First Time to Kauai Trip Report (Long)
Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:46 pm
We visited Kauai from Dec. 27, '08 through Jan. 4, '09. This was our first trip and we had our kids with us: daughter 12 and son 10 y.o. Of course we loved Kauai! It's beautiful. We stayed on the south shore, since we had read that in the winter the surf can be dangerously high on the north shore. We had every intention of getting to the north shore, but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. (We expected some rain, but got more than we bargained for.)
We stayed at Kiahuna Plantation and would highly recommend it! We were very pleased with the condo itself (updated, clean, nice size) and especially happy with the grounds. I loved the big green lawns stretching down to the beach, and all the little paths wandering between the buildings and through the gardens. There were some spots where I would just stop and inhale... the blossoms were so fragrant. The beach is right there and really nice, although it did get crowded. The concierges were very helpful getting restaurant reservations, and on the nights we made dinner at the condo we loved the big, spotless gas grills.
All the people we met - visitors and locals alike - were extremely friendly and full of aloha.
Travel Day (Dec. 27)
Chicago to Honolulu on United - nice seats in Economy Plus (funny how those actually feel roomy when you've been in the cattle car seats for so long.) Slight delay but not too bad. All carry on so we didn't worry about luggage catching up to us. More of a delay in Honolulu, but hey, we're in Hawaii! Then finally we landed in Lihue and got our car, roughly 16 hours after leaving our house. Completely worth it to be in Kauai!
Our first night we had dinner at Keoki's Paradise. The wait was long but the food was worth it.
Day 1:
Mostly we relaxed at the beach at Kiahuna Plantation. It felt soooo good to get out in the sun and water!
Day 2:
We started out the day with an early morning visit to the beach at Kiahuna:
The kids took surf lessons right there at the Kiahuna beach; they did great!
After some beach time, we packed a lunch and headed off to the Wailua area to hike the Kuilau Trail. We saw some beautiful scenes along the trail and had lunch at the grassy picnic area near the top of a ridge.
I think this would typically be a pretty easy hike, but rainy weather had made it really muddy and slippery. Here is what our feet looked like after the hike:
We headed back to Kiahuna, spent a good long time rinsing out our shoes, and headed back to the beach before dinner.
Day 3:
We did a morning boat /snorkel cruise with Captain Andy's up the Na Pali Coast. We loved this! I took lots of pictures of the Na Pali Coast and of course none of them do justice to the sheer majesty of that coastline.
One of the highlights of the boat trip was when a group of Spinner Dolphins joined us for awhile. We also had several whale sightings. Here's a shot of the dolphins:
The afternoon was spent, you guessed it, at the beach at Kiahuna. We stayed there until we enjoyed a lovely sunset.
Day 4 - New Years Eve:
We drove way up the Waimea Canyon Road and did the Pihea Trail hike. I think this would typically be a fairly easy to moderate trail but the rains had made it muddy and really slick in places. There were several spots where we really had to focus on each hand hold and foot step. That made it slow going and yes, we slid a few times, but it was a fun challenge! And in one of those 'small world' moments, we ran into a couple on the trail who live 2 blocks away from us!
The start of the trail was the easiest - big red colored rocks to scramble down. I loved all that red dirt and the rocks - it was like the red rocks of Sedona, but surrounded by jungle foliage! Here's a spot near the beginning I think; pretty easy hiking but kind of slick:
After awhile you run out of superlatives, but here's one of the incredible views from the trail:
Here's another shot of the trail. I thought this part was fun, but it was very slippery too.
We visited the Pihea Vista and continued the trail past there for awhile. It started getting drizzly, so we headed back.
We rewarded ourselves with our first ever taste of shave ice! OMG that stuff is delicious, especially on top of macadamia nut ice cream. Loved it and we are now big Jo's Jo's fans!
We stopped by the beach at Kekaha but it was really churned up and not so enticing, so we headed back to the beach at Kiahuna.
New Years Eve dinner was at Plantation Gardens. We had a wonderful dinner with very friendly service. Best part was, we just walked over there from our condo. Here's some food porn for ya:
After dinner we walked over and sat on the lawn in front of our condo and watched fireworks. What a great way to end 2008 and start 2009!
Day 5:
We crashed on the beach for awhile and also did some snorkeling over by the beach in front of the Beach House restaurant. It was a bit choppy and a bit chilly, but fun and we saw some cool fish.
We had dinner that night at the Beach House. Definitely the best meal we had on this trip; it was delicious! The view from the Beach House:
And some more food porn:
We stopped by the Spouting Horn blowhole on our way home. It makes a cool whooshing / moaning sound when the waves and air move in and out. At night it's kind of spooky sounding.
Day 6:
It poured rain in the morning, so DH and I decided to sit through the timeshare spiel at the Marriott. This is typically something I would never spend time on, but it was raining so hard, we figured what the heck. It actually was fairly interesting what you could get for the price, and the unit we saw was large and very nice. But we weren't really comfortable with the hard sell, and I had some questions that I didn't really feel like I got a straight answer to. Luckily it cleared up by the time we were done.
We headed back to Waimea Canyon to do the Canyon Ridge Trail. We loved this hike!
There are amazing views along the trail, and when we got to the top of the ridge we felt like we were on the top of the world.
We kept going past the ridge, and were rewarded with the views of two waterfalls; one up close:
And this one from the top:
I loved the contrast of colors:
And we all were so happy to see blue skies!
After our hike we had lunch at Kokee Lodge. OK food and a cool setting there in the hills. After lunch we went to Poipu Beach park for the first time and did some snorkeling. Great snorkeling there and we saw lots of cool fish.
Last day:
We spent some time at the beach, enjoying a sunny morning and our last dip in the ocean for awhile. I took some last pictures until a rogue wave crashed over all our stuff (it was way up from the water) and soaked my camera! It's dead now, but the memory card with all our pictures was OK, thank goodness.
We flew from Lihue to LA, and then connected to Chicago, finally arriving home at about 5:30 am on January 5th. When we rolled up the driveway we got a great belly laugh! We have lots of fun neighbors and we often play harmless pranks on each other. Well while we were gone they brought their Christmas trees to our front lawn - about 28 of them. I heard some funny stories about trees being dragged behind bikes. The tree removal guys took them all away the next week with no problem, but for a week we got to enjoy some extra greenery. I loved how the trees looked a few days later when we got a good snowfall.
That's our trip report - sorry it's so long!
We stayed at Kiahuna Plantation and would highly recommend it! We were very pleased with the condo itself (updated, clean, nice size) and especially happy with the grounds. I loved the big green lawns stretching down to the beach, and all the little paths wandering between the buildings and through the gardens. There were some spots where I would just stop and inhale... the blossoms were so fragrant. The beach is right there and really nice, although it did get crowded. The concierges were very helpful getting restaurant reservations, and on the nights we made dinner at the condo we loved the big, spotless gas grills.
All the people we met - visitors and locals alike - were extremely friendly and full of aloha.
Travel Day (Dec. 27)
Chicago to Honolulu on United - nice seats in Economy Plus (funny how those actually feel roomy when you've been in the cattle car seats for so long.) Slight delay but not too bad. All carry on so we didn't worry about luggage catching up to us. More of a delay in Honolulu, but hey, we're in Hawaii! Then finally we landed in Lihue and got our car, roughly 16 hours after leaving our house. Completely worth it to be in Kauai!
Our first night we had dinner at Keoki's Paradise. The wait was long but the food was worth it.
Day 1:
Mostly we relaxed at the beach at Kiahuna Plantation. It felt soooo good to get out in the sun and water!
Day 2:
We started out the day with an early morning visit to the beach at Kiahuna:
The kids took surf lessons right there at the Kiahuna beach; they did great!
After some beach time, we packed a lunch and headed off to the Wailua area to hike the Kuilau Trail. We saw some beautiful scenes along the trail and had lunch at the grassy picnic area near the top of a ridge.
I think this would typically be a pretty easy hike, but rainy weather had made it really muddy and slippery. Here is what our feet looked like after the hike:
We headed back to Kiahuna, spent a good long time rinsing out our shoes, and headed back to the beach before dinner.
Day 3:
We did a morning boat /snorkel cruise with Captain Andy's up the Na Pali Coast. We loved this! I took lots of pictures of the Na Pali Coast and of course none of them do justice to the sheer majesty of that coastline.
One of the highlights of the boat trip was when a group of Spinner Dolphins joined us for awhile. We also had several whale sightings. Here's a shot of the dolphins:
The afternoon was spent, you guessed it, at the beach at Kiahuna. We stayed there until we enjoyed a lovely sunset.
Day 4 - New Years Eve:
We drove way up the Waimea Canyon Road and did the Pihea Trail hike. I think this would typically be a fairly easy to moderate trail but the rains had made it muddy and really slick in places. There were several spots where we really had to focus on each hand hold and foot step. That made it slow going and yes, we slid a few times, but it was a fun challenge! And in one of those 'small world' moments, we ran into a couple on the trail who live 2 blocks away from us!
The start of the trail was the easiest - big red colored rocks to scramble down. I loved all that red dirt and the rocks - it was like the red rocks of Sedona, but surrounded by jungle foliage! Here's a spot near the beginning I think; pretty easy hiking but kind of slick:
After awhile you run out of superlatives, but here's one of the incredible views from the trail:
Here's another shot of the trail. I thought this part was fun, but it was very slippery too.
We visited the Pihea Vista and continued the trail past there for awhile. It started getting drizzly, so we headed back.
We rewarded ourselves with our first ever taste of shave ice! OMG that stuff is delicious, especially on top of macadamia nut ice cream. Loved it and we are now big Jo's Jo's fans!
We stopped by the beach at Kekaha but it was really churned up and not so enticing, so we headed back to the beach at Kiahuna.
New Years Eve dinner was at Plantation Gardens. We had a wonderful dinner with very friendly service. Best part was, we just walked over there from our condo. Here's some food porn for ya:
After dinner we walked over and sat on the lawn in front of our condo and watched fireworks. What a great way to end 2008 and start 2009!
Day 5:
We crashed on the beach for awhile and also did some snorkeling over by the beach in front of the Beach House restaurant. It was a bit choppy and a bit chilly, but fun and we saw some cool fish.
We had dinner that night at the Beach House. Definitely the best meal we had on this trip; it was delicious! The view from the Beach House:
And some more food porn:
We stopped by the Spouting Horn blowhole on our way home. It makes a cool whooshing / moaning sound when the waves and air move in and out. At night it's kind of spooky sounding.
Day 6:
It poured rain in the morning, so DH and I decided to sit through the timeshare spiel at the Marriott. This is typically something I would never spend time on, but it was raining so hard, we figured what the heck. It actually was fairly interesting what you could get for the price, and the unit we saw was large and very nice. But we weren't really comfortable with the hard sell, and I had some questions that I didn't really feel like I got a straight answer to. Luckily it cleared up by the time we were done.
We headed back to Waimea Canyon to do the Canyon Ridge Trail. We loved this hike!
There are amazing views along the trail, and when we got to the top of the ridge we felt like we were on the top of the world.
We kept going past the ridge, and were rewarded with the views of two waterfalls; one up close:
And this one from the top:
I loved the contrast of colors:
And we all were so happy to see blue skies!
After our hike we had lunch at Kokee Lodge. OK food and a cool setting there in the hills. After lunch we went to Poipu Beach park for the first time and did some snorkeling. Great snorkeling there and we saw lots of cool fish.
Last day:
We spent some time at the beach, enjoying a sunny morning and our last dip in the ocean for awhile. I took some last pictures until a rogue wave crashed over all our stuff (it was way up from the water) and soaked my camera! It's dead now, but the memory card with all our pictures was OK, thank goodness.
We flew from Lihue to LA, and then connected to Chicago, finally arriving home at about 5:30 am on January 5th. When we rolled up the driveway we got a great belly laugh! We have lots of fun neighbors and we often play harmless pranks on each other. Well while we were gone they brought their Christmas trees to our front lawn - about 28 of them. I heard some funny stories about trees being dragged behind bikes. The tree removal guys took them all away the next week with no problem, but for a week we got to enjoy some extra greenery. I loved how the trees looked a few days later when we got a good snowfall.
That's our trip report - sorry it's so long!
). I wonder if it's still there... I hope a simple and old-fashioned place like that will survive for a long time.
He gets the island bug as bad as I do!