Maui is where I grew up, and where I met my wife. We live on Orcas Island now for the small-town, island lifestyle, but find a need for a dose of warmth in the winter. We love Hawaii, and my wife has been visiting Turtle Bay since the 1990's, so for the past two years we have returned.
We flew on a Kenmore Airlines Cessna Caravan from Eastsound to Seattle on a day with about 40 mph wind gusts. The pilot had her dog with her for emotional support. I knew the flight would be too rough to have my camera out, so here is a picture from a previous flight with my home right exactly in the center:
Due to the choppiness, about halfway through the forty minute flight, I started feeling kind of green and was checking to make sure there were motion sickness bags. Fortunately, all ended well, and we got a taxi from Boeing Field to the Edgewater hotel. We spent the afternoon walking to Pike Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium, and then had an excellent dinner at the hotel's "Six Seven" restaurant overlooking Elliott Bay.
The next morning, we had the hotel Escalade drive us to the airport. My wife's back was bothering her after the previous day's walking, and we had ascertained that there was a spa somewhere at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. It ended up our flight was leaving from two gates away, and my wife was able to get a forty-minute table massage without her clothes even! We flew Delta Airlines first class on a 757-300, and had great service.
We bought each other leis at the airport--my wife bought me a plumeria, and I got her tuberose and carnation. After picking up our rental car at 5:30 PM on a Monday, we ended up stuck in traffic for almost two hours trying to get onto H-2. This reminds me of why I no longer live in Hawaii! We finally made it to the North Shore, and stopped at a supermarket for some supplies, where we got several compliments on our beautiful and fragrant leis.
At Turtle Bay, we got our South Wing room on the top floor as requested. All the rooms in the hotel have an ocean view, but the south wing is particularly good for sunsets. The top floor, or Vista Level, has better views and some extra benefits. The weather was great during our stay, and we got in plenty of beach time. I had a mountain bike rented, and explored some of the trails and coastline at the resort. All our meals at the resort were great, and we only left twice--once to Laie for poke, and another time to Haleiwa for more poke and gifts.
Here's a couple pictures from around the resort:
We left on a Sunday, and had no traffic problems getting to the airport. The regular TSA line was huge, but we went through Pre-Check with no delay whatsoever. I noticed the next flight at our gate was scheduled to arrive two minutes after our departure time--the airport seemed very busy two days before Christmas. Our flight was smooth, again with good service. We stayed at the Coast Gateway Hotel (which is very acceptable in most ways), and I got my airport view room as requested. Sorry about the poor quality of this photo--I just took one shot from our hotel room, and it was before sunrise:
The cab driver from the hotel had some trouble finding Kenmore Airlines at Boeing Field, but we had an uneventful flight to Friday Harbor then continuing on to Orcas Island. It felt good to be home, in contrast to last year when our return ushered in a couple months of winter-time blues for me. For one thing, last year we took a redeye home, and I was feeling very low on arrival. Also it was freezing last year and is ten degrees warmer this year. We plan to do this again next year!