Ka’anapali Beach - Whaler’s Village - Leilani’s Maui Restaurant
Monday, July 31st, 2006Some days you just want to feel like a tourist. Its nice once and a while to forget that you live on this beautiful island, and treat it as the incredible tourist sanctuary it can be. On these days I like to head to Ka’anapali for a day of shopping, eating, people watching, snorkeling and just hanging on the beach.
Ka’anapali is the perfect place to play tourist, it offers a little bit of everything you could possibly want. Ka’anapali is home to the majority of the West side’s larger hotels and condos. Most of these resorts have a number of dining options as well as beachside and poolside bars. The beach here is beautiful white sand, and was named America’s best beach in 2003. The swimming here is great with cool crystal clear waters. It can be a little crowded in areas, but with almost two miles of prime Maui beach to choose from, you can always find a good spot. On larger days, there are several decent surf breaks along the beach and there are almost always enough waves for some fun body surfing or boogie boarding. The snorkeling here is world class, on the North end of Ka’anapali you will find “Black Rock” one of Maui’s best snorkeling destinations. Whaler’s Village is a shopping center featuring locally based stores as well as high end boutiques. You will also find a food court with a handful of affordably priced restaurants. On the beachwalk there are three large sit down restaurants, The Rusty Harpoon, Hula Grill and Leilani’s.
Sunday seemed like a perfect day to play tourist, so we loaded up the beach bag and headed for Ka’anapali! Once we get to Ka’anapali we pull into the Whaler’s Village parking lot. Depending on how long you plan to be here this can either be free(all the shops and restaurants will validate for up to 4 hours), or a little spendy. Once we got out of the car and into Whaler’s Village we decided to head right to the beach for a little stroll to get the appetite going.
Ka’anapali has a concrete walk-way just steps off the beach that runs for about a mile and a half from the Hyatt Resort all the way to the Sheraton at Black Rock that is perfect for leisurely stroll before lunch. We chose to walk South down towards the Hyatt, along the way the people watching is great and there are plenty of opportunities to stop and take it all in. The views to Lanai and Molokai are breathtaking, and of course there are plenty of beach goddesses (and gods) to ogle along the way. The Marriott has an outdoor shopping area with a deli by the pool that can be fun to look through, but the food will cost you as much as sitting down in any of the restaurants along the way. The waves are pretty good this weekend so we took sometime by the Marriott to watch the surfers catching waves.
After walking back up the beach, we decided to eat at Leilani’s. Leilani’s sits right off the beach with open air seating with great views of the ocean and of all the passers by. For happy hour, they feature cheap drinks and live music on most days. The menu is casual at the Beachside grill featuring pupus (appetizers) such as ahi sashimi, calamari strips and nachos. Salads include a curried chicken salad and a fresh fish salad with spicy grilled fish on island greens and vegetables with a papaya lime vinaigrette. The rest of the menu is filled out with, hamburgers, fish tacos, fish and chips and sandwiches. I had the tuna melt with fries (I know, boring) which was very good and rang in at a very affordable $8, my wife had the fresh fish salad which she said was great. The fish was cooked a little more than we usually like but was still good with a lightly spicy pepper dusting. The dressing was excellent with a sweet but not overbearing taste of papaya. The salad was priced fairly inexpensively for a resort setting at $13. Katie, our server was great, and managed to keep up with my 15 or so iced tea refills (sorry). I’ve eaten here at least a hundred times. The food is always good, the service is great and for the setting the prices are completely fair, and I can suggest it for anyone looking for a good lunch or a cocktail off the beach.
Finishing lunch, we decided to head to the beach and kick back while the food digested. We headed up to the North end of the beach by the Sheraton resort so that we would be close to Black Rock for snorkeling if we decided to hop in the water. The beach is sometimes crowded up this way, but to get a chance to watch all the people trying to get in and out of the water with their flippers on, it’s definitely worth it. Snorkeling here is something that everyone has to do. The currents at Black Rock are generally not too strong and there are always tons of colorful fish in this area. If you head out and around the point of Black Rock there are almost always several turtles to swim with and there are usually a lot less snorkelers in the water around you. I have seen spotted eagle rays and dolphins in this area as well.
Sitting on the beach just soaking up the rays always has two effects, one is a healthy glow and a feeling of being recharged, the second is it always makes me thirsty! With sunset coming soon, we decided to head to the pool bar at the Sheraton for a couple of cocktails. The cocktails here are a bit pricey ($8 to $15), but hey, I wanted to live like a tourist, now didn’t I. From here as the sun sets you can watch the lighting of the torches above Black Rock as a local dives into the ocean from about a 25 foot perch atop the outcropping. The sunset views from almost anywhere along Ka’anapali Beach are always magnificent, and today’s was no different.
To round out the day, we headed back to Whaler’s Village where we poked around some of the stores such as Paul Ropp, Blue Ginger, Maui Toy-Works and Sir Wilifred’s. Tired, and ready to head home we grabbed an ice cream from the food court and ate it as we headed back to our car, the perfect end to a day as a tourist, local style.