jtkauai

gaylord's might be a nice setting (plantation home), but i haven't heard much good about the food.

ILuvParis

Yes, Gaylord's is still there. Drove past two weeks ago, although I haven't been there. A friend from Chicago, whose family also has a condo there recommended it too. Thanks.

IK in Seattle

I’ve had the Thanksgiving Buffet at the Hyatt, and it was fairly typical Large Buffet fare. The key is to make sure you get your reservations in very early, as it seems it is the Thanksgiving buffet of choice for everyone on the Poipu side of the island. Not only does everyone from the Hyatt eat there, but all the neighboring resorts come there for dinner. When I tried to make reservations a few weeks in advance the only thing I could get was something like 3:00.

Gaylords would be nice, but I have no idea if they do anything for Thanksgiving. The food is pretty good and it has a very nice setting. If you are into the luau’s theirs is better than the Hyatts. Personally I’ve done enough luau's to last me.

brendamc

They do luau's? Ok, now you're scaring me... I can't picture it out in the country like they are... IF they are doing something for Thanksgiving, I still think this would be a better choice over the Hyatt - again, the setting is beautiful & seems the closest to 'Thanksgivingish' on the islands & the food has got to be better than the Hyatt's buffet...

IK in Seattle

http://www.gaylordskauai.com/luaus.cfm

jtkauai

fyi gaylord's is not "out in the country" but rather it is in puhi, one long block from home depot, on the highway.

neither gaylord's nor hyatt are among best rated luau's.

ILuvParis

Regardless, I want turkey, not pig 'n poi.

msvacation

[QUOTE=jtkauai]a pacific cafe has been closed for about a year


OH NO! I have't been there since Feb 04. That was a favorite that we planned to return to in Sept.

Thanks for the heads-up JTK.

msvacation

[QUOTE=ILuvParis]Regardless, I want turkey, not pig 'n poi. [/QUOTE]

ILP....why not fix yer own

Seriously, my sister used to live in Kauai (in a hotel) and we had a gourmet Turkey Day w/ all the fixins for 12 ppl....all prepared in their hotel suite.

If she was still living there I would put you on the guest list.

OK, I got another one. How about finding some not too-Hawaiian Hawaiian family to adopt you for the day

tdo-ca

Went to Princeville Hotel's luau for T'giving few years ago and it was terrific, festive, touristy fun. A "Hawaiian feast" is true to the spirit of the tradition IMHO.

On an aside - how $ are turkeys in Hawaii?!

justin thyme

There's history and tradition on Kaua'i involving Thanksgiving meals, and sharing:

During Thanksgiving week of 1982 I was on Kaua'i with a group of 12 close friends (4 of whom are professional chefs) who had rented a large house in Hanalei for two weeks. We all arrived the weekend before Thanksgiving, some from O'ahu and Maui, others from the mainland, and two from France.

With little warning, on Tuesday of our first week Hurricane Iwa struck the island with 130 mile per hour gusts and sustained winds of 90-110, causing a lot of damage. The storm was unusual in that it moved in very fast, with a forward speed of 30 to 40 miles per hour. Iwa wasn't nearly as severe a storm as Hurricane Iniki 10 years later -- but it was pretty bad nonetheless. Utility poles everywhere snapped like cheap chopsticks, and the island lost electrical power in short order.

We had stocked up the refrigerators and freezers and coolers with provisions to feed all 12 of us for 2 weeks, including a Thanksgiving feast. (Do the math: that's food for well over 300 meals, not including breakfasts or midnight snacks.) We had a LOT of food in those freezers, reefers and coolers!

We realized that we could probably keep all the food cold enough to remain safe for about a day, but that it would spoil quickly thereafter unless it was cooked. So we dug several large imu (cooking pits, stoked with hardwood fires and lined with stones to retain the heat), fired up all the outdoor grills and hibachis we could muster (many had literally been blown away), and proceeded to cook all the food in one "swell foop" (to quote my darling 5 year old grand-niece).

Much of the population of Hanalei joined us for Thanksgiving dinner that year, and we served every last morsel. The meal was superb, made even better by the realization that although a few of us were injured, no one on the island had perished in the storm. (An unfortunate crewmember on a Navy destroyer leaving Pearl Harbor ahead of the storm was killed by heavy sea.)

In the days to follow we became all too well-acquainted with canned meats (yummy SPAM!), canned vegetables, canned fruit cocktail, canned everything.

Ah, holiday memories . . . .

Aloha,
--jt

ILuvParis

msvacation, we could - we have a condo. But do we want to? And thanks for the thought!

JT, very nice story.

thesilb

Bono riffic, we're staying at the Hyatt Kauai over Thanksgiving week as well, would be happy to meet up for a drink if you want to. Always nice to meet a fellow FT'er!

msvacation

[QUOTE=ILuvParis]msvacation, we could - we have a condo. But do we want to?

Absolutely....then you can invite all the FT orphans floatly aimlessly around the Island in search of......TURKEY


JT, very nice story.[/QUOTE]

I second that emotion. An experience to remember for a lifetime.

ILuvParis

Cool, we're just down the road.