The last place our group of eight was together was at Maui Airport's Sammy Hagar’s Beach Bar and Grill. We mention this because Dave likes Sammy Hagar, the bar has an outdoor area within the airport, and they give all their profits to charity. One couple was heading back home, two other couples were off to Oahu, and we were heading to Kauai for five nights.
Kauai is not as developed as Maui and contains many natural wonders, which is why it is called the Garden Island. We picked up our rental car from the airport in Lihu’e and drove to lunch at Duke’s in the Marriott. This was our first visit to a Hawaii resort and we liked what we saw. Our condo in Maui was very nice, but we are hotel people. After lunch we made our way through the tree tunnel, passed the Koloa plantation, and through the cute little town of Koloa to get to our hotel in Po’ipu. The Sheraton was a great choice for us. We could walk to many dining options, our hotel had a great on site restaurant, our end of the beach was less crowded than other sections, and our room had a direct line on sunset (and our first green flash). Holly picked an ideal room category that put us pretty close to the water. We enjoyed sunset on our patio, had some craft cocktails at the bar while listening to live entertainment, and enjoyed a great meal on-property at Rum Fire.
The next morning we grabbed breakfast items from the hotel market (reasonably priced considering we were captive and six packs of local beer were only a buck or two more than the grocery store) before heading back to the airport for our island tour on Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. We had perfect weather that morning for our flight with plenty of sun and no fog. We had great views of Waimea Canyon, the Na Pali Coast, and we even got to see a whale breach directly below us. Since it was dry the few waterfalls we saw were low flow, but this also allowed us to go pretty close into the crater walls.
The trip lasted around 50 minutes and gave a great overview of places to visit during our stay. We would definitely recommend the helicopter tour for the early portion of your trip. We did not have to think much about where we were eating lunch because there was a brewery in Lihu’e. The Kauai Beer Company was a great find. We tried all 8 beers on tap and had some great mac & cheese. We walked out with some souvenirs.
We headed back to the resort and spent a little time snorkeling the reef by the Marriott. We had some good sightings but the water wasn’t too calm and there were a lot of folks doing the same thing we were. Dinner was going to be early tonight since we were going to the Auli’i Lu’au which happened to take place at our hotel. We bucked up for the preferred package giving us closer seating, included booze, and first dibs at the food. We lucked into front-and-center seats! The food was pretty good. The entertainment was actually very good with enough historical and cultural facts thrown in to give the show purpose beyond just watching people dance. After the show is was back up to Rum Fire and discovering the lilikoi martini.
Our next couple of days were pretty packed with canyon touring, sailing, and climbing things with the wrong footwear. We will cover that and more in the next post.
The next morning we grabbed breakfast items from the hotel market (reasonably priced considering we were captive and six packs of local beer were only a buck or two more than the grocery store) before heading back to the airport for our island tour on Blue Hawaiian Helicopters. We had perfect weather that morning for our flight with plenty of sun and no fog. We had great views of Waimea Canyon, the Na Pali Coast, and we even got to see a whale breach directly below us. Since it was dry the few waterfalls we saw were low flow, but this also allowed us to go pretty close into the crater walls.
We headed back to the resort and spent a little time snorkeling the reef by the Marriott. We had some good sightings but the water wasn’t too calm and there were a lot of folks doing the same thing we were. Dinner was going to be early tonight since we were going to the Auli’i Lu’au which happened to take place at our hotel. We bucked up for the preferred package giving us closer seating, included booze, and first dibs at the food. We lucked into front-and-center seats! The food was pretty good. The entertainment was actually very good with enough historical and cultural facts thrown in to give the show purpose beyond just watching people dance. After the show is was back up to Rum Fire and discovering the lilikoi martini.
Our next couple of days were pretty packed with canyon touring, sailing, and climbing things with the wrong footwear. We will cover that and more in the next post.
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