Day Three: Rough Start, Selfie Stick and Maui Wowee

We are not a morning family. Well, Scott is but he doesn't really count since one calm man can never overcome three crabby girls. We planned to leave the hotel at 6:30am, but a misplaced cosmetic, the fact I forgot to add a gas station stop to the agenda, and a missed exit lead to a little tension in the Vandeputte Crew. I gave my standard 'traveling in tight quarters with four people for two weeks is never easy, but we can either chose to move on and enjoy the remaining time we have left or hold a grudge and miss out on a lot of fun' talk thankfully did the trick. By 7:25am our bellies were full, we were sitting at our gate waiting for our flight, and everyone was making fun of my new Selfie Stick. Or really, of me. Everything was back to normal.

We flew from Honolulu to Kahului, Maui in 45 minutes via my new favorite airline, Hawaiian Air. Talk about organized. They had self check-in, and I'm talking the whole thing. You print and attach your own baggage label and drop it off. The process was so slick. Lovely. 

We picked up our Jeep and went to Walmart to pick up some groceries. We also picked up boogie boards and snorkel supplies; we find the cost is less than renting and it gives us flexibility (and we hope to take them home). We love the complete open top of a two door Jeep, but decided last minute to upgrade to a four-door. While leaving with two full carts, we are thankful we did!

While driving to Ka'anapali we saw a man walking along the highway playing a ukele. No lie. It was surreal. It took about 45 minutes to drive to the east side of the island, and it was a beautiful drive. We arrived at our hotel, where the hotel held our groceries (in a fridge, sweet) and luggage until our room was ready. We went to the pool and did our thing. The girls and Scott sat in the sun and swam.

 

I wrote my blog and made a new friend (a pool boy, who I would love to tell my girlfriends was as hot as they are imagining right now but I'm sorry to disapoint, however he taught me a lot about the local culture and life as a local in Maui). At 4:00 our room was ready and we moved into an ocean front room. Amazing. 

A little about our condo: We are staying at Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas. Prior to 'Driving the Dream' we spent our first five Spring Breaks in Daytona Florida at a condo. We loved it. We loved having a full kitchen, seperate bedrooms, two baths and the beach and pools a short walk away. However, condos in Hawaii are expensive. Seriously, expensive. So I searched on VRBO for hours on end and sent hundreds of messages. I was able to secure this condo for only $3,000 for seven nights. That is an absolute steal (valued at $6,000 for our two bedroom). Scott and I do not believe in the condo-buying-experience because the market is so saturated with owners that don't use them, if you take the time to research and send messages (and yes it is time-sucking) you can usually find an owner that will rent their unit for the cost of their annual maintenance fees. 

We checked in our room and unpacked our bags and groceries. I like to completely rearrange the unit. I put things up high that we will never use (e.g., potato masher) and pull out the things we will use. Here is me celebrating the blender. This will get used. A lot.

We will make most of our own meals. It does cut down on costs, but what we really enjoy is simply eating the way we do at home. We call it 'keeping our insides happy'. We find if we eat too much (which is what we often do while eating out) or don't eat on a regular basis (I'm a small frequent meal gal) our insides are not happy and it makes for a miserable vacation. Don't mistake this strategy for eating healthy. We eat what we enjoy (we bought 7 bags of chips, along with lots of candy and cookies). My new Pool Boy friend gave me a serving tray to use for the week which will come in handy when we bring meals to the pool (score!).

Our first meal was nachos. Along with Mai Tais and Pina Coladas. 

We ended the night with a drive to our local grocery store for produce (Walmart has none), back to our room for tacos, and we all were in bed at 8:00pm. We may be adjusting to the time change, but we were all ready to hit the hay. The girls and Scott got a little sunburned, despite the loads of sunscreen, but we will work on that tomorow. It was a great first day in Maui.

For all my 'statistic' fans, I will be working on posting those today. The spreadsheet is somewhat current, I just need to get them entered in the blog. Aloha!

Day Three: Gas $0 ($9.55 total); Lodging $428.50 ($733.86 total); Souvenirs $0 ($15.90 total); Tourist Traps $0 ($6 total); Fights 0 (0 total). || Airfare for entire trip: $8,470.08 (of which $7,228.08 was free, using miles). Car Rental for entire trip: $469.76. Note: I'm not tracking driving miles, Redbox rentals or states (2 total) for this trip.