Maui day 1: Hula Grill, Kaanapali Beach, & Catamaran

Heading to Maui to attend a wedding and was also going to be my first visit to Maui. Had a pretty early flight Friday morning.

John worked until 3 am Friday morning. So he was pretty burnt out.






Breakfast and mimosa in the morning. Best way to start the day.

Tammy always makes me takes pictures of the most random things... Take a picture of my tiny grape.

Complimentary Rum punch right before our decent.





Jaylyn's excited for her vacation.

Grad our rentals cars and headed off to our hotel.




Rooms weren't ready so we walked next door to Whaler's Village for lunch.

We ended up at Hula Grill






Jaylyn's shirt says Happy Little Girl... I think not.


Pele's Mango-rita: Tequila, triple sec, mango puree, jalapeno, & ling hing mui powder. John really enjoyed it.

Fresh Squeezed Mai Tai: fresh pineapple, guava, orange, and passion fruit juices with orgeat, orange curacao, gold and dark rum.

Lilikoi Mojito


John didn't let her drink it, but she wanted to.

I think this is the plantation lemonade.

House made sweet and sour sauce. This was really good with the potstickers.


Firecracker Fish and Fish Tacos

Crab Wonton & Chicken Wings

Kalua Pork and Pineapple Flatbread

Kalbi Short Rib tacos

Maui Mule

After lunch we headed back to our hotel so that we could change. Don & Amanda had booked a sunset catamaran cruise as a wedding kicking off.





The cruise included an appetizer spread and open bar.


While we were cruising around we saw some Whales


Pretty awesome. Never seen a whale in the wild before.




It was a great sunset booze cruise. Great way to kick off the wedding weekend.

The bride and groom.

Ryder was loving the beach.


Headed back to the hotel to take a quick siesta before dinner.

Ended up at Star Noodle for dinner because of all the rave reviews on yelp.


Rose Fresh Sangria: Muddled orange and lemon, strawberry, rose, Skyy Vodka, soda. Delicious.



Thai Wings: very tasty

Rib Eye: with Ko Chu Butter, Choi sum, onion. I thought this dish was okay.

Filipino "bacon & eggs" : pork belly, egg, tomato, onion.

Steamed Pork buns: pressed pork, house hoisin, namasu. This had a lot of pickled veggies, which I really liked.

Garlic Noodles: very good dish and garlic was not too overpowering.

Pad Thai: your basic Pad Thai, very good.

Hapa Ramen: Rich pork broth, roasted pork, poached egg, bamboo shoots, kamaboko, choy sum, mayu, aka miso. This dish was meh. Broth was very light, nothing impressive. I'd skip this one.

Headed back to the hotel. Picked up some alcohol and hung out at the beach for the remainder of the night. It was around 10 pm and a lot of the bars had closed down for the day. Which is so weird because it was a Friday night. I was told that Maui tends to die down pretty early. We walked around and there was hardly anybody out. Maui is definitely quieter than Oahu for sure.

That ends day 1.
The wedding's tomorrow!