Vacation - Day 4 - Travel Day

Sunday, March 13th

We are checking out of the Hilton - Prince Kuhio. Below is a photo of their lobby.

Drove to the Honolulu International airport, returned our rental car and traveled by Hawaiian Airlines from Oahu to Maui. It was a quick 30 minute flight.

On arrival in Kahului, Maui. We received our Hertz rental car and drove to our hotel, Aston Mahana at Ka'anapoli. We were initially given room 418 but requested a change. We viewed room 118 and 704 and decided on room 704. It definately was not as nice a room as we had last time. Below is a view that shows how close our hotel was to the beach. This property has wonderful views of the islands of Lanai & Molokai and you can watch the whales frolick as they pass between the Maui, Lanai & Molokai.

Room 704 was not ready when we checked in, so we went for lunch, did some grocery shopping and then headed back to the hotel. We made plans for dinner later that night at the neighboring hotel - Honua Kai Resort & Spa.

Dukes Beach House is located oceanfront at the Honua Kai resort. We walked down the beach to the restaurant to find out we needed a reservation. There would be a one hour wait for dinner.

No problem!

Luckily, this is where Surprise 1 of the vacation was to happen. Our friends the Spooners (Ken, Kim & Haley) surprised Doug by flying to Maui to celebrate his 50th birthday. Doug was very happy to see our old friends and we enjoyed a lovely dinner together with much conversation. Little did Doug know, this would only be PART 1 of his birthday surprise (~tee hee~).

During dinner, Kim made a subtle suggestion for all of us to get together for breakfast the next day to plan the rest of our vacation. Of course, I suggested our hotel @ 9:30am!

This is a view of Dukes Beach House as you walk up to it from the beach.