Maui

[Code Brown]

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So... going to Maui for a couple of weeks at the end of May/beginning of June...

While not poor, don't quite have the attending bling just yet... what are some reasonable neighborhoods to stay in?

Heard quite a bit about Kihei and it being decent... true?

Also, rent a car, or can I bus it around, walk everywhere? I know the island is pretty large, but how many days will a car really be necessary?

 

[ssmallz]

Stay in LaHeina or the Ka'anapali area, thats where all the fun is. Don't do the road to hana unless you've got 2 days to devote to it or just get a ride there and take a helicopter back. Def check out haliakala and bike down @ sunrise.

Its a beatiful place, you'll have a blast

 

[Ashers]

Kihei is near Wailea (expensive resort area with awesome beaches and some clubs in hotels) and the 2 major cities Kahului and Wailea. Kihei has fun beaches for relaxing (the Kams, especially Kama'ole 3).

Kahului and Wailea. There's not much to do in city for tourists. There's the big mall, a Costco, and Hawai'i's only KrispyKreme.

Lahaina will be HOT. There's a bunch of places to stay in West Maui, but there's only a couple of areas in Lahaina itself. Lahaina has a lot of touristy things to do though, so it's a great place to go hang out.

Ka'anapali is the other big resort area. It has a really long beach. Black Rock is also there. People climb up and jump off of it. There's great scuba diving and snorkeling off of Black Rock. Again, I think there are clubs in the hotels at Ka'anapali, based on what my friends say when they go clubbing.

Kahana: more condos than resorts, and it tends to be more low key than Ka'anapali, and you can probably get good deals for places to stay and then drive to other parts of the island.

Napili: Awesome. I love Napili, and I used to live there before moving to the less touristy part of Maui. It's close to Kapalua and about a 15 min drive to Lahaina, 10 to Ka'anapali.

Kapalua: Where some big pro golf thing is played every year. World class golf courses, the Ritz Carlton's just been renovated. All together, very pretty, but expensive. Nice beaches there too. There's a nice dive/snorkeling area called Honolua that's just past it.

There are some hostels on Maui, but they're in sketchy areas not near beaches.


DEFINITELY rent a car. There's some weird bus service/trolley thing that just started within the last 2 years, but that doesn't go everywhere. The only other public transportation is taxis.

DO NOT do the bike down Haleakala. Those companies were suspended for a year Oct 2007-2008 due to 12 deaths in 1 year. Every other day, someone ends up in Maui Memorial Medical Center's ER, and you don't want to go there.

The drive to Hana is pretty, but once you get to Hana, there's just a beach with a burger shack. It's not really worth it. The prettier drive, and sometimes even scarier than going to Hana is the drive around the West side from Wailuku to Kapalua, not around the Pali. I used to live on the way to the road to Hana, and I could drive it in 1.5 hours, and it still wasn't worth it.

From what I heard when I was home last summer, lots of the big hotels weren't filling and even had some wings closed off because of the lack of visitors, and they were having great deals.

Edit:

For other stuff to do, there are boat tours to other islands. Trilogy is probably the best one. I've been on many of them, but my family has been going on Trilogy since 1986. They do a tour along the Maui coast, go to Lana'i, and Molokini.

Restaurants
Kimo's: has some of my favorite fish in the world. It's on Front Street in Lahaina.

There's a lot of really good local food restaurants too, but most of them are either in Kahului, Wailuku, and Kihei.

Haleakala is a great place to visit. Take a sweatshirt. Its summit is 10,0023' above sea level, and it gets cold. There's a bunch of hikes up there too. You can camp in the crater if you really want, but I haven't done it for a while, so I don't know how to go about getting permission. There is no food in the park, so if you go up for the day, you might want to take food with you. There's grocery stores on the way up that sell sandwiches.

 

[scudrunner]

For a car rental, check out priceline. I booked an economy car in Honolulu a few weeks ago for $17/day through National, on priceline.

 

[pgg]

DEFINITELY rent a car.

Agreed.

DO NOT do the bike down Haleakala. Those companies were suspended for a year Oct 2007-2008 due to 12 deaths in 1 year. Every other day, someone ends up in Maui Memorial Medical Center's ER, and you don't want to go there.

It's worth driving up there for the sunrise (dress warm), but like Ashers said, I wouldn't bike down it.

The drive to Hana is pretty, but once you get to Hana, there's just a beach with a burger shack. It's not really worth it. The prettier drive, and sometimes even scarier than going to Hana is the drive around the West side from Wailuku to Kapalua, not around the Pali. I used to live on the way to the road to Hana, and I could drive it in 1.5 hours, and it still wasn't worth it.

Also agree. One thing I'll add is that all those stunningly beautiful waterfalls and freshwater pools on that road are just teeming with leptospirosis ... so don't jump in and swim with the other tourists.

 

[tranman]

I went to Maui for my honeymoon (August 2006) while my wife and I were med students so I kind of understand trying to enjoy Maui while on a budget.

Places to stay: we rented a condo near Lahina, inexpensive way to stay in Maui if you don't need all the fanciness of having your bed made every day.

Transportation: Rent a car.

Places to eat: Pacific O. Perhaps one of my favorites restaurants of all time. Excellent view (on the beach), food was surpurb, and service was solid. Definitely worth going to if you want to splurge on a meal.

Aloha Mixed Plate (it's in the blue book): good atmosphere, terrible food. My ribs were very undercooked (and I like my steak rare).

Roy's Kahana Bar and Grill: excellent food but small portions, terrible atmosphere - very loud.

Things to do: surfing lessons (Goofy Foot Surfing), hiking at some blowhole, snorkeling (Trilogy - good service, okay snorkeling). We did bike down Mt. Haleakala - it was a blast, but can be dangerous. We did a "go at your own pace" bike ride, which suited us perfectly (Maui Sunriders).

I hope this helps a bit. Enjoy your trip.

 

[lilo426]

I'll be in Hawaii this May/June too. Can I ask exactly what makes the bike ride down Haleakala so dangerous? Speed? Twists and turns? Poor road conditions? Poor bike conditions? It sounds beautiful, but not if it means spending my honeymoon in a halo.

Also, I know this is a Maui thread, but anybody have any suggestions for Kauai?

😀

 

[Ashers]

I'll be in Hawaii this May/June too. Can I ask exactly what makes the bike ride down Haleakala so dangerous? Speed? Twists and turns? Poor road conditions? Poor bike conditions? It sounds beautiful, but not if it means spending my honeymoon in a halo.

Also, I know this is a Maui thread, but anybody have any suggestions for Kauai?

😀

Haleakala has one of the steepest roads you can go down. You go from about 10,000 feet to sea level in 26 miles, with sharp switchback turns, people driving fast, it's generally foggy, so the roads are slippery. And there isn't necessarily good visibility for the cars, and they suddenly come up on the bikes.

I'd really just recommend driving up to the summit and driving down.

The bikes may still be suspended from operating within the park, so they go just outside the park borders and leave from there and not from the summit, so you lose like 1500 feet of elevation. I'm not currently up to date on all the bike info since my parents left Maui last year, and my dad was one of the orthopaedists who'd have to take care of some of the injuries. As a phlebotomist, I saw tons of people come into the ER with road rash, several with fractures, and 1 who had cervical fractures and ended up in the ICU for a while.

The companies have nicknames like Maui Mountain Bruisers, Bruiser Bob's, etc.

I haven't been to Kauai for a really long time, and that was for a high school swim meet, but I know it's really pretty, and there are lots of hikes. It's more of a nature island It tends to rain a lot more, since it has the rainiest spot on earth.

 

[pgg]

The big island is my favorite. Great beaches on the Kona side, and the volcano national park is unlike anything anywhere. When it's active, walking up to lava flows is cool ... at night the glow is just surreal. Like being on an alien planet.

At least, it's how I'd imagine an alien planet would look.

Not much to do on the Hilo side except get rained on. But it's pretty in a rain forest kind of way.

 

[Apollyon]

I'm moving to Hawai'i to work in July. Echo what has been said about high-risk adventures, as there is no neurosurgery on any island except O'ahu.

 

[Ashers]

I'm moving to Hawai'i to work in July. Echo what has been said about high-risk adventures, as there is no neurosurgery on any island except O'ahu.

Unless the one on Maui retired recently, Maui has one.

btw... I really miss living in Hawai'i. =( Have fun! Don't let HMSA get you down!

 

[Bertelman]

Went to Maui a few years back. Did the bike down Haleakala, but didn't go with the groups down the curvy road. Even if I thought I could navigate the road alone, I don't trust the crazy cars, and I wouldn't trust the fatasses on either side of me in the bike chain of 20 or so out of shape Americans. Rented a bike at the bottom, had the folks drop me off and pick me up. Did the offroad trails, and to be quite honest it was exhilarating. Never felt unsafe. Driving the back side returning from Hana was MUCH scarier.

I'll upload pics of the bike trail. Definitely saw some mild carnage a la skinned knees on other riders, but they seemed the adventurous type that probably wanted a souvenir. I went with my almost-fiancee, who is by no means an adventure seeker, and she felt safe as well.

 

[Hockeyguy]

Anyone known any Anesthesiologist on Maui. How is it to work there? It would be sweet if you could afford it.

 

[Ashers]

Anyone known any Anesthesiologist on Maui. How is it to work there? It would be sweet if you could afford it.

Yes, I've met a bunch of them, but they're all friends with my dad. The hospital sucks; the state won't approve a new hospital because the current hospital is owned by the state, and it's the only hospital in the state that actually MAKES money.

The anesthesiologists work for Kaiser AND HMSA (private insurance), but based on what I've been told, they get paid by HMSA. Hawai'i is considered to be rural, so doctors are reimbursed at the rural rates. The cost of living on Maui is very high. If you work fully for Kaiser in Hawaii, you get paid the national average (most other specialties). Kaiser Moanalua (on Oahu) has their own dedicated anesthesiologists, and a family friend is a cardiac anesthesiologist there, and he loves it.

My dad said that the anesthesiologists on Maui have some of the worst deals based on pay and having to deal with insurance. When I got an anesthesia position, I told my dad, "Well, maybe I could move back to Maui." He started laughing, and said it was worse for them than for the orthopaedists (there were 5 for a population of 140,000 residents and 20,000-40,000 tourists and any one time, and they were all getting old, so they were getting over worked), saying how bad they got paid, and how bad they're treated by the hospital.