September 2022 -

Vail in the Summer for a Couples Trip

My husband had a business trip to Vail that I tagged along to many years ago and we said for a long time that we’d love to go back. A few years ago we made it back there and it’s been a favorite summer getaway for us! Our Anniversary is August and although I’m typically more of a beach person, the weather in August makes Vail the perfect getaway. The cooler temps and a break from all the typical summer things is just the escape we love!

We flew into Denver and spent the night there before driving to Vail.

On our way from Denver to Vail, we stopped at St. Mary’s Glacier to hike. There are a few different parking lots off the road to park at. You need cash (I think it was $5 or $10) to leave in a box to pay for parking. The path is obvious and there have always been a handful of people doing the hike. Once you get to the top, this is the view. So pretty!

Kapalua

One of the amazing things about Maui is how every part of the island seems like a whole new world. Every landscape seems to be represented there. From the most beautiful sandy beaches, to lush bamboo forests, to rocky shores, Maui has it all. We spent the last 6 days of our Hawaiian vacation in Kapalua. Kapalua has more rocky shorelines, rougher seas, and some of the best golf courses!

We left Wailea and drove up the coast to Kapalua. On our way, we stopped at a favorite restaurant from a previous trip- Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop. They have yummy sandwhiches and the best pie! The Chocolate Mac Nut Pie is sooo good! There was a bit of a line to get in- much more so than when we came a few years ago so be prepared to wait a bit if it’s during a prime time.

For our time in Kapalua, we stayed in a 2 bedroom condo in the Kapalua Ridge Villas. We have only stayed in Kapalua one or two nights in previous trips and always used points to stay at the Ritz. We booked this trip only a few weeks prior to leaving and did not research this lodging as much as the rest of the trip. While our condo had plenty of space, was decorated nicely and updated, we did not love the location and were SO hot as there was no air conditioning. This might be fine certain times of year, but it was in the high 80’s all day and night and we were all miserable the first night. We went and bought 4 fans as the condo didn’t have any and that helped some, but ultimately we wouldn’t go back to this condo. All that to say, double check your listing if you book a condo in Kapalua to make sure it has air conditioning! (Ours had said that but in our hurry to book, we missed this detail and we’re quite disappointed as it was not inexpensive lodging…)

We love Maui and had a great time but before I go further, I’d say we wouldn’t chose to stay this long in Kapalua in the future. It’s farther from many of the things we like doing while on the island (Road to Hana, Pai, sunrise at Haleakala, etc) plus the beaches in this area, while so beautiful, are not as good for swimming. The 6 days we were there, we were never able to swim in the ocean as it was a red flag everyday and we didn’t feel comfortable having our kids swim in the rougher seas. We could have driven to another part of the island, but since we’d had almost 2 weeks of great beach days, we were ok finding other things to do.

There are some great things about this area though and definitely would stay for a few days on a future trip. There is some beautiful hiking trails along the rocks/beach that we loved! Also, this area has some of the best restaurants! We splurged for a family dinner at Cane and Canoe and it was the best meal of our trip by far!! So good! And the best sunset view! (Side note, this resort looked amazing and if price isn’t an issue, would definitely stay here!) Merriman’s Maui is another restaurant in this area that is supposed to be really good. There is a Ululani’s Shave Ice about 10-15 minutes away at the Hilton and which we frequented! Definitely recommend Ululani’s during your stay in Maui! Make sure to add a “snow cap”! Some other things we (my husband) loves about this area, is the golf! My husband and son golfed at The Plantation Course and said every hole had the most amazing view.

A few more notes about Maui. If you’ve never done the road to Hana, I think it’s a must! You need to plan in advance to get tickets for the Black Sand Beach (we weren’t able to get tickets late enough in the day this trip so we didn’t go). The drive was a little stressful for me as a passenger a few times as it is a very curvy and at times, narrow road. You need a whole day to really see everything and I’d suggest doing it towards the beginning of your trip when it’s easy to wake up early with jet lag to get an early start. When we did it in 2017, our favorites were the black sand beach and the hike through the bamboo forest that led to a 150 foot waterfall! I’ve heard the Red Sand Beach is neat but haven’t seen that.

Another must do at least once, is watching the sunrise at Haleakala. We’ve done this several times and it wows us every time. Pictures can’t capture the beauty. You need to reserve tickets ahead of time for this as well on https://www.recreation.gov/ticket/facility/253731. Tickets are released 60 days in advance at 7am HST and then a few more are released 2 days in advance at the same time. After trying for a few days, we were able to get tickets while we were in Maui. (Tip- I tried for the first few days and was using the app. The tickets were always gone by the time I refreshed at 7am. My husband used the website and had no trouble reserving tickets right at 7am.) You need to arrive at least an hour before sunrise if you want a chance at a parking spot at the top of the crater. This is another good thing to do at the beginning of the trip if possible as it involves a 3am (ish) wake up time to start driving. We love to stop at Kula Lodge for breakfast on the way down from Haleakala. The decor is a bit outdated but it has amazing views and the food is great! I’d recommend the Mac Nut pancakes!

A few other things we love in Maui…snorkeling (there’s lots of tours you can do- I’ve always gone with my parents who know the best spots), watching wind surfers in Pai, and if you can get reservations, Mama’s Fish House. We’ve only eaten there once over our 5 times of being in Maui so it’s not a must in my opinion, but the beach right there in front of the restaurant might be the most picturesque thing I’ve ever seen.

Check out my other post about our first few days in Maui here https://www.schwandering.commaui/. Let me know if you have questions or if you have suggestions for our next trip! We can’t wait to go back within the next few years!

Traveling to Maui with Kids

Yesterday our family arrived in Maui where we’ll spend the next week. We have visited Maui several times and it remains our favorite vacation spot. We love everything about it! (Minus the time it takes to fly from Indiana to Maui!) The combination of the turquoise blue ocean along with the black rocks and mountains makes it so beautiful. There is so much to explore- bamboo forests, waterfalls, sunrise at Haleakalā, black sand beach, red sand beach, sea life (sea turtles, the most colorful fish, whales during whale season)- just to name a few! Or, you can relax on the beach or at the pool or satisfy your cravings with the best food! (I’ll share our favorite food spots below.)

My husband and I first went to Maui in 2010 and we both quickly fell in love. We’ve since gone 4 more times, bringing our kids with us each of those times. Maui is a great family friendly vacation spot.

The views are incredible! This is the lobby of the Marriott Beach Resort.

Where to stay in Maui with kids:

Our favorite area to stay in Maui is the Wailea- Makena area. We’ve stayed at the Marriott Beach Resort the last several times and LOVE it! There are also lots of great condos in the area. My extended family found a condo in Kihei that has a beautiful ocean sunset view and is a more affordable option and only a 10 minute drive from the famous Wailea Beach.

We were greeted with Leis and juice when we checked in to our hotel.

The Marriott Wailea Beach Resort is a great choice for families. We’ve walked through all of the other resorts in the area and think this is the best one for kids and families. Their are so many wonderful ammenities. The pools at the Wailea Beach Resort are amazing! The kids pool has a splash pad area, 4 water slides- 2 which are huge and quite thrilling and 2 smaller slides great for younger kids, a waterfall you can swim through, and an upper swimming area. There’s a pool tile treasure hunt throughout the kids pool area and there is a permanent food truck where you can get food and drinks from. There’s an adults only pool and another pool area with an infinity pool and an upper pool. There is food and drink service at all of these pools. Honestly there is a pool for everyone! There are amazing loungers, shaded chairs, etc. The Wailea Beach Resort also has a great game room (think mini arcade where everything is free), lots of board games, etc. There is a Starbucks in the hotel, a spa, and several great restaurants. The open air lobby is beautiful with amazing views, the best photo spots, swinging chairs, large chess, a koi pond, and plenty of seating to relax in. Our kids loved running around the grassy area.

We got 2 conjoining rooms for our 3 night stay at the Marriott Beach Resort for our family of 6.

The resort is situated on the famous Wailea Beach and the hotel provides complimentary chair service as part of your stay. We had sea turtles swim right up to us while swimming here. During whale season, it is common to see dozens of breeches from the beach and hotel every day! There is a cute little coffee shop that also sells breakfast items right by the beach. We love to grab our coffee and sit here and watch for whales during whale season or walk along the path the runs for several miles through the Wailea-Makenna area.You can rent paddle boards and snorkeling gear here also.

If you take the trail to the right when walking out of the resort, you’ll come to Ulua Beach.

Wailea- Makenna trail that connects several resorts. Has beautiful views and is a great place to run in the mornings

Honestly our favorite family vacation days ever, have all been right here at the Wailea Beach Resort. I wish they were paying me to say this, but this is just the point of view of a mom who has spent a lot of time trying to research the best places to take my family! I’m writing the blog post that I was searching for when I looked for the best hotels for families in Maui. Maui is so beautiful and there are endless things to see and do. The Wailea Beach Resort makes traveling with kids more relaxing because there is so much to do on site and within short walking distance. The beach, the pools, the restaurants, are all right there. It’s also not to far to the road to Hana or Haleakala. Both are things I’d highly recommend. (Separate post coming about those things.)

If you are looking for the best place to stay in Maui, I hope you’ve found this post helpful! If you’ve stayed at the Grand Wailea, I’d love to know what you think. Walking through it, it looks nice, but we’ve loved the Marriott Wailea Beach Resort so much that we can’t imagine staying anyone else.

Best Place to Stay in Oahu for Families

Our family of 6 got the opportunity to travel to Hawaii for 2 and a half weeks in September. This was the longest trip we’ve gone on as a family and we were so excited to spend extended soaking up some of the most beautiful views on earth. Our kids were almost 3, 8, 11, and 12 when we went and at such fun ages for traveling.

We spent the first 8 nights in Oahu in a luxurious 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom condo. We loved everything about the condo- views were great, everything was updated and nicely furnished, plenty of space for our family, the pool and resort was beautiful and never too busy, and the condo was stocked with so many extras! The only thing we didn’t love was the parking situation because it was a weird garage that wound around and took a long time to get to our designated parking spot. This was a very small thing and we ended up walking most everywhere so it wasn’t a big deal.

This was the view from the cove in front of Disney’s Aulani which was next door to our resort

My husband and I spent a lot of time researching the best place for our family to stay for this trip. Since we were going to be traveling for several weeks, we wanted to have plenty of space, wanted good views, and nice pools. We chose to stay at the Beach Villas at Ko Olina and can’t say enough good things about it! It was even better than the pictures! Here’s the link https://t.vrbo.io/p221WJqJ5vb to our exact unit but it looks like there are a lot of great ones.

One of the things that sold us on this unit was that there was a great living room with gourmet kitchen that had these huge sliding doors that opened all the way up to a large lanai making a great indoor/outdoor area. Our unit overlooked the ocean and Disney’s Aulani’s resort. We could hear their luau’s several nights while sitting out on the lanai. We spent a lot of time playing games, reading, eating, and the kids doing school out here.

Disneys Aluani and the Four Seasons can be seen here. The bigger one is Aluani.

We spent a lot of time playing games on the balcony

The water was crystal clear and so beautiful

This was the lagoon for our resort. It was rarely busy. Most mornings we had the whole cove to ourselves for the first several hours. It was a great place for the kids to learn to snorkel. We saw lots of beautiful fish and several sea turtles!

These coves gave us a very protected swimming area.

There’s 4 coves/lagoons right in a row. We looked at Aluani, and the Marriott before eventually deciding the condo was a better choice for our family. In my research, I found a lot of people comparing the Marriott to Disneys Aluani but I never saw anyone mention our condos. My husband just randomly found it while searching VRBO. I’ll include several pictures below of both Marriott’s Ko Olin’s Beach Resort and Disney’s Aluani.
We were happy with our choice, although I will say we did have a moment of regret when walking through Aluani the first morning. It is a BEAUTIFUL property with some impressive pools! We did not think Disney’s website showcased just how many pools there are and how fun they looked! With that said, we had MUCH more room in our condo for the same price as a 1 bedroom condo at Aluani was going to cost us. Also, Alunani’s pools and beaches looked crowded when we went back later in the day making them less appealing to us.

The pools at our resort were beautiful and never very crowded during our 8 day stay.

The pool area wound around with several different entry areas and these neat leaf chairs that were on ledges. There was a sandy/rocky bottom entry and pool area and 2 hot tubs. There was a second pool area for lap swimming I believe. We never swam in that area (might have been adults only).

We bought these refillable mugs at Alunai and walked over there for our coffee every morning.

There was a wide sidewalk that connected the 4 resorts in Ko Olina. You can see the trail lit up here (picture taken from our lanai). We went for walks every morning along this trail and ended up walking most every where we went during our stay. There is a shopping area and restaurants that we walked to at least once daily. We took this path and then there was a sidewalk between Aulani and the Four Seasons that led to shopping and restaurants. There was a little market, 2 coffee shops (a local one and a Starbucks), Monkey Pod (our favorite place we ate in Oahu), and an ice cream place next door along with several boutiques.

These pork tacos from Monkey Pod were my favorite! Kids loved the burgers and truffle fries and my husband loved it all! They even give free noodles topped with Parmesan cheese to toddlers! My son has a peanut/tree nut allergy and there were very helpful with accommodating that.

This sidewalk that went along the beach connected all of the resorts to each other.

When did a character breakfast one morning which is the only way to actually see Disney characters at Alunani from what we could tell.

This is the Reef Pool at Aluani. You can snorkel in here!

This infinity pool at Aluani had the best view!

One day we were swimming at the beach in front of our condo. It was so empty so I decided to walk next door to Disney’s Aluani’s beach to see if it was crowded. It was honestly crazy to me how much more crowded their beach was. Here’s a comparison taken at the same time.

This was the Four Seasons/Alain’s beach. Their lagoon was definitely bigger but also WAY more crowded.

If lots of people and crowds don’t bother you, then Aluani might be a great fit for your family as the pools were really cool and overall the resort felt nice, it just seemed to get pretty busy throughout the day.

This was the Four Seasons area. Still plenty of empty chairs.

This was a different time of day (earlier in the day) but this is the Marriott’s lagoon and beach.

We didn’t go to the Marriott as often as we did Aluani, but it did seem considerably less busy when we did go there. There were several different pools (a sport pool, pool with a slide, as well as at least one other that we saw). You need a wrist band to swim. We did eat at a beachside restaurant at the Marriott and would NOT recommend it. The waitress was so sweet but the food was terrible. We got several different things and they were all awful.

This grassy area by our lagoon was fun for the kids to play football on and run around.

Our condo was stocked with so many extras! This stroller was in there and made our lives easier since we walked so much. There were beach chairs, and beach wagon, snorkeling gear, sand toys, pool floats, etc. There was even a fan which I loved since I’m used to sleeping with one at home. It really had everything you could want!

We had the best time in Oahu and were so glad we chose to stay at the Ko Olina Beach Resort. There is so much you can see and do while in Oahu but our family mainly stayed in the Ko Olina area and loved that area. It all felt very high end, was walkable, beautiful, not too busy. It was everything our family was looking for. I’m the “we need to see it all” type of person on vacations, but my husband is not. He wants a nice resort and lots of time to relax. We would wake up early because of the time difference and go for a walk. We’d get our coffee and the kids would do school and eat breakfast. We’d then go to the beach and then the pool for a few hours. We’d go back to our condo and eat lunch (we had groceries from Costco delivered by instacart) or go out to lunch. Many times we would eat a late lunch/dinner and then we were ready for bed early because we were getting up so early.

Jon took the older 2 boys to golf at Kohl’s Olina Golf Club one afternoon

We did explore the island a bit but we ended up in so much traffic or not being able to find a parking spot, that it wasn’t the best experience for us.

We did Pearl Harbor 1 day. You have to go online and get tickets ahead of time for the USS Arizona Memorial. If there aren’t any tickets available, check right at 3pm Hawaii time as they release more tickets for the next day at that time. You have to pay $1 for the ticket and you have to be logged into the account to check out. We were pretty easily able to get tickets the day before.

We had watched some things about Pearl Harbor and the kids had been excited to go. With that said, it’s a pretty somber experience and they enjoyed the tour of the submarine a lot more. We were able to walk up and get tickets for the Bowfin submarine. There wasn’t time to tour the battleship but I think my kids would have enjoyed that if we had more time.

We drove over to Lanikai Beach after going to church nearby. I had been there 13 years ago with my dad and sister and remembered it as my favorite beach. Unfortunately, there was ZERO parking. My husband dropped us off and drove for 2 miles in every direction and could not find a single parking spot. The beach and water was also very crowded compared to the beach at our condo. We were only here for 15-20 minutes and then my husband picked us back up since he never did find a place to park. If it would not have been busy, it would have been beautiful!

We also tried to go to Waikiki on the morning we were flying out to Maui. We only had an hour to be there and unfortunately also found it too busy to get out and do anything. I wanted my husband to see that area since that’s where I stayed with my family 13 years ago. I think he’d like all the things that you can walk to do, but it is definitely not as relaxing as the area we stayed in Ko Olina.

If we went back, I’d love to see Turtle Bay and the Jurassic Park area but honestly the time in Ko Olina was so relaxing and a nice pace for our family so I don’t feel like we missed out.

Let me know if there’s anything else you want to know about our trip to Oahu!