Maui

Sat September 15- The alarm went off at 4am.. Ughhhh.. By 6am we were on our way to Maui (one of the Hawaiian islands) via Seattle and Sacramento. The Alaskan Airlines flights were uneventful and by 9pm we finally landed in Kahului, Maui, Hawaii! We got our rental car and about one hour later we arrived at the Aston Kaanapali Shores in West Maui. We checked into our 'garden/parking-lot-view' room and were about to go check-out the place, when we received a sad message; LB's grandfather Bill Chamberlain had passed away in the morning.. Grandpa Bill had Alzheimer's and he had not been doing well for the last weeks. Even though everybody knew this was coming, it was still a very sad moment. Grandpa was an avid athlete, sports fan, and physical education teacher, a radio operator in the navy during WWII, a loving wife to Grandma Jean for 67 years, and a fun and energetic grandfather who lived right around the corner in Bedford, MA- we will miss him.

Sunset

Sun September 16- Most of our morning was spent on phone calls to Laura Beth's family. We could have taken a plane to Boston, but the whole family, including LB's grandmother, insisted that we should enjoy Hawaii. So we ventured out into the beautiful sunny weather and had brunch at the hotel-restaurant next to the pool and beach. Great location, great views, great weather, but the dry pancakes with canned strawberries were a little disappointing. After breakfast we walked across the street to the supermarket and stocked up on food and drinks. The Kaanapli Shores is a condo-style resort, which means that all rooms have a full kitchen. The afternoon was spent on the beach (in the shade) and in the ocean where we had to be careful not to cut our feet on the coral. Before we had dinner, we talked to PJ at the 'Expedia pleasant activities desk' and we booked a surfing-class for the next day. PJ also bribed us with a promise of $100 in cash if we attend a "no obligations timeshare presentation" with Club Wyndham (later more). After dinner we first tried to go for a local beach-walk, but the path ended at the hotel next door. So we decided to drive to the town of Lahaina and went for a walk there. Very nice touristy town where LB got an aloha-dress.

Jump!

Mon September 17- "Stay low and go - stand tall and fall!" according to the poetry of our surfing-instructor :-) The surfing was great and a ton of fun! LB had never surfed before and was pretty good at it! Maurits was too tall.. By noon we got our certificate and a very cool Maui Wave Rider trucker hat! We decided to buy the expensive pictures (on a cd and on our memory card), but we still have not been able to view them (iPad is not the ideal computer..). Maybe at some point we will be able to post the pics on the blog. In the late afternoon we strolled the Kaanapali Beach Walk, a beautiful stretch of beach with fancy hotels. Back at our resort we saw an excellent sunset from the pool with a cold beer in our hands. Since our plan was to see the sunrise as well, we had dinner and went to bed early.

Doing the surf-thing with our cool hats

Tue September 18- At 315am we were in the car en route to Haleakala National Park. Haleakala is a massive dormant volcano that rises to 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) and basically makes up most of Maui. The drive to the summit took around 2 hours and it was funny and surprising to see so many people show up for sunrise. We drove the last 10 miles of hairpins in a long line of cars and by the time we got to the top, the parking-lot was almost full! A lot of people had brought hotel blankets to stay warm (on the summit it was about 40F/5C), but with our hats, gloves and down-jackets we were pretty comfortable. The sunrise (6:04am), or actually the 30 minutes before sunrise, was amazing! Well worth getting up for! Truly spectacular! As fast as the parking lot filled, by 6:45am it was empty again! But we of course had to go for a hike.. After a brief talk to the ranger we decided to hike from the Haleakala Visitor Center, via the Sliding Sands Trail, to the Halemau'u trail, back to the road (the Halemau'u trail head), about 12 miles. We got in the car, drove 7 miles down the mountain, parked the car at Halemau'a and hitch-hiked back to the visitor center at the summit. It was fun to ride in the back of a pickup truck around the hairpin turns! The trail took us 3,000 feet down into the crater of the volcano. We enjoyed the grand views, saw a lot of very cool "silversword" plants (takes around 50 years to bloom- and once it blooms it dies) and tons of rocks in all shapes and colors. About halfway through our hike the clouds came in rapidly and it even started to drizzle. We lost the views, but this made our 2,000 feet climb out of the crater a lot easier. We got back to the car around 2pm and drove via the town of Paia back to the hotel. We saw the sun set again from the pool and hot-tub with a well deserved cold beer.

LB in the Haleakala sunrise

Wed September 19- Lazy day today. We slept in, went to the beach (little cloudy, but very comfortable) and Maurits got a Hawaiian style shirt in Lahaina. Around 5pm we went to the Hyatt Hotel in Kanaapali (beautiful resort) where we met Laura Beth's distant cousin Danielle and her husband Tal. They were in Maui for Tal's brother's wedding and had invited us to come to the Luau (Hawaiian feast with food and entertainment - some would call it a touristy Hawaiian dinner party) at the Hyatt. As it turned out most of the wedding party and guests were at the Luau as well. The more the merrier! Very nice of Danielle and Tal to invite us! The Luau was a lot of fun, the food was excellent, the hula dancers were great, the host was phenomanal (cheesy, but that fit the show very well!) and it was nice to talk to all the different people at our table (Maurits now understands a little more about string theory).

Danielle and Laura Beth

Thu September 20- We were planning on going snorkeling today, but we got up too late.. we must be getting used to 'resort life..' So instead we sat by the pool, read a book and went for a swim. It rained in the late afternoon; lovely tropical rain that felt warm. After our usual routine of a beer in the pool and/or hot-tub (where we met a character from Revere, MA) we made dinner in our room. We actually made dinner in our room every night (except for the Luau) and we ate lots of poke (raw tuna), shrimp and pineapple. Especially the seafood was delicious! Like most of the nights we utilized the 'free' movie-rental and watched a movie (The Fighter, Mission Impossible 4, Takers, some others..)

On the volcanic trail

Fri September 21- We started the day with our 'free' Hawaiian picture, courtesy of the hotel. We did a short photo-shoot around the resort, pool, beach, etc. and we could either buy all the pictures for $279,- or we could take the free inkjet copy of one of the pictures. We thought that $45 for the surf-pictures was a lot... Most of the afternoon was spent at Club Wyndham where we ended up buying a timeshare. Huh! What?!?!? We did not know anything about timeshares, but the concept sounded pretty good to us. It could definitely make sense for us, especially the points-program that Club Wyndham offers. The sales-women pushed hard for the 'amazing one time deal with an additional 216,000 points only when you join right now', and was super persistent when we at first decided that we did not want to buy. As with most things that we buy we wanted to do some research- but they would not let us walk out. So we bought it, because we could cancel the sale within 7 days (one of the few things that was actually very accurate during their slightly deceiving sales pitch). If anyone is interested, the wiki-page of timeshares explains it pretty well, check the "Timeshare Industry Sales Practices." Of course we are well educated and should know how these sales-pitches go, so a big thumbs up to the sales person for making us sign on! As proud homeowners (about 1/52nd of a Waikiki condo) we left the premises. We had a beer and enjoyed the lovely late afternoon sun. Back at the condo we had dinner, went to the pool, talked about the timeshare, laughed at ourselves, googled some more and decided that this was not for us (right now.)

Silversword plants in the Haleakala crater

View from inside the crater

Sat September 22- We got up, had coffee (Hawaiian coffee is excellent by the way) and breakfast. We drove to the Club Wyndham office and returned the contract and all the brochures. The notary (we did not talk to the sales person or sales manager again) was 'very disappointed' in us. According to him we would never take a vacation again, would get divorced and would work ourselves to death. Little did he know that we were actually on vacation for the entire year! All in all quite the experience! We wanted to be 100% sure that we canceled the contract, so we also send the cancellation in registered mail to the Wyndham HQ as the sales agreement instructed us to do. We went back to our hotel, recieved the $100,- from PJ who congratulated us on buying the timeshare and packed up. Since Grampa Bill's memorial service had taken place earlier today, LB made a phone call to the home-front. Sad that we could not have been there. By noon we drove to the airport, returned the rental car, checked our backpacks (not too many people traveling with big backpacks in Hawaii) and at 230pm we were on the 45 minute Hawaiian Airlines flight to Kauai. In Kauai our rental car turned out be a white Ford Crown Victoria (the ideal police car and taxi) - very funny! Most young couples get either a convertible or a Jeep Wrangler, but we got a car that drives like a battleship. We arrived at Hale O Nanakai B&B in Kalaheo, in the South of Kauai, that we had booked for 3 nights while we were in Maui. At first glance, Kauai looks a little bit greener and more tropical than Maui. Very pretty! We did some groceries, had dinner and made a plan for the coming days.

A picture of our photo-shoot print-out (check out our Hawaiian outfits!)

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