Lanai, a quiet Hawaiian island

Lanai used to be the 'Pineapple Island.' But since they quit growing pineapples for export there a few years ago, it has been transformed into a beautiful place to spend some quiet time in Hawaii, away from the more popular islands crowded with tourists. Lanai has two luxury hotels with fabulous restaurants, and lots of stunning scenery to explore on unpaved 'roads'. There's even a great golf course.

Quick Tips:

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org

Best Way To Get Around:

You've got to rent a 4-wheel-drive jeep or similar vehicle to get around on Lanai. Most of the so-called roads are unpaved, and you don't want to miss the scenery down those roads.

The Manele Bay hotel is a luxury resort on the beach, so in a warmer section of Lanai than the other big hotel on the island (the Lodge at Koele). The Manele Bay has 250 beautiful rooms, most with great views. Both of these Lanai hotels are run by the same company, and give great service. A hotel representative will meet you at the airport and take your luggage right from the airport baggage claim area to your room at the hotel.

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org

The Lodge at Koele is one of the two new luxury resorts on the island of Lanai. It is in the center of the island, so not near a beach. The Lodge is a gorgeous, old-plantation-style building, with 105 beautifully appointed rooms overlooking the surrounding pine forest scenery. Temperatures here in the high part of the island are cooler than on the coast. The Lodge provides free afternoon tea (with yummy cakes and cookies). And after dinner, they have free live Hawaiian entertainment in the lobby: piano, guitar, singers, hula dancer.

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org

Some magazines have rated the Formal Dining Room at the Lodge at Koele as the best restaurant in the state of Hawaii. Gourmet Magazine and Conde Nast Traveler say it is one of the best restaurants in the United States. Our dinner there lived up to that reputation. The service in this restaurant exceeded all expectations. I always ask whether sauces contain cream or milk, because I have lactose intolerance. Most waiters answer the question about one dish, but don’t think about what other dishes or other courses I would also need to be careful of. But this waiter not only remembered my lactose intolerance in discussing the other courses I ordered, but he also substituted (without even needing to ask) chilled shrimp for the normal, free introductory appetizer (flavored cream cheese in a mini-tomato) that they gave to the other diners. The waiter knew our names (from the reservation) the first time he came to our table. He noticed we don’t use butter, so took it away without being asked. He refilled my water with no ice, because I had asked for no ice in the first glass. And then there was the food! Wow! Each item of each course was unique: something we had never seen before in all our travels and all our years of fine dining. Our appetizers were duck salad and mushroom terrine. My wife’s entrée was moi fish on spaghetti squash and asparagus, with each piece of fish wrapped in potato. My entrée was hamachi fish on flavored mashed potatoes & leeks, covered with kumquats. My words cannot describe how wonderful each of these looked and tasted. Each of them was indescribably delicious. Her dessert was a 3-part chocolate sampler with cake, mousse, and chocolate crème brulé. Mine was a pineapple tart with an amazing sauce of juice and vanilla and rum. Of course, this superb dinner was at top Lanai prices: $13 for each appetizer, $36 for each entrée, $11 for each dessert. But worth every cent.

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org

The Ihilani Room is the best restaurant in the Manele Bay Hotel. Here the menu shows only complete 4- or 5-course dinners for $60 to $80 per person. But that seemed like way too much food, so they told my wife and me that we could select any individual courses we preferred, and we settled on two courses each, plus a shared dessert. (The price ended up the same as for their four course dinner, and the manager’s explanation was that the individual courses are larger servings than each course of the larger dinners. I didn’t think much of that explanation, so she took a few dollars off the total.) My wife had sweet potato soup with clams and corn, followed by mahi-mahi fish with onions & tomatoes and jasmine rice. I had lobster salad, followed by opakapaka (Hawaiian snapper) with lentils. We shared a dessert of a white chocolate sphere filled with white chocolate mousse, surrounded by lilikoi sauce. Each course was unusual, beautiful, and delicious. But we still did not like the system where you are supposed to order a full 5-course dinner, or you pay just as much even if you order less courses.

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org

We came to explore Lanai, so we had a car reserved. There is only one car rental company on Lanai, and they only have mid-size cars and Jeeps. I hadn’t thought I would want a Jeep ($145 per day) when I made the car reservation, so I had asked for the car ($79 per day). But when I got to the car rental counter, I learned that only 36 miles of roads are paved on Lanai, and if I really wanted to see the island I would need a 4-wheel drive Jeep that could go anywhere. Luckily, they were out of mid-size cars, so they had to give me the Jeep Wrangler at the car price. Both my wife and I thought it was really fun to drive the Jeep! The non-roads are extremely bumpy and rocky, but we were able to drive wherever we wanted with no problems. The Jeep did not have any of the luxuries that we are used to: no power windows, no power door locks, no air conditioning, doors very difficult to open and close. But it sure was a great way to explore an undeveloped island.

What was the first thing we drove to on Lanai? The side of the island where we could look back on Maui! Yes, we went through all this trouble just to go someplace where we could look at the place we came from. To our surprise, we could easily see and identify Maui condo buildings and the major resort hotels on Kaanapali Beach, Maui, from nine miles away on Lanai, even though it was a hazy day. We continued on well past the end of the paved road, driving our Jeep through rough terrain, getting a feel and a look at the large uninhabited hills and coast of Lanai.

We spent all the next morning driving our Jeep on narrow rutted unpaved paths, through large areas of desert-like plains and hills. We saw the "Dry Forest" where trees are pale gray on one side, but red on the other side from the red sandy soil that blows against them in the strong wind. We drove to the "Garden of the Gods" which is a huge area of unusual rock formations and small rock stacks. Lanai is unusual, with scenery quite different from that on any of the more developed Hawaiian islands.

If you're going to Maui too, there's LOTS of very helpful information at this website:
www.mauihawaii.org