Maui Wowie

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First impressions are lasting and the Hyatt Maui delivers with a gorgeous open air lobby complete with penguins, parrots and other birds chirping. A friendly staff person gave us beautiful fresh flower leas before taking us up to the room. The rooms were excellent and well appointed with high quality linens and fabrics, marble bathrooms and plenty of room to stretch out and a nice balcony that looked out over the water. They were also quiet which is my usual complaint for so many hotels.

The public areas were where the Hyatt really shined. They have an incredible art collection of African, and Asian ancient artifacts that dot the property. Many of the items were museum quality and I enjoyed spending several hours perusing the collection. Also, the pool area was landscaped to look like a tropical garden complete with a waterfall, rope suspension bridge, and a swim up bar under the waterfall in a secluded cave. The gardens next to the pool area had a perfect Lilly pond where swans drifted about and pink flamingos stood at the shore. The entire property was magical and this does not include mention of the wonderful beach where we were treated to a show of Humpback whales breaching of the shore.

The place is expensive but if you can afford it go here. It is worth the extra money.

After the walking tour take a stroll down the shop filled streets. There are many fine galleries to look through and some great restaurants as well. Lahaina makes a good day trip for a little fun away from the resorts.

Experts think that Humpback Whales come to Maui for the warm waters in order to give birth. The calves born have less blubber on them and the warm waters put less strain on the calves than colder waters would. The Humpbacks start arriving in late November and stay in the area until March. You can take a whale watch tour from one of many ships docked right in downtown Lahaina. We chose the Pacific Whale Foundation boat because they are a non-profit company that uses some of its funds for research and preservation of the magnificent creatures.

Once out in the boats it is really the luck of the draw as to what you are going to see. We came across a large female with her calf and the calf was very curious about our boat and came right up to the boat and looked at us with one eye out of the water. It was almost a religious experience as the two whales circled around our boat.

The views coming back into the harbor were fantastic and I would strongly urge you to take one of these tours when visiting Maui.

If you have not seen this before these people are insane. The winds are big and the surf is very big and they zoom around at up to 30 miles an hour flipping over waves and soaring into the air.

A new thing to do is to attach a board to your feet and use a kite to pull you along with astonishing velocity. Some of these folks can get airborne up to 40 feet in the air as they use the waves as jumping ramps to take off. It makes for a fun afternoon to sit in the car or walk down to the breezy beach and watch these kids risk their lives.

We stopped at a small lunch counter for a sandwich and drink and while there we took a walk around their nice garden which included a large Avocado Tree full of ripe fruit. There was almost no peddling the entire way down and the vans picked us up in the valley bellow. We plan to do this again on our next trip to Maui and I recommend you try it as well.