We enjoyed a vacation to Maui over William's Christmas break. It was our first trip to the island, and we (I) had put together an itinerary to hit all the "must dos": beach, pool, dolphins, whales, volcano summit, waterfalls, hikes, windy drives, and food. Strangely, food is the thing we did the least of....
Since we used Southwest miles, we had to layover on the west coast before the second leg into Hawaii. On the outbound flight I booked it as a flight to Oakland and then a separate flight to Maui the next day. On the way home it was a single route with a layover in Las Vegas on NYE. (Not as amazing as it sounds...). I was worried about winter travel delays, which is why I built in an entire extra day to get to Maui. Our trip to the Big Island three years ago was nearly cancelled due to weather delays, so I wanted to be cautious this holiday.
In Oakland, we had a Saturday afternoon/evening to kill. I needed to work, so the guys visited the USS Hornet on their own. And then we ordered a pizza and watched a movie in our hotel room.
On Sunday, we headed back to the airport a little earlier than usually necessary to get pre-cleared for the Hawaii Safe Travels program so we wouldn't have to do it upon landing. In advance, you registered your trip with the state's website and uploaded a copy of you vax card. At the airport, they checked all the details you registered, saw the physical copy of your vax card, and then gave you a wristband to confirm it all checked out. You had to keep the wristband on until you arrived at your lodging in Hawaii.
After a 5-ish hour long flight where we all just did our own thing on electronics, we arrived at OGG. I reserved a Vrbo the first two nights that was near the airport in the town of Paia. We grabbed some things at the grocery store and then checked into our condo. It wasn't a very nice place, but the uncomfortable beds and loud traffic and lack of air conditioner were made up by the location. With the time difference, we were in bed early.
Our plan for our full day in Central Maui was to do sunset at Haleakala Summit. Many people want to do sunrise, which requires a reservation, and getting up at 3 a.m. Many of those early birds do the bike tour and after a van hauls them up to the top to see the sunrise, they ride mountain bikes down the crazy switchbacks. We passed a lot of those people on their way down. I remarked multiple times that it looked like a scary and overall horrible experience! Instead of that, we had a delicious brunch at a place I had pre-screened, then drove to the 10k foot summit, saw the observation station, and then began our arduous hike DOWN! That's right...right into the crater! We only had time for a 3 mile descent on the 11 mile long Slipping Sands Trail before it was our 3 pm "what goes down must hike back up before sunset" turnaround. In total, we hiked 6 miles over around 3 1/2 - 4 hours. I think it was 90 minutes down and 2 hours back up. It felt like 3 hours....or 3 days...to get back out! The altitude was a beast.
