Author Topic: gubevo18's (ametuer) Maui TR  (Read 3883 times)

Offline gubevo18

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gubevo18's (ametuer) Maui TR
« on: August 18, 2017, 09:13:37 AM »
So here goes for my (ametuer) TR.

The way there we booked on delta with flying blue. And the way back with standard award space in American. Being that I would literally want burn all of my useless American miles but unfortunately there aren't any paper certificates this was my other way of burning them. 

We got to Maui thurs night at about 9 pm and went to Alamo to pick up our rental car booked thru Costco travel.

We drove straight to the Marriott wailea beach resort where we would be staying and did a quick unpacking of the food and basics and went to sleep. The next morning (or that night actually) we were going to see sunrise from the Haleakala summit. I booked for Sunday morning as well in case we oversleep which in the end we didn't. 

So after about 2.5 hours of sleep we got out of bed at about 245 am to start the drive. The drive up was really annoying as it is an extremely windy Road and being that it is dark you can't see much of the view even their way.  We did see a shooting star on the way up (yes I'm certain. It wasn't an airplane) wh Ch was pretty cool. We got to the summit about an hour before sunrise and we got the second to last spot in the upper parking lot. It was cold up there but not nearly as cold as everyone made it out to be. I would say it was 50s. It's normally about 30 degrees cooler than sea level at Hawaii. iMO sunrise was beautiful but overrated and certainly not worth getting up at such an ungodly hour. The view of Maui and the surrounding islands from above was beautiful. But I would go for sunset instead. The locals claim it is just as nice and less traffic.

From there we went back to Alamo as we were unhappy with our mustang.   we switched it for a wrangler instead which we enjoyed much more except that the windows and locks were manual.
After that we went to Walmart and Costco which were on the way back to stock up. Walmart didn't have too many kosher bread options. They had one hashgacha there that I didn't recognize and had no way of finding out about but in the end costco had a few options so we were okay.

We went to th farmers market in Kihei but the option were horrible and prohibitively expensive. We bout a few items but in the end we bought fruit and vegetables and a local supermarket.

Back to the hotel to prepare for shabbos and relax a bit. So shabbos in a modern hotel can be a bit annoying. Here were a few issues that i noticed in the hotel.

1) the fridge was a "smart fridge" whatever that means but Either way the LED light in the fridge wasn't easily taken out so I just taped over the piece that pops out when you open it.

2) the AC thermostat looked like it had a motio sensor on it and I was nervous that if I covered it up the AC would stay off. They sent up an "engineer" (a guy who knew how to plug in extension cords) to try to figure it out. In the end we taped it over and it was fine.

3) if you leave the door to the porch open for 30 seconds the AC will go off until you close it. Although setting the 30 second timer off is probably not an issue I definitely didn't want to get stuck not being able to close my door if I forgot about it. So I took out the magnet from the top of the sliding door and taped it to the magnet sensor above so the sensor would think the door is always closed.

4) the staircase in the Haleakala building (pretty sure the other buildings didn't have this issue) had lights wouod be turned on by motion sensors. However there was one bulb that would remain on always and had more than enough light to allow one to see. So after consulting my LoR he said if it can't be avoided it's okay.

We brought a small crockpot with us and put up a chulent and sent a toaster oven with amazon prime that arrived the day we got there. We heated up the food before shabbos and then unplugged it right before and the food was piping hot two hours later.

Shabbos

Shabbos was very nice and relaxing. we forgot to bring a time clock so Friday night the candles really came to be used for what they were meant for. We didn't leave and lights on (except for me the bathroom) and the porch didn't have a light.

Sunday

We were on the road at 630 am to start the Road to Hana. Let me just say that if you were to drive the road and not make a single stop you would still be in awe. That is how beautiful it is. All the more so if you do make stops. But as everyone says you have to plan in advance. You have to know what you enjoy. If you enjoy greenery more than waterfalls plan accordingly and vice versa etc. if you are planning on taking pictures with a cell phone it can be very helpful to get a selfie stick so you can get some normal pictures of yourselves. A lot of the time there won't be people to ask or you might get sick of annoying people.
We stopped at...
Garden of eden which was beautiful and worth the $15 entrance fee. (Make sure you check out the rainbow eucalyptus tree. Was really special)
Wailua iki falls,Chings pond, Nahiku, The black sand beach aand a bunch of other lookouts along the  way. All were beautiful. On the way around after Hana we stopped at Venus pool it was nice but full so we didn't go in. Same for hamoa beach.
After that we went to the seven sacred pools which IMO were slightly overrated especially after saying so many waterfalls along the way. You can literally get bored of them. We made the hike up to the bamboo forest. It was about an hour and 15 minutes round trip. It was really beautiful but not sure if it's worth it. If you do plan on going you MUST bring insect repellant. I didn't and stopped counting my mosquito bites at 30. I'm not lying. The one good thing was that for some reasons Hawaiian mosquito bites didn't itch nearly as much as those back home.
Now the most underrated part of the drive is the back end of the loop. It is truly incredible. We were in such a rush to finish the drive while it was still light outside that we didn't get to see much. But there were a number of places to stop that were gorgeous. There was a spot with a beutiful looking. Pool to swim in not too far in.
You don't need a 4WD to make it around. A Nissan Sentra can do it without a problem. But it certainly was a lot more fun doing those roads in low 4WD. But those one lane roads can get annoying after a while. On the road to Olivine pools I had to back up IN a cliff to let someone go by. No room for error there.
That was Sunday. Hopefully I'll finish this.

Please feel free to comment on anything. Tips on how to write will gladly be accepted.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 10:01:23 AM by Dan »

Offline yoohoo

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Re: gubevo18's (ametuer) Maui TR
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2017, 09:57:05 PM »
I guess your LOR holds Shabbos is Saturday?

Offline gubevo18

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Re: gubevo18's (ametuer) Maui TR
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2017, 12:52:27 AM »
I guess your LOR holds Shabbos is Saturday?
yes. Rabbi belsky Ztl held with 100% certainty that shabbos in Hawaii is on Saturday.  As far as Japan.... that's another story