From the Royal Lahaina to the Marriott Vacation Club in Maui

Royal Lahaina view of beach

Maui Wedding Vacation in Lahaina – Day 3

It’s Tuesday August 10^th and this is day 3 of our vacation in Kaanapali Maui where we are staying at the Royal Lahaina Resort.  Although we have some complaints about our hotel, I still think it’s the best value for the price we paid.  The hotel is situated on what we believe to be the best stretch of beach on the Kaanapali coast.  First of all, there is way more beach area to walk before reaching the surf.  The beaches in front of the hotels south of our resort have very limited space available between the public walkway and the ocean water. 

The sand was clean and smooth, and the grade into the water was much more gradual, leaving a wider more shallow area to swim.  We believe this also accounts for the water’s many brilliant shades of blue and green.  There were hues ranging from turquoise to royal blue as the water became deeper.  It reminded me a lot of the ocean colors that can be seen on many of the Caribbean coasts.  We believe that the beaches make up somewhat for what the resort’s pools are lacking. 

Maui Royal Lahaina Resort beach view

While the Royal Lahaina Resort pool area is not rated very high on our kid or baby friendly department, we are happy with the accommodations and the geographic location.  We are staying in a roughly 1,000 square foot Villa with a full size living room, kitchen, master bedroom, and two bathrooms.  The villa can use some maintenance and upgrades.  The kitchen and bathrooms have outdated tile, appliances and fixtures.  The two televisions were the old style boob tubes rather than the new flat panels.  The air conditioning system was made up of two old style window type electric air conditioning units that were built into the wall.  Truthfully none of this matters to us more than having a large and spacious villa to accommodate us and our baby comfortably, which is exactly what we got.

Each of the villas come in either an upper or lower unit, and we got stuck in the upper unit which was only accessible by stairs.   Not the best way to go when you have a baby stroller, and of course a baby to carry up and down each day! 

Kid friendly pool at Maui Marriott Vacation Club

As I mentioned before, the location of our hotel is perfect.  There is a walkway that connects several of the hotels along the Kaanapali shore and we made good use of it.  The first place we visited after breakfast was the Marriott Vacation Club in Kaanapali.  My friend Gabriel has a timeshare with Marriott and was able to exchange his place in Desert Springs for an ocean front room here in Maui.  They reserved us chairs in a great location by the pool under a large umbrella.  This was a much more kid friendly pool with shallow areas for really young tots to play, water slides, and waterfalls galore.  They even had a big jungle gym that looked like a ship wreck in the middle of a sandy pool.  Kids of all ages were playing there and loving it!  At 10 months Christian is a bit too young to be playing in the sand, so I spent most of the time with him in the main pool.  He is now at an age where he really appreciates swimming.  He was laughing and splashing with his hands the entire time!  The temperature was just right so there was never any reason to leave!

Maui Westin Resort and Spa pool area

We decided to walk back to our hotel after spending most of the day at the Marriott Vacation Club.  On the way we stopped at the Westin Maui Resort and Spa where we had a late lunch at the outdoor Ono Restaurant.  We shared a large nachos and some soft drinks while admiring the Westin pool.  I took plenty of pictures because we will definitely visit this hotel again when Christian is a little older.  This is probably the biggest pool I’ve seen on this island and it definitely ranks high on our kid friendly scale.  Besides having different pools with different depths throughout the resort, they also have the biggest water slide I’ve seen!  It seemed to go on forever and the kids were lined up at the top of the slide while the Westin attendant was directing traffic.

Whalers Village in Maui

After lunch we continued on along the same walkway until we reached Whaler’s Village.  I took some pictures but we didn’t stop because we wanted to get back to our hotel to wash up, feed and bathe Christian.  Soon after, we arrived at the Maui Sheraton Resort and Spa where the wedding was to take place.  We ran into our friend Scott who was staying at the Sheraton and agreed to meet him and the other wedding guests later that evening at Leilanis in Whaler’s Village.  We were at the Royal Lahaina before we knew it and it was nice to shower and feel fresh and clean after a long day at the pool and beach! 

Nachos plate at Ono Bar and Grille at Maui Westin

Christian was asleep by 5pm Hawaii time.  We didn’t expect him to sleep so soon but the stroller ride back to Leilanis in Whaler’s Village was all it took after a long and exciting day for him.  It was nice to be able to spend time with our friends and eat dinner while Christian slept, but we knew that he would probably be waking up very early in the morning if he ended up sleeping through until the next day.  We spend about an hour or so enjoying some tropical drinks at Leilanis with the wedding party and guests.  After that we had dinner next door at Cane and Taro where my wife and I ordered a rainbow sushi roll and salad for appetizers (I ate the sushi roll), and we shared the honey crusted macadamia nut Shitome with broccoli and asparagus.  We both agreed that this was a fabulous dish and were very pleased with our choice!

About the Author: Stan is the proud father of three young children. He and his wife love to travel frequently to places near and far with their extended family.