On Thu, 15 Dec 2005 21:50:34 GMT, "Bryan"
wrote:
>Would love to stay at the Grand Wailea Resort on Maui, but the price is
>about $650 too high per night for my family budget. I haven't won the
>lottery and I do want to send my kids to college, not to mention have some
>kind of nest egg left over.
>
>Favorite budget, yet comfortable Hawaiian vacations for family of 4 (14 year
>old and 11 year old)?
>
>How about some reminiscing out loud?
>Where have you been? Would you do it again? What would you do if you had
>it to do all over again knowing what you now know?
>
>Bryan
>email only has one dot
>
Well, the family and I went there in the early part of August. When
were on Oahu, we stayed at the Waikiki Beachcomber. That's a decent
enough place for a family. Not a 4 star hotel by any means. I felt
that this wasn't too important since we'd be out of the room most of
the time anyway. It's located on Kalakaua Ave. right across from the
Royal Hawaiian shopping center.
On Big Island we stayed at the Kilauea Lodge. It was at a 4,000 foot
elevation (approximately) a little cool at night but 70s during the
day. Much warmer down by the shore. The lodge room we were in was
actually a chalet about 2 miles from the main part of the lodge.
Extremely nice. This is not the touristy area where the deluxe hotels
are, this is right by the entrance to Volcano National Park. This
suited us perfectly. We like hiking and did a lot of that in the
park.
And on Maui we stayed at the Maui Kai, a condo on (or near) Ka'anapali
beach. Truly excellent, all rooms there are ocean front. None of
that misleading "lean out just right from the balcony and you can see
the ocean through those buildings" kind of ocean view. The full on
real deal. For not too much money. And right on the beach. Go down
to the ground level, walk out the door, you're on the beach. Golfing
at Kapalua was just a few miles up the road, go the other way and
you're in Lahaina with it's tourist Front Street. A really neat
place. One thing I wish we could have done was the parasailing, but
at the time we were there all the operators had multiple day waiting
lists.
I also wish I could have brought some wine back from Tedeschi
vineyards. We were kinda overloaded at that point, we simply couldn't
carry anything else back with us.
All in all, yeah, I'd do it again. There's things I wouldn't do
again, but they have nothing to do with our choices of accomodations.
More like restaurants I didn't like. I think about 98% of everything
we did there was great. I can't wait to go back again. |
