Maui, the second biggest island in Hawaii and the most touristy, has its share of monster resorts, expensive, over-the-top luau magnets and villas. So when we heard about Paia Inn, a little cool outpost on the island's North Shore, we thought, oh yeah!
This is a quiet, boutique inn on the North Shore's Hana Highway. Five suite rooms sit smack on the beach and away from the craziness of those gigantic resorts. The rooms have flat-screened TVs, bamboo floors, and funky artwork, plus a boutique and an art gallery right on site.
We are suckers for a room with a killer view. We find that we are even more likely to forgive some minor hotel inconveniences if we can stare out the window at something pretty--yeah we are that shallow. Let's help out our fellow hotel mavens by uploading rooms with killer views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. We will feature our favorites in this space from time to time. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number of the hot view.
It just goes to prove that there's no such thing as too many palm trees, when you stare long and hard at this killer view from the Lahaina Shores Beach Resort in Maui. Because we could stare at this from within our cubicle for hours and hours.
Lahaina Shores is actually a condo-rental place with full resort-style services and amenities including daily maid service, a concierge and internet access (at a price), plus you can use the barbecues poolside to grill up a feast. Rates start at $147 per night for mountain view suites but if you want to look over the palm trees and the sea (we certainly do) then you'll have to pay from $193 a night.
The people at the Four Seasons Maui are really keen to get guests in to see their grand new renovations, and after having a 6 for 5 special, they've now got a new promotion called the Suite Life, available for guests who book a suite for five nights or more.
As part of the Suite Life deal, you'll get quite a few nice inclusives: limousine airport transfer (or free parking instead), champagne and local snacks on arrival, and gifts like a Four Seasons beach bag full of beach towels and sunscreen. Throughout your stay you'll also be entitled to breakfast daily and (the bit we especially like) free WiFi in your room.
We're always thrilled by free WiFi (although we look forward to the day when it's standard), and that's one of the best features of the Four Seasons Maui renovations. All rooms also now have large flat-screen HD TVs and iPod docking stations, too. The Suite Life welcome gift should be encouraging us to spend more time at the beach, but with everything we need in our room, we may not want to leave it.
We fantasized about leaving our cubicles for the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua in Maui last October thanks to the hotels killer view but we were saddened to discover the resort was closed due to a $160 million make-over.
But on Jan. 7th, we are free to flee our cubicles again--not just in our mind but in reality as the hotel is set to re-open then. The hotel actually opened its doors last Friday for the PGA Mercedes-Benz Championship but even then crews were still working to get things all fixed up.
All 445 guest rooms as well as the lobby, fitness center, restaurants and other public areas have been upgraded. A new spa will open in March and residential suites will go on the market sometime in mid-January. Additionally, an entire wing of the hotel was converted into 107 suites, making it more family-friendly. And instead of using a bland standard Ritz-Carlton decor scheme, the hotel will focus on its Hawaiian heritage. The Honolulu-Advertiser wrote:
[T]he resort has moved away from the Ritz's "cookie-cutter" Old World style, and redesigned its rooms and public areas with a Native Hawaiian motif, incorporating local art, images of significant native plants such as breadfruit and ti, and meaningful objects, like calabash bowls.
Hotel staff will be trained to explain the history, meaning and cultural significance of the items to guests.
The only sad thing is that when hotels do top-to-bottom renovations, a price increase usually occurs and at this Ritz, the room rate jumps up nearly $200 to $599 a night. So will probably have to stick to cube dreamin' after all.
