Hawaii, USA

Babymoon in Hawaii Part 5 (End)

I hope you all are well and healthy, sorry it took me so long to post the last part since we were busy with moving!

After Oahu, we island hopped to Maui for two nights. We stayed at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas where I was able to use my one free night certificate from my Ritz-Carlton credit card and another night for 50,000 Marriott points. It was good redemption value since beachfront hotel in Maui that can fit 4 people are quite expensive where the cash rate was more than $500 per night.

We took the 10:07 AM flight and arrived at Maui OGG Airport at 10:50 AM. After we picked up our rental car at Alamo ($80 for two days), we drove to The Mill House for lunch; it was along the way to the hotel which took around 45 minutes to drive from the airport.

The views were spectacular at The Mill House!

The interior is filled with old trains.

The food, on the other hand, is expensive and small portion. I ordered the grilled beef and you can see, I was not full 🙁

The pasta dish with fish and shrimps….it was good but not enough.

The burger was okay.

The Portuguese sausage was a little bit salty for our taste.

Our lunch was $102.08, the second most expensive meal and we were not full!

We arrived at the hotel and I was happy that they upgraded us to a one bedroom villa due to my Platinum status with Marriott 🙂 The one bedroom villa has a kitchen with a good sized fridge and everything you need to make your own meal (of course we didn’t cook).

The open kitchen floor plan is big enough to fit a dining table that can fit 6 and a pull out bed sofa in the living room.

The balcony is good sized but the view was terrible…

In the bedroom, there is a comfortable king-sized bed.

The bathroom can be accessed via the bedroom or from the kitchen.

The bathroom is very big; it has a Jacuzzi bathtub, walk-in shower, and double sink.

The White Tea Aloe toiletries are now in tubes instead of bottles.

This was our 2nd time staying at The Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas, first time was back in 2012, we loved how spacious the villas are and the amenities – washing and drying machines in each villa so it was so convenient to wash all our clothes before heading home.

While my mom and her boyfriend hang out at the pools in the hotel, we went to the golden sand beach for some photos before heading out for dinner.

For dinner, we drove to Pho Saigon 808 located in Lahaina town in the Wharf Cinema Center. Inside the restaurant is quite warm, don’t think they have AC. We ordered the spring rolls, they were okay.

The beef ball pho (Vietnamese noodle soup), of course, it can’t compared to the ones we have in Boston. We were spoiled by great Asian food in Honolulu so when we were at Maui, it has limited Asian choices. The 4 noodle soups plus appetizer cost $69.53.

Right after dinner, as we were walking back to the parking lot, the sunset was colorful and I missed that!!!

The pink hue on the mountain behind the town right after the sun has set.

We drove to the nearby supermarket to stock up on fruits since we have a full kitchen to wash and cut them. We got pineapples, mango, and grapes. Jason was having a blast to cut open his favorite super sweet Hawaiian pineapple. It was so good that we decided to bring some home, my mom loved the smell so she actually put the pineapples in our living room to make the whole house smelled like pineapple LOL!

The next morning, we drove to the town again for breakfast at 808 Grindz Cafe. We were super happy to see that there’s a 808 Grindz Cafe in Maui! We went to the one on the Big Island last time and their loco-mocos were super good! We couldn’t wait to have it again!

The town has some cute souvenir shops:

There’s even a house with Chinese words, it’s actually the Wo Hing Temple Museum.

We got there at 8 AM (they open at 7 AM) and there is already a line! Since there are limited seating inside, the line looked barely moving! We literally waited for almost 2 hours yikes! Was it worth it?

Jason ordered the triple egg and marinated beef patty loco-moco as he was so hungry after the wait.

I ordered the marinated beef patty and have the eggs fried to make sure the eggs are completely cooked.

Breakfast for 4 cost $38.10. After the breakfast, it was more like brunch by then, we drove up to Haleakala National Park. Last time, we did the sunrise there and it was amazing. My mom and them are not into sunrise/sunset so we went there in the middle of the day and it was still amazing with the unreal landscape.

After all those twist and turns up and down the summit, we got back down and headed to Wailea area for lunch at Nutcharee’s Authentic Thai. What’s more refreshing than Thai Iced Tea?

We ordered the Vietnamese style shrimp rolls with peanut sauce, it was good!

The fried soft-shell crab was also good.

Jason ordered the pineapple friend rice, it was alright, they definitely didn’t use the fresh Hawaiian pineapples!

I think it was the crab meat fried rice?

All the dishes were okay (by Maui Asian food standard) except for my beef stir-fried!!! How can you mess up beef stir-fried??? It tasted nasty, for real, it was stir-fried with soap water. It was that disguising, it was not edible at all! The beef was dried and cheap quality! I totally do not recommend this restaurant – Nutcharee’s Authentic Thai, not authentic at all!!! The worst meal of the trip cost $73.95.

Next, we went to the beautiful Wailea Beach, there’s a public beach parking lot and access but very busy.

Then, we headed back to our hotel hoping to catch a good sunset.

It wasn’t as colorful as the night before though 🙁

For dinner, we originally planned to go to Star Noodle but that place is packed and the waitress said the wait will take 2 hours!!! We were quite hungry so we gave up and went to the town again to Down The Hatch. This place is right in the middle of the shopping complex and almost self-served. You placed the order at the entrance, grab a number, and find your own table. It was busy too so it took a few minutes of wait before we got a free table.

The waiter will deliver the food but you are on your own to get water, utensils, and clean the table. Jason ordered a whole fried fish!

I ordered the shrimp tacos. The place was loud, humid since outdoor seating, and the table was dirty and sticky. I didn’t feel comfortable at all so we decided to take the food back to our comfy villa to eat. Our dinner total was $96.37, the tacos were good.

For dessert, we have to finish all the fruits we brought since it was our last night. The huge mango was super good; it was recommended by a local when we were at the supermarket.

Hawaii is a great babymoon destination, it is relaxing, a lot to see, and with delicious food. Even though it’s quite far from the East coast but it’s within the US so it’s an extra peace of mind in case need medical help which is covered by insurance. Hawaii is our favorite US destination!

8 thoughts on “Babymoon in Hawaii Part 5 (End)

    1. Ahhh Tom, how are you doing? I hope you are safe and well! It has been painful to see all those deals and I have to resist not book them LOL. But…..I have one trip booked using points/miles that I can cancel for free for next year. That is: Jordan, Japan during the cherry blossoms season, and possibly El Nido, Philippines 🙂

  1. no us travel by rv , New england islands or foliage plans.You can always trip advisor plan the different communities near your home,more enjoyable then i expected in summer.

    1. Will definitely plan for a foliage “road trip” 🙂 Which New England islands do you recommend, I haven’t thought of that?

  2. marthas vineyard,nantucket,Star island- isle of shoals,Monhegan island maine,Acadia maine.Marblehead ma,Manchester by the sea ma rockport ma(halibut state park)Hull ma( harbor islands) and Cohasset ma

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