Destinations

One of the best times to go to Maui is the first two weeks of December. The Thanksgiving crowd is over and the Christmas crowd has yet to arrive.  My husband I were in Maui  15th-18th December.  The weather was beautiful. It was sunny, warm and, well, perfect.  We stayed in Wailea, at the Fairmont Kea Lani,  www.kealani.com.  This resort is one of the most beautiful places in which I have ever stayed.  It is very elegant and timeless.  The Kea Lani is right on the beach. They have all kinds of water sport activities available. 

We loved our room. Well, okay, it was a 1 bedroom suite, but then, all the rooms are one bedroom suites. I had mentioned we were celebrating our 25th anniversary, and we were upgraded to an ocean view suite. The view from our spacious balcony was incredible, especially when the sunset over the ocean.  I hardly wanted to leave the room, it was that wonderful.  I insisted that we spend one whole day just at the resort, and not do anything else.

This resort is great for families as well as couples. There is a vast pool area, complete with a water slide in the children’s area.  There is also an adults only pool.  There are lots of activities that the kids will enjoy doing.

We had been to Maui a few times before, but had never driven up to the top of  Haleakala. If you go, make sure you take a wrap of some kind. You will be over 9000 feet above sea level, and it gets pretty chilly up top. This outing is well worth a day trip, half day at a minimum. It takes quite a while to drive up to the entrance into the national park.  Don’t be discouraged if it looks gloomy when you get to the park entrance, just go on up. You will be well rewarded. At some point you emerge from all of the cloud cover and are above the clouds. This is truly an awesome experience.

At the top of Haleakala, you can glimpse the Observatory, walk around a bit and check out the National Park Service’s display. On a clear day you can see Kona and Oahu.

When you head down the mountain, drive very carefully. Don’t wait until it gets dark, as there are no street lights or reflectors on the narrow road. Watch out for cattle too.  It’s a fantastic drive, as long as you pay attention to what you are doing.

For our Anniversary treat, we went out to dinner.  We chose a restaurant called Café O’lei in Kihei, www.cafeoleirestaruants.com.  This is a very popular place. Even though it was busy, we did not have long to wait for our table.   It is a mid range price restaurant.  Entrees start in the mid $20.00’s. A glass of wine will cost you $9.00, minimum. This is typical for a steak and seafood restaurant.  They were able to cook my steak well-done, without ruining it. The seafood was also quite tasty. It is a good value for a special occasion.

I just returned from an event at the Fairmont Kea Lani in Maui. I stayed at the Kea Lani when it was a fairly new hotel - it’s hard to believe they’ve been open for 18 years now.

I stayed in room 610, which was a nice suite on the highest floor in that wing. It directly overlooked the pool area with a wonderful ocean view. All rooms at the Kea Lani are suites, with a minimum of 840 square feet, so they are quite spacious. The rooms are no longer white and cream as when they first opened, but now have a nice amount of color - all of the soft goods have been refurbished. The cabanas are now blue (they used to be white), so the entire hotel has a softer feel than it used to.

The service was next to 100% across the board, except for some minor inefficiencies at the pool bar and a small incident with the concierge. One of the female concierges sent us off to a Korean B-B-Q restaurant when we had clearly asked for Sushi, but it turned out well in the end.

When we pulled up in our rental car on the first day, the bellman knew our names and were waiting to check us in. It was very impressive and was a great start to the week.

In general, it was a great experience. The service was outstanding and the food was excellent, even down to the cappuccinos. I even overheard a conversation the General Manager was having with one of his staff members and learned that they donate the half-used bottles of bath products to a local women’s shelter. They also send their engineer out to the facility once a week to fix anything that might be broken. In addition, all of the edible food is donated to a food bank and inedible food is given to the local pig farm. It felt good to be staying at a resort that took pride and actively participated in their local community.

I would give the Fairmont Kea Lani a 5 out of 5 stars! Have you stayed here? Tell us what you think by leaving a comment.