Maui: Day 1

Niel returned home from Mexico on Sunday afternoon after being gone for a week. We had only seen each other for about 24 hours during the last two weeks (I saw him for a day after girls camp before he went to Mexico). We got all packed and ready because we had to leave our place around 3:00a.m. Monday morning. Our plane flew out of the LAX airport at 6:00a.m.

This was our first experience flying out of the LAX airport. We learned the hard way because we missed out flight to Maui. I have never missed a flight in my life and I have never seen this type of madness at ANY airport. First of all, finding the longterm parking was a night-mare. It was like half a mile away from the airport and there were no signs at all for it. Once we got on the shuttle from the long-term parking we were the last airline stop. The shuttle stopped at like 15 stops it seemed like and I heard them announce airlines that I had never heard of like "Asian express" and other crazy airline names. Finally when our stop came we saw the line at United....it was the longest line I had EVER seen at an airport check in. To make things worse it was the first day United starting charging for baggage. By the time we got to the front of the line we had 43 minutes until our plane left. The computer wouldn't let us check in because we were two minutes after the 45 minute cut-off. They had about 5 employees working and about 25 computer screens. It was the worst run operation I had seen at the airport. Eventually we were able to reschedule our flight and check-in. At that time I found out my baggage was 8 pounds over the limit. Not thinking I threw a bag full of body lotions and sunscreens into my carry-on bag thinking I was pretty smart since that bag was the heaviest. We continued onto security where we were "randomly selected" for a nationally security checking. It wasn't until then that I remembered about the liquid and gel policy. She threw away 4 bottles of sunscreen, a bottle of aloe Vera, and a bottle of my favorite lotion from Bath and Body works. FREAKIN' TERRORISTS! That's all I had to say.

This is my "we missed our flight to Maui" face. Not happy...not happy at all. And then to make things worse Niel said sarcastically, "Well at least your hair looks nice". Lets just say he wasn't too happy with me because I took too long getting ready in the morning.

We arrived in San Francisco to catch our connecting flight to Maui. Unfortunately our flight was delayed for two hours. They started threatening the possibility of cancelling our flight altogether because they were having problems with the plane. The next flight going to Maui wouldn't be until the following day. At that point I was wondering if there was anything that could have gone worse on our way to Maui. I started wondering if maybe we weren't supposed to go to Maui at all. Just when we were about to go put our names on a waiting list for the next available flight to Maui they told us they would start boarding in five minutes!! We were SO relieved! Five hours later than we were originally supposed to arrive in Maui we showed up. Once we were in Maui it was all bliss. It didn't take us long to forget about the long, stressful trip there.

We got our little red rental car and we were off!! On our drive to Lahaina we were amazed by the beauty of Maui. EVERYTHING looked like a postcard.

We stayed at the Royal Lahaina. We loved where we stayed because the beach was beautiful and right outside our cottage, it wasn't crowded, but we were still only a 15 minute walk to Whaler's Village. Whaler's village was an outdoor shopping area right on the beach with uppity shops like Louis Vuitton and yummy restaurants. We were only about a 10 minute drive from down-town Lahaina too. This was the cute little cottage we stayed in. It was surrounded by gorgeous trees, flowers, & vegetation. This is Kaanapali Beach. It was about 3o steps from our porch. The water was clean, blue, and warm. This beach was gorgeous....way better than the ones we saw in the Caribbean and in Cabo. It was never crowded either.

This is our cute little cottage on the inside. We loved it!

First walk on the beach when we got in late Monday afternoon.

This is the golf course that surrounded the resort we stayed at.

We walked to Whaler's Village and went to dinner at "Hula Grill". This is a barefoot bar and grill that is on the sand right next to the ocean. Everyone told us we had to go here. This was probably my favorite restaurant we went too.

At our table on the sand under the little huts:)

We got to watch the sunset that night....yes that is the beach right behind us.

These guys serenaded us while we had dinner to island music. I am now into island music.

After dinner we walked around the shops at Whaler's Village. These little Hawaiian girls were doing a hula performance in the center of the shopping area. It was so adorable! They were really good and could really shake it!