this time). Takes 30 minutes to get back to the Lodge. Shower and Change up, take a nice easy drive down to Kaumalapa’u Harbor. There are only two other locals who are fishing. We sit on the wall and watch the sunset while drinking our refreshing malt Bacardi’s. Oh yeah more whales too and we never get tired of seeing them. On our drive back to the lodge our “check engine light” goes on, but we make it back no problem.
Seeing as a jacket is required of men for dining in the Lodge’s formal dining room, I get one from the concierge. Most men were wearing the oh-so-stylish jackets provided in the dining room. We had two appetizers and two entrees, one of the apps was weak but the other three dishes were delicious, worth the $170.
for those who 4WD on Lanai, ask the concierge for some garbage bags to put towels and other stuff you do not want to get dirty in. Also wear clothing that you do not mind getting dirty/dusty. The dirt will not come out of some clothes.
Wednesday
Left our balcony door open all night, no screen, none needed. The cool mountain air was so conducive to sleeping. I look out on the lawn to see a big tom turkey fully strutting his stuff w/18 hens and other males in line. Very bizarre to see a turkey fly and land on a bough, they are not graceful birds! Had breakfast served on the balcony. Excellent, my macadamia crusted blintzes w/marscapone/mango stuffing was terrific. On a side note they give you a toaster so your toast is ready when you are.
Went back to LEC to ask about the check engine light. Wife wanted to stay back at the room and lounge/read on the large window seat w/the windows open. Arrived at 8am and Jarred (not the Subway guy! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) said that the light is always on due to they don’t want to pay $150 for the special tool to turn off the light. I must have had a wary look because Kayak John told Jarred to take me for coffees at the local Coffee Works. Jarred treated. My warm Chai tea was heavenly and I took home a vanilla soy latte for the Mrs. “The jeep is fine see dude” was the last I heard leaving the LEC.
Head off to shipwreck beach, which is a really poor beach compared to the wide Polihua, but you will find most people here as the road is paved almost all the way to the beach. Most are too lazy to make the rough drive to Polihua. There is a large ship that still stands which ran aground on a reef, hence the name shipwreck beach. There is a hard packed trail along the beach and I urge you to stay on it. I decided that my jeep could go anywhere and ventured out on the beach, the sand here is very very loose and I found us slowly slipping sideways to the water on the steep incline of the beach. Merde! I thought, tried to back up, no go, tried to get some momentum to make it up the beach slope to the hard pack, no go. So I just stop the jeep and walk around a bend in front of me. There looks to be some harder packed sand w/rocks in it further up, so I ease the jeep on this semi hard packed surface. I spy a hard packed lookout above us, back up and get a good head of steam up and make our way up the slope to the hard pack. We really start to slow down and just when I think we’re going to get stuck again, we pop over the vegetation at the top to land on the hard pack. Talking to Kayak John later, he mentions he rented a 4WD Suburban to a couple who decided to do the same stupid move I did, only they get stuck in the water which eventually washes away the suburban. Cha Ching “ummm can I charge the Suburban to my credit card!” He also advised me there is a $5000 possible fine for going beyond the vegetation onto the beach. LUCKY LUCKY me.
We get back to the Lodge at noon and have the venison pastrami melt sandwich. There is a local deer population on the island from which they make the pastrami from. This was one of the best sandwiches in my life, delicious pastrami, melted cheese, sautéed onions on a warm roll. WOW. Good food.
My wife decides she does not want to go 4wheeling w/me and prefers to lay by the pool at the lodge which had only one person there. I take my bad boy jeep and go on the Munro Trail a 9.8 mile trail that goes up and along the old ridge of the island’s long ago extinct volcano. It is a really rough drive but well worth it as while on the ridge, you shoulder the island and get to see all sides of it. The trail has hairpin turns, gravel washout areas and steep inclines/declines; I fly through it twice and am completely dusty/dirty but fully satisfied what fun!
I return the jeep to LEC who gives me a ride to the lodge. I join my wife at the pool. Even though you are 2000’+ up, the sun is hot! I lie out for a couple hours then work out in the lodge’s weight room which has dumbbells and an old Universal machine. We both went back to the room and took a 30 minute power nap. Then boarded the shuttle that runs between the lodge and the Manele Bay beach resort.
We have massages scheduled for 5pm. Turns out my masseuse grew up in my town and used to party w/my brother! Small world. My massage was good, Wife said it was the 2nd best of her life. One poor thing IMO is that they automatically charge gratuity and don’t give you the option. We both shower up and have some drinks in the bar that overlooks the ocean/pool area. The Manele Bay is a busy place and the clientele wasn’t quite our cup of tea (plus a convention was checking in), so we took the shuttle to the town center. The shuttle makes a stop at the Hotel Lanai (only other lodging on Lanai). Henry Clay’s Rotisserie was packed and the wait was 45 minutes, we quickly walked to the Blue Ginger Café just before they closed and ordered some plate dinners, man I like these! After dinner walked back to the Hotel Lanai to wait for the shuttle. I really was interested in if Clay’s was special. I spoke w/three groups of diners who all said the same thing, basically, “yea it’s good, but $26 bucks for a rotisserie chicken is a lot of money” I asked if the chicken was done w/some sort of island flair, was disappointed to find out that it is simply rotisserie chicken nothing special. The shuttles run every 30 minutes, but by the time the shuttle arrived we could have walked back to the lodge, but the wife was chilled so we waited.
Thursday
Get up at 5:45 to take Island air from LNY to HNL. Sat on the right side of the plane which offered an incredible view of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach as we descended to HNL. Landed at the commuter terminal and walked to the Domestic terminal although we could have taken the Wiki Wiki shuttle. Depart HNL at 9:25am and arrive in Kauai at 10am. Wife goes and retrieves the bags while I take the rental car shuttle to pick up our convertible, a Trans Am. What a poor car for blind spots, but w/the top down it is more than acceptable. By the time we have the car/get the bags it is 11am and we’re hungry. We eat at the NO 1 BBQ/Chinese restaurant in Lihue. AWESOME BBQ plate lunch, best I’ve had on any island. We proceed on the the Sheraton Kauai on the south shore/Poipu area. While the Sheraton is a glorified Holiday Inn IMO, our room is in the Ocean Wing and is no more than 30 yards from the ocean and the waves rolling in. http://www.sheraton-kauai.com/
Lounged at pool for the afternoon. Then shower and head for A Pacific Café located in Kauai Village 4-831 Kuhio Highway (Route 56) Kapaa. Terrific Pacific Rim fare. Lots of seafood w/Asian touches. Tonight I had the grilled lamb w/a blackbean, cabernet sauce and wife had the duck w/purple Kauai sweet potatoes, both were terrific, appetizers were weak IMO.
Friday
Drive to Waimea Canyon (WC) http://www.hawaiiweb.com/kauai/html/sites/waimea_canyon.html in the am, hit every viewing point there is, just beautiful. Spend the morning. On way back stop at the Waimea Bakery for some fresh fish sandwiches which are certainly fresh and delicious.
We arrive at Seasport Divers which is very close to the Sheraton for our afternoon dive http://www.kauaiscubadiving.com/ See almost 50 spinner dolphins as we head out of the harbor and a few whales. We dive right off of the Sheraton at two sites: Stone house and the Caverns. Caverns were the highlight w/turtles, eels and lots of octopi. Divemaster swam up to the group w/one wrapped on her arm, it inked and sped off in my direction, I put my hand out and cupped it’s head in my palm, where it rested for a second then realized it was not “safe” inked me and swam off. I think they are my favorite creature to observe under the sea.
Got done late afternoon and lounged by the pool/beach for an hour or so. Then showered and went to No. 1 again only this time for dinner. On the way we stopped at the Kauai cultural craft store next to Macy’s in the mall. Some neat stuff. At No. 1 we had the boneless Chinese spareribs and ½ roast duck. Both were some of the best we’ve had. We kept joking we know why they call themselves No. 1. Dinner for two, including the BYOB was $24 w/tip. Quite the value. Had quite a doggie bag to take back to the hotel.
Saturday
On the road early and we get to WC park at 8:45am to do an almost two hour hike to Waipo’o Falls. http://adamschneider.net/kauai2002/source/p3070261.htm While the falls were beautiful, the rim that you hike along was the real highlight for us.
On the way back to the Sheraton we grabbed a few fresh baked rolls from the Waimea Bakery to put our leftover goodies on from No. 1.
Spent the afternoon lounging at the Sheraton beach/pool. About 3pm we showered in the provided hospitality suite and were on the road at 4pm looking for some island quilting that my wife wanted. Tried craft store after store, no luck on what we wanted. Oh well. Found ourselves at the shopping center where A Pacific Café is located at 5:30pm. We gave up our search and had some more great dining.
Arrived at LIH about 7:30pm to check in for our 10pm flight to LAX. No one else in line at the ag xray or the ticket counter. Spend the time chatting w/other pax in the lobby area of the airport. Arrive LAX early on Sunday morning and catch the last leg of our flight LAX-ORD to get to our house at 1:30pm. Enough time to unwind after the redeye flight, do laundry, pick up the dog and prepare for the week ahead.
What a trip. Only Molokai remains and next year we plan to go to Molokai for a few days then spend the remainder exploring the rest of Kauai we missed.
[This message has been edited by Sweet Willie (edited 04-06-2003).]
Started the day before we left at my normal 5am wakeup time, did my last company to-do item at 4:45am Friday Morning, no sleep and just enough time to hop in the shower before the cab came at 5:15am to pick us up.
Friday:
UA flight ORD-SFO depart 7am arrive 9am – economy class. PURE HELL I wanted to sleep, but just can not sleep sitting upright. One of the longest 3+hour periods of my life. UA flight SFO-KOA depart 11:15am arrive 2:30pm. Flight is severely overbooked and UA is offering $600 in vouchers and a trip to HNL, but can not guarantee KOA arrival on the same day. D_ mn! Wife never wants to take advantage when we are on our way to a destination. $1200 worth of vouchers would have gone a long way to our summer vacation(s). As pax were boarding this flight a mother and her daughter had seats that were 5 rows apart, young daughter sat next to my wife and was crying. My wife introduced herself as a teacher of 4th grade, the girl immediately smiled and said she was in the third grade and was looking forward to 4th grade. Man, how different I was, if I had been sat next to a teacher at that age I would have cringed and maybe started to cry not be happy about it! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
I thought for a second and then offered to switch seats w/the mom so she could sit next to her daughter; you know the good karma polite thing to do. The mom and the daughter were very appreciative. Second leg even though longer was not near as tortuous. Must have got my 4th wind by now. During the flight the cabin played the “halfway to Hawaii” game where you try to guess at what time the plane will be exactly halfway from SFO to KOA. My wife made a gallant attempt, I tried to sleep, and the mother and daughter worked for almost ½ an hour on the problem. Turns out the mother and daughter nail the time and win a bottle of champagne. Mother walks up to me and gives me the bottle of champagne for switching seats with her, see good Karma does pay off, sometimes almost immediately. Land at KOA on time.
Pick up a jeep at Alamo for $59 a day. Alamo is strange, no credit card to hold my reservation. Almost brand new jeep wrangler with less than 1000 miles on it.
We’re hungry after no acceptable dining options in UA economy so we head to the town of Kailua-Kona which is 10 minute south of the Kona airport. Eat at Oodles of Noodles, incredible food and reasonably priced. On way north to check into Hilton Waikoloa Village we must have spied 10 whales in the ocean, stopped to watch a few that were close to shore.
The Hilton Waikoloa Village – if you have kids or are a “sit at the resort” person, great. Go to the Hilton, you and your kids will love it. If it is just the two of you and are active like w/my wife and I, skip it. WAY TOO DISNEY like, pain in the a_ _ to get from your room to your car, no beach. (details in the Hilton forum).
Watched the sunset from our room balcony. Was VERY tired and wanted to go to sleep, but it was only 7pm, so I forced myself to read the oh so exciting Hilton resort description book (even tried reading the Japanese part). When lo and behold in the activities section, is a paragraph about the observatory at Mauna Kea, sounds good to me lets go! Tip: take Waikoloa road as a shortcut to Saddle rd, the concierge suggested going all the way up to Waimea before coming south to Saddle Rd. Tip two: Saddle Rd. is a long and bumpy road but fine to take any car on (forget what your rental agreement says). Tip Three: you know you are getting close to the turnoff for the Mauna Kea observatories when after you pass a small military base w/airstrip, turnoff is near MileMarker 28. Total travel time to the observatories from the Hilton was about 45 minutes (I was driving fairly fast over the speed limit). They had 6 very very high power telescopes, but only three were set up. I think someone had knocked one because it really did not focus on anything, but the other two were incredible. One was turned to Jupiter; you could clearly see almost all of Jupiter’s moons and the “eye” of Jupiter. The other was focused on the three star belt for the constellation Orion. The three stars sit w/in a nebula (think spider web effect), just stunning. Well worth the trip up here even though it is cold (45 degrees) and very windy. They also have some small displays set up inside a building and serve hot chocolate. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/mko/
Drove back to the Hilton, showered and fell promptly asleep.
Saturday:
Swear I did not move the whole night, slept right through to the alarm. Good thing we set an alarm because we have an appointment at 8:15am w/the Flumin Da’ Ditch people up in the town of Hawi (pronounced Havi). In an effort to help irrigate sugar can crops, a 21 mile 4’deep x 4’wide ditch was dug up in the mountains to help direct the intense mountain rain water to crops. Flumin Da Ditch takes you on a rubber kayak through 3+ miles of this ditch. The company gives you a briefing about why and how it was built. You then take a 4WD van ride w/the rafts up to the launching point in the ditch. It was raining when we started and the jungle was very green. After going through some tunnels we came out in the bright sunshine. It was just 8 of us in two rafts w/our guide Tidah. Tidah is a born/bred local whose father is a 4th generation paniolo (HI cowboy), Tidah is the 5th. She was lots of fun and I highly recommend her. Because our group was so far ahead of the other, she stopped our kayaks and got out at one point to pick some fresh guavas for the group. YUM! And floating on the water through the jungle in the sunshine eating a fresh picked guava…..ahhhhhhhh…..Hawaii!!!!! Actual kayak trip lasts just shy of 2 hours. A picture and details are at: http://www.flumindaditch.com/flumin.html
On a nearby plot of grass is a small flea market where you can buy some fresh fruit. I purchased some apple bananas that Tidah had talked about and some churaso(sp?) it is fried pieces of dough w/a honey glaze on a stick. Apple bananas tasted like regular bananas to me. Ate in the town of Hawi at the restaurant Bamboo. Excellent. Well worth a stop.
Drove back to HWV, while on the way back just south of Hawi, there was a section of Hwy from which we saw a min of 15 whales; most cars were pulled over to the shoulder to watch the show. Relaxed at the lagoon area and talked w/the 1/2way to HI contest winner from our flight who we bumped into.
Our dive boat was departing from the harbor just north of Kailua-Kona at 4pm so we had to get going. Wife forgot her regulator in the room, Pain in the a_ _ trams/boats were too slow, she walked and it still took 13 minutes. Our late afternoon dive was tremendous, the reef was preparing for night, and you could hear the whales calling in the water. Got up on the boat just in time to see the sun set. When it is dark, the dive boat sinks a 4 high power lights to the bottom and turns them on. Plankton come, fish come and the hopes are that Manta Rays will come to feed on the highly concentrated plankton that are attracted to the lights. After two hours still no mantas http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif so we just watched the planes take off from KOA as we were w/in ½ mile of it. Divemaster decided that it would be just a night dive. Saw lots of lobsters (slippers as well), crabs and eels. The eels have also become accustomed to dining on the fish that are attracted to the lights. It is pretty neat to see some 4-6’ eels swimming vertically in this shaft of light trying to snag a fish. When we got back onboard this time, there was a campfire smell. Some brush fires were occurring in the hills and it almost looked like seeing the lava on the hillside at Volcanoes National Park. By the time we got back to the harbor it was almost 10pm and many restaurants had closed so we grabbed sandwiches from a supermarket. Man food tastes great after diving! http://www.konacoastdivers.com/
Sunday:
8am we are woke up by the alarm, so much for my internal alarm clock. Outside on the executive lounge balcony we sipped our juice and watched whales breaching far off in the ocean. Did the hour and ½ long power walk. Do yourself a favor and head to the left when exiting the HWV, almost everyone else goes right which has more traffic/people etc. There were a few other couples and I swear we (the males) gave each other the “yeah I’d rather be fishing but it makes the wife happy” look! And seeing as my mantra is “Happy Wife, Happy Life” I obediently followed my wife on “our” walk.
11am wife went for her pedicure at the Kohala spa at the HWV. I go to the spa to lift a few weights to get back my masculinity. Spa is very nice and is very peaceful. It was free for diamond members. The weight room is like most at a resort, crammed into some room that was not designed to be a weight room and w/limited machines/free weights, but you will still get a good workout.
Had lunch at the Kirin Chinese Restaurant, dim sum. Very tasty and lunch is affordable at the HWV, we ordered quite a few dim sum dishes and our bill w/tip was only $40.
We goto one of the pools and lay out a couple hours. That gets old, plus we still can not handle a whole day of sun so we go to the Dolphin Quest area and watch some groups go through the experience. Looked really cool but at $130 or whatever it was, just a little too rich for my blood.
Get back to the room and freshen up, head into Kailua-Kona to eat an Indonesian place called Café Sibu. Excellent, we really liked it.
Monday
Woke up 7:30am, later than I wanted. Grab some muffins and juice at the exec lounge and were out the door. Took the south route to Volcanoes National Park (VNP) http://www.nps.gov/havo/ . I’ve read/been told that the north route is faster, but the views are stunning when traveling the south route, I highly recommend the south route on your way TO VNP, not back from VNP and it only takes 30 minutes more than the north route. Just south of Kailua-Kona is Craig’s which serves hot malassadas the Portuguese “doughnuts” Only plain here, no filled ones like Leonard’s in Honolulu. There is also a malassada place in this quaint town called Naalehu on the south shore. Arrive at VNP and drive to the lava viewpoint. The lava was running like the oil in the opening of the Beverly Hillbillies (“up come a bubblin’ crude”). Very HOT!!! I thought all was fine, but then looked back over the cooled lava humps we had hiked on to get to where we were, THERE WAS RED LAVA BENEATH THE HUMPS WE HAD JUST WALKED ON!!! No wonder the ranger is standing almost 50 yards from where we are. I was not comfortable w/this and we quickly scampered back to safer ground. Went to the vents, saw some Ne Ne the state bird of HI. We also hiked a neat trail for 2 ½ hours. Ate at the Lava Rock Café in Volcano Village. It was OK, I had a shrimp/crab wrap and my wife had the fresh Mahi Mahi sandwich. Took the north route home, did that stink! So much construction led to many one lane only roads where you had to wait for a long time. Trip back to HWV took over 4 hours.
Time for some cooling off (mentally and physically) for me. I take a quick dip in the pool. Ahhhhh! Water………Sun………..Hawaii……….OK, now I’m back in relaxed form. Get back to the room and mention we should watch the sunset w/our karma champagne. Wife loves champagne and sunsets so it was pretty easy to convince her. We also took along some passion fruit/guava juice. Like a mimosa, we created the “Waikoloa Sunset” Very delicious and the sun setting in the bay in front of the palace tower was great.
Went north from HWV for dinner this time, saw a place called the Kawaihae Harbor Grill http://www.kamuela.com/busdir/business.asp?ID=322 . Menu looked good, but was packed and had a long wait. No way, I’m hungry and I severely dislike waiting for over an hour for a table after the sun has set. We head slightly further north to Tres Hombres http://concierge.fairmont.com/details.process/OID_8C536BEE/OLID_13571/CID_8/SID_2 2/BID_56337/ (http://concierge.fairmont.com/details.process/OID_8C536BEE/OLID_13571/CID_8/SID_22/BID_56337/) . Yes I know, Mexican in Hawaii? But the place had immediate seating and had some tremendous fish tacos w/fresh local mahi mahi. Also great guacamole and cold beer is well….cold beer. Very good food and cheap.
Tuesday
Get up at 6am, bellman is at our room 6:15am, we grab some fruit/muffins and juice from the exec lounge when it opens at 6:30am. We return car to Alamo who did not charge me for gas even though my tank was at 7/8 full. 8am flight on Aloha to HNL, then had to walk to the commuter terminal at HNL to catch the 9:55am flight for Lanai on Island Air, an arm of Aloha. We arrive into LNY at 10:30am. On the way into LNY you can see how uninhabited Lanai is, I’m getting excited now.
We make it, but our checked bags (and those of three other pax from KOA do not). Greeter from the Lodge at Koele (the lodge) http://www.lodgeatkoele.com mentions that it happens all the time and the bags will be on the flight from HNL which arrives at 11:55am. Take the shuttle to the lodge. Are greeted by the concierge Fiona who presents us w/leis (wife loves the leis) and takes us on a brief tour of the lodge and shows us to our room. The corner room on a second floor we had has tons of character; it feels more like a Ritz in the northwoods than a resort on an island in HI. Call Lanai Eco Center (LEC) to pick up our jeep. Dollar is the only major rent a car agency in town and I really dislike the fact that they gouge because of it $130 for a jeep?!?! C’mon. Don’t rent from them! Full details on the Lanai Eco Center at: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum131/HTML/000022.html
We end up w/a topless jeep that has some huge ribbed tires. Cool. Those 4 wheel trails will be a piece of cake in this thing. Ate in the town square at the “new” place called 565 Café. I love Hawaiian plate lunches and that is what we had. Good food cheap. Went to the local grocery store and purchased water and two 12oz bottles of Bacardi’s malt beverage drink. Drove back to lodge to see if our bags had arrived, sure enough they were in our room waiting for us. You just have to love that kind of service!
Drove off road to Polihua Beach on the NW tip of Lanai that you see when flying in. On the way there you drive through an ironwood forest where all you see is Ironwood trees, nothing else. When you are in the forest, stop your jeep, turn off the engine and just listen. I love the sound of the wind through the “pines”. You’ll also drive through “Garden of the Gods” a plantless red earthed area w/strange rock formations. Very weird, feel as though you are on Mars. After the “gardens” you start to descend to the beach and see the island of Molokai in the distance. We arrive, drive up on the sand and park our jeep. AHHHHHHHH! Only us, NO ONE ELSE! Just as we lay our towels down, my wife exclaims, “Whales!!!!!” Only ¼ mile off shore was a mother and her young calf that was just delirious spouting, breaching, slamming his head into the ocean. The show lasted 40 minutes, we just oohhhed and ahhhhed. Every other hour or so, a jeep would come down to the beach, the people would get out, walk around for about 5 minutes then drive off back to town. So we had the beach all to ourselves for the most part. Much to the relief of my wife, we make a leisurely trip back on the rough road (no 20’ plume of red dust behind the jeep this time). Takes 30 minutes to get back to the Lodge. Shower and Change up, take a nice easy drive down to Kaumalapa’u Harbor. There are only two other locals who are fishing. We sit on the wall and watch the sunset while drinking our refreshing malt Bacardi’s. Oh yeah more whales too and we never get tired of seeing them. On our drive back to the lodge our “check engine light” goes on, but we make it back no problem.
Seeing as a jacket is required of men for dining in the Lodge’s formal dining room, I get one from the concierge. Most men were wearing the oh-so-stylish jackets provided in the dining room. We had two appetizers and two entrees, one of the apps was weak but the other three dishes were delicious, worth the $170.
for those who 4WD on Lanai, ask the concierge for some garbage bags to put towels and other stuff you do not want to get dirty in. Also wear clothing that you do not mind getting dirty/dusty. The dirt will not come out of some clothes.
Wednesday
Left our balcony door open all night, no screen, none needed. The cool mountain air was so conducive to sleeping. I look out on the lawn to see a big tom turkey fully strutting his stuff w/18 hens and other males in line. Very bizarre to see a turkey fly and land on a bough, they are not graceful birds! Had breakfast served on the balcony. Excellent, my macadamia crusted blintzes w/marscapone/mango stuffing was terrific. On a side note they give you a toaster so your toast is ready when you are.
Went back to LEC to ask about the check engine light. Wife wanted to stay back at the room and lounge/read on the large window seat w/the windows open. Arrived at 8am and Jarred (not the Subway guy! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) said that the light is always on due to they don’t want to pay $150 for the special tool to turn off the light. I must have had a wary look because Kayak John told Jarred to take me for coffees at the local Coffee Works. Jarred treated. My warm Chai tea was heavenly and I took home a vanilla soy latte for the Mrs. “The jeep is fine see dude” was the last I heard leaving the LEC.
Head off to shipwreck beach, which is a really poor beach compared to the wide Polihua, but you will find most people here as the road is paved almost all the way to the beach. Most are too lazy to make the rough drive to Polihua. There is a large ship that still stands which ran aground on a reef, hence the name shipwreck beach. There is a hard packed trail along the beach and I urge you to stay on it. I decided that my jeep could go anywhere and ventured out on the beach, the sand here is very very loose and I found us slowly slipping sideways to the water on the steep incline of the beach. Merde! I thought, tried to back up, no go, tried to get some momentum to make it up the beach slope to the hard pack, no go. So I just stop the jeep and walk around a bend in front of me. There looks to be some harder packed sand w/rocks in it further up, so I ease the jeep on this semi hard packed surface. I spy a hard packed lookout above us, back up and get a good head of steam up and make our way up the slope to the hard pack. We really start to slow down and just when I think we’re going to get stuck again, we pop over the vegetation at the top to land on the hard pack. Talking to Kayak John later, he mentions he rented a 4WD Suburban to a couple who decided to do the same stupid move I did, only they get stuck in the water which eventually washes away the suburban. Cha Ching “ummm can I charge the Suburban to my credit card!” He also advised me there is a $5000 possible fine for going beyond the vegetation onto the beach. LUCKY LUCKY me.
We get back to the Lodge at noon and have the venison pastrami melt sandwich. There is a local deer population on the island from which they make the pastrami from. This was one of the best sandwiches in my life, delicious pastrami, melted cheese, sautéed onions on a warm roll. WOW. Good food.
My wife decides she does not want to go 4wheeling w/me and prefers to lay by the pool at the lodge which had only one person there. I take my bad boy jeep and go on the Munro Trail a 9.8 mile trail that goes up and along the old ridge of the island’s long ago extinct volcano. It is a really rough drive but well worth it as while on the ridge, you shoulder the island and get to see all sides of it. The trail has hairpin turns, gravel washout areas and steep inclines/declines; I fly through it twice and am completely dusty/dirty but fully satisfied what fun!
I return the jeep to LEC who gives me a ride to the lodge. I join my wife at the pool. Even though you are 2000’+ up, the sun is hot! I lie out for a couple hours then work out in the lodge’s weight room which has dumbbells and an old Universal machine. We both went back to the room and took a 30 minute power nap. Then boarded the shuttle that runs between the lodge and the Manele Bay beach resort.
We have massages scheduled for 5pm. Turns out my masseuse grew up in my town and used to party w/my brother! Small world. My massage was good, Wife said it was the 2nd best of her life. One poor thing IMO is that they automatically charge gratuity and don’t give you the option. We both shower up and have some drinks in the bar that overlooks the ocean/pool area. The Manele Bay is a busy place and the clientele wasn’t quite our cup of tea (plus a convention was checking in), so we took the shuttle to the town center. The shuttle makes a stop at the Hotel Lanai (only other lodging on Lanai). Henry Clay’s Rotisserie was packed and the wait was 45 minutes, we quickly walked to the Blue Ginger Café just before they closed and ordered some plate dinners, man I like these! After dinner walked back to the Hotel Lanai to wait for the shuttle. I really was interested in if Clay’s was special. I spoke w/three groups of diners who all said the same thing, basically, “yea it’s good, but $26 bucks for a rotisserie chicken is a lot of money” I asked if the chicken was done w/some sort of island flair, was disappointed to find out that it is simply rotisserie chicken nothing special. The shuttles run every 30 minutes, but by the time the shuttle arrived we could have walked back to the lodge, but the wife was chilled so we waited.
Thursday
Get up at 5:45 to take Island air from LNY to HNL. Sat on the right side of the plane which offered an incredible view of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach as we descended to HNL. Landed at the commuter terminal and walked to the Domestic terminal although we could have taken the Wiki Wiki shuttle. Depart HNL at 9:25am and arrive in Kauai at 10am. Wife goes and retrieves the bags while I take the rental car shuttle to pick up our convertible, a Trans Am. What a poor car for blind spots, but w/the top down it is more than acceptable. By the time we have the car/get the bags it is 11am and we’re hungry. We eat at the NO 1 BBQ/Chinese restaurant in Lihue. AWESOME BBQ plate lunch, best I’ve had on any island. We proceed on the the Sheraton Kauai on the south shore/Poipu area. While the Sheraton is a glorified Holiday Inn IMO, our room is in the Ocean Wing and is no more than 30 yards from the ocean and the waves rolling in. http://www.sheraton-kauai.com/
Lounged at pool for the afternoon. Then shower and head for A Pacific Café located in Kauai Village 4-831 Kuhio Highway (Route 56) Kapaa. Terrific Pacific Rim fare. Lots of seafood w/Asian touches. Tonight I had the grilled lamb w/a blackbean, cabernet sauce and wife had the duck w/purple Kauai sweet potatoes, both were terrific, appetizers were weak IMO.
Friday
Drive to Waimea Canyon (WC) http://www.hawaiiweb.com/kauai/html/sites/waimea_canyon.html in the am, hit every viewing point there is, just beautiful. Spend the morning. On way back stop at the Waimea Bakery for some fresh fish sandwiches which are certainly fresh and delicious.
We arrive at Seasport Divers which is very close to the Sheraton for our afternoon dive http://www.kauaiscubadiving.com/ See almost 50 spinner dolphins as we head out of the harbor and a few whales. We dive right off of the Sheraton at two sites: Stone house and the Caverns. Caverns were the highlight w/turtles, eels and lots of octopi. Divemaster swam up to the group w/one wrapped on her arm, it inked and sped off in my direction, I put my hand out and cupped it’s head in my palm, where it rested for a second then realized it was not “safe” inked me and swam off. I think they are my favorite creature to observe under the sea.
Got done late afternoon and lounged by the pool/beach for an hour or so. Then showered and went to No. 1 again only this time for dinner. On the way we stopped at the Kauai cultural craft store next to Macy’s in the mall. Some neat stuff. At No. 1 we had the boneless Chinese spareribs and ½ roast duck. Both were some of the best we’ve had. We kept joking we know why they call themselves No. 1. Dinner for two, including the BYOB was $24 w/tip. Quite the value. Had quite a doggie bag to take back to the hotel.
Saturday
On the road early and we get to WC park at 8:45am to do an almost two hour hike to Waipo’o Falls. http://adamschneider.net/kauai2002/source/p3070261.htm While the falls were beautiful, the rim that you hike along was the real highlight for us.
On the way back to the Sheraton we grabbed a few fresh baked rolls from the Waimea Bakery to put our leftover goodies on from No. 1.
Spent the afternoon lounging at the Sheraton beach/pool. About 3pm we showered in the provided hospitality suite and were on the road at 4pm looking for some island quilting that my wife wanted. Tried craft store after store, no luck on what we wanted. Oh well. Found ourselves at the shopping center where A Pacific Café is located at 5:30pm. We gave up our search and had some more great dining.
Arrived at LIH about 7:30pm to check in for our 10pm flight to LAX. No one else in line at the ag xray or the ticket counter. Spend the time chatting w/other pax in the lobby area of the airport. Arrive LAX early on Sunday morning and catch the last leg of our flight LAX-ORD to get to our house at 1:30pm. Enough time to unwind after the redeye flight, do laundry, pick up the dog and prepare for the week ahead.
What a trip. Only Molokai remains and next year we plan to go to Molokai for a few days then spend the remainder exploring the rest of Kauai we missed.
[This message has been edited by Sweet Willie (edited 04-06-2003).]