Stopped by the bookstore and bought Maui Revealed - The Ultimate Guidebook 2nd Edition by Andrew Doughty & Harriett Friedman. It turned out to be the best thing we bought for this trip. The book is filled with information about the best places to go see in Maui. After eating breakfast and consulting our guide, we took off for Lahaina Town.

Lahaina, or cruel sun town is pretty nice, it is the only town in Maui with a real downtown. All along Front St. were tons of shops filled with jewelry, clothing, and food. We spent a good few hours browsing and shopping. The stores were not really special, but it was nice just to look and cool down from the heat outside.

We stopped by the activities center and asked about snorkeling trips. We told the lady at the counter that we had previously talked to one of the guys in Kihei and he quoted the Pacific Whale Foundation snorkeling trip for around $50. She signed us up for it, $100 (the original quote from the guy that gipped us on the Luau was really $59.95 each).

Lahaina truly lived up to her name and the heat soon got to us, we headed back to the condo to get ready for the Luau.

We arrived to the Marriott for our luau at around 5 pm. The hotel is really pretty, everything is outdoors and the place was well maintained. Our luau was at the back part of the hotel, with a great view of the beach. there was about 20 or so tables, each with about 10 people. We were seated at a table with 8 other people, of which, 6 were from California. We chatted, drank Mai Tai’s, Pina colada and watched for whales in the distance as we waited for our food. Everytime there was a whale sighting everyone stood up to try to get a look, but all that can be seen is a spurt of water far off in the distance.

Before long, we heard the horn of a conch shell. The Luau has begun! There was the general welcome announcement, then we were told to come up to the front to watch the preparation of our dinner. Everyone gathered at this great pit/oven and watched as our dinner was dug up from the ground. Yes, I did mean literally dug up from the ground. They did this with quite a bit of ceremony. What was finally revealed was a nice fat pig/boar? It smelled so good, but after seeing that it was covered with dirt just minutes ago, it didn’t seem so clean. Hopefully the dirt didn’t get into the wrappings. After our dinner was dug up they took it away to shred it into pieces. We went back to our seats and waited. I thought that it would’ve been nice if they had served some salad or soup while we waited.

As we waited, the clouds that were overhead started to gather and within moments, big fat drops of rain started coming down. We figured it was going to be a short shower and then it would go away soon so we attempted to stay dry by putting the green cloth dinner napkins on our heads. But within 10 minutes the rain started to come down pretty hard. Jae and I climbed under the table, hoping that the rain would soon stop, other people climbed under the table with us. I sure hope they have a plan B! Within minutes we knew it was hopeless, our luau was rained out. We were told to start heading back up to the hotel.

We waited in the covered but outdoor lobby of the hotel to see what would happen. It turns out there was a plan B. The luau would now be held indoors in their ballrooms. Interesting….. Some people didn’t want that and asked for their refund. We didn’t have a choice due to our limited time in Maui. About 45 minutes later, they finished setting up the ballroom. Everyone rushed in and sat anywhere they could. Our host came in and said all the apologies, but by now, all we wanted was food. Eventually they announced that dinner was ready.Finally!! We were told to go in sections by table so that we wouldn’t be waiting in long lines. Sooner or later everyone got food. The food was very good =) As we ate we were entertained by dancers, fire breathers and music. Overall the evening was quite enjoyable. I didn’t miss being outside since I’m sure I would’ve gotten cold from the ocean breeze.