When: June 8 to 11, 2017 in Maui, followed by two days in Los Angeles.
Why: Jonathan and Charlotte’s beautiful wedding at the Olowalu Plantation. It was a perfect setting for an island wedding, with an incredibly touching ceremony. It was worth all of the effort to get ourselves to Maui to share the day with them, and to make some great new friends in the process!
The Experience: Maui was beautiful, but just about nothing worked the way we had planned for this trip. The weather was very hot and humid for most of our visit. The short story is that we spun our wheels in a variety of ways, spent far more money than was required, and had nothing work the way we had thought it would. And yet we still had a fabulous time, ate some delicious food, tried a crazy number of local brews, and swam with turtles! But we feel like we didn’t see everything Maui had to offer, so it will require a return visit at some time.
The details:
Flights: Ugh. What a mess. There’s just no cheap and efficient way to get to Maui from the east coast. But we did this totally wrong. Jess waited too long to book the flights (within a month). She ended up breaking up the legs, and booking the return flights first. She used Southwest points and dollars to get back from Los Angeles, Hawaiian miles to get from Maui to the Big Island to LAX, and a ridiculous $463 per person, one-way, on American Airlines to get from BWI to OGG. For the record, the cheapest BWI to Hawaii flights clock in around $550-600 round-trip.
Once we flew, all we can say is effffffff old American Airlines planes. We will be more careful in checking the plane we’re on in the future, because the flight from DFW to OGG was seriously on an ancient tub. Gross. They didn’t even have enough good beer and champagne to make it through the entire flight, and they up-charged every damn seat if you wanted to select your seat in advance. We didn’t, and so we were in the back of the tub.
After the American Adventure, and having smashed ourselves into Hawaiian Airlines economy seats in October 2016, when Hawaiian announced that we could upgrade for $80 per person to economy-plus for our return flight, we jumped at the chance. Since we’d only used about $20 in cash (plus the 17,500 points per person) to go from OGG to KOA to LAX (with a 4 hour layover, which allowed us to head to the Kona Brewing Company for delicious beer and food!), the additional cost was well worth the comfort of stretching out our legs and getting free basic entertainment. Hawaiian Airlines to or from the mainland can be summarized as follows: tiny economy seats, terrible in-flight entertainment (economy gets nothing for free, and the consoles are old and unresponsive), and pretty tasty food plus free wine with dinner.
Southwest is a perfectly known product almost every time. So, the flight from LAX to BWI was unremarkable. Funny and kind airline staff, acceptably comfortable seats considering the duration. While they offer snacks, there’s no meal service, which was inconvenient for the long flight (it had a stop-over in Salt Lake, making the long flight even longer). But the super nice staff didn’t charge us for our drinks, which was a nice perk. Reminder for anyone flying out of LAX: plan flights that avoid the rush hour traffic on the freeways around the airport, so that you don’t have a bad surprise that makes you miss your flight.
Hotel: Another hack job because of the delay in planning. Maui hotels, much like the flights, are all expensive. And in June, there were only a few places that were less than $300 per night. Wowza! We decided to use Devin’s Citi free weekend night certificate at the Grand Wailea (Hilton), plus a stupidly large number of points for the second night. 170k, to be exact. However, even this wasn’t free from difficulty. We called the Honors line to book, and the first person told Devin it wasn’t possible to use his Citi weekend night at the Grand Wailea. False. So, I called and the first person I spoke to ALSO told me it wasn’t possible. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and while she balked she did eventually transfer me. And, lo and behold, the supervisor *could* book the nights for me. Magic! Well, the magic that comes from being on the phone with customer service for like 45 minutes.
So, that was the first two nights of hotels. The third night, we wanted to be closer to the wedding location, which was a long coastal drive between the two major resort areas. We found a little B&B that was a mere 3 miles from the wedding venue. Normally they require a three night stay, but they had a room available for the night of the wedding, and so two weeks before the trip Jess called to see if they’d waive their three night requirement. And they did! Hooray! It still cost an ouch-worthy $349 plus tax, but it was the best case scenario, all things considered. And since that was our only out of pocket hotel cost for Maui, that wasn’t so bad.
But, as nothing on this trip could go smoothly, the hotel story doesn’t end there. The Grand Wailea had stunning common spaces, and nice rooms, although the rooms were a little dated. There were plentiful bars, and we particularly enjoyed the grotto bar tucked underneath the waterfalls in the pool area, although the pool bars didn’t open until far later than seemed appropriate for tropical vacation paradise. Upon check-out from the Grand Wailea, we discovered that somehow they had not properly used the Citi rewards night. They charged our card a whopping $585 for the night that was supposed to be covered by the Citi certificate. We noticed the charge, and discussed the matter with the hotel staff, who informed us that we needed to speak with the Honors staff. Again. Sigh.
A week after the trip, Jess called the Honors line. The first person spent more than 20 minutes saying (1) that it was the hotel’s fault and she needed to call them, (2) that even though it was a booking error, there was nothing she could do. Jess asked to speak to a supervisor who, after reviewing the situation, immediately issued a refund for the entire $585. Which was a great outcome, although the entire process was inconvenient, and took another 45 minutes on the phone.
The Ho’lio House (http://www.hooilohouse.com/) was extremely beautiful, quiet, and would have made a lovely relaxing stay if we met the three day minimum. It’s near the most touristy part of the island where you can find great restaurants and activities, and less than a 30 minute (beautiful coastal) drive from the airport. If you’re a fan of B&Bs, then this would be a great spot to spend a few days.
Activities: Given the short duration of the trip (3 days, with serious jet lag!), we couldn’t undertake some of the activities normally recommended for Maui like driving/staying on the Road to Hana, and hiking in the national parks (make sure you book a reservation if you’re going to hike!). In order to see all that the island had to offer, we decided to book a helicopter flight. We opted for the full island tour offered by Blue Hawaiian (http://www.bluehawaiian.com/) at a pricey $280 per person. We also splurged, in unusual fashion (because Jess is a super cheap bastard when it comes to rental cars), on a convertible mustang to drive around. We rented from Discount Hawaii Car Rental (https://www.discounthawaiicarrental.com), which is a discount Hawaiian based rental group, so the price of the convertible wasn’t much more than the cost of a regular economy vehicle. The groom had invited us to go sailing one afternoon, so we planned around that known activity.
But, because nothing went according to plan, the sailing didn’t involve snorkeling, which was super important to Jess. In order to try to remedy that, Devin booked a snorkeling tour (he assumed it involved a boat, but NOPE! It was kayaking!). Which ended up conflicting with the helicopter tour once the time was known, and we ended up cancelling the helicopter tour. But the snorkeling was truly fantastic, and we did get up close and personal
Food: The highlights of our brief trip were locally sourced dinner at the Grand Wailea’s Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (www.grandwailea.com/experience/dine/humuhumunukunukuapuaa, where we had locally sourced steak and ridiculously fresh Mahi Mahi. While pricey, this meal was delicious and reflected lots of local and traditional components that made it very worthwhile. We also had a surprisingly fantastic lunch at Honu Seafood and Pizza (https://www.honumaui.com/), followed by dole whip! DOLE WHIP! It’s the best. We of course stopped at the Maui Brewing Company (http://mauibrewingco.com/) for beer tasting and a snack from the food truck of the day (that day it was Big Beach BBQ). And while briefly on the Big Island, we grabbed a cab to Kona Brewing Company (http://konabrewingco.com/) for lunch and beer tasting, where we had a great Hawaiian pizza (because of course we did) and sampled many of their beers including some you cannot get outside of Hawaii.
Lessons Learned: Sometimes the best plans go completely off the rails, and you just have to deal with it. For this trip, pretty much everything that we pre-planned went off the rails. I don’t think we’ve ever had a trip where so many plans fell apart. One of us (Devin) rolls with these events much better than the other, and so Jess burned valuable vacation time being upset over each thing that didn’t go as planned.
Final Tally:
Dollars:
Flights
· American Airlines: $463 per person
· Southwest: $173 (Devin) + $20.60 (Jessica - $5.60 for using miles and $15 for early bird check-in)
Hotels
· Grand Wailea: $0…$585…$0! Yay!
· Ho’lio House: $395 ($349+tax)
Misc
· Rental Car: $240
· Taxis to and from Kona Brewing Company: Approx. $75
· Kayaking and snorkeling with guide: $99 per person
Miles: 17,500 per person for the Hawaiian flight; 10,327 Southwest miles for Jess’ ticket
Hotel Points: 170,000 Hilton Points. Our initial response was uggggggghhhhhhh, but when we got refunded the $585, they also didn’t take our Citi certificate reward. So splitting the 170,000 between two nights is only 85,000 points per night, which is slightly cheaper than the normal 90,000 points per night.