our first full day

Our stay on Maui was at the Royal Lahaina Resort. Check in was easy, the staff friendly, courteous, and helpful and we took advantage of the valet parking as it was only an extra $5 over the self park fee. Whenever we would leave and return, we were greeted with 'welcome home'. It's a lovely open air resort on a beautiful beach with with water ranging from light blue to turquoise to indigo, not too large with high rise hotel rooms or bungalows, a conference center, a location for the luau they had almost every night, travel and visitor services, and a small general store where you could buy clothing or food items and everything in between. Apparently it's a popular place for weddings as well.

We opted for rooms with a partial ocean view, that's Molokai in the distance...

Our first full day there, Wednesday, we spent at the resort resting up from our long previous day (we'd been up nearly 22 hours by the time we went to bed since Hawaii is 5 hours behind us and when we finished dinner the previous night at about 8:30 PM it was 1:30 AM the next day on home time). We started out the day with a (free) guided yoga session on the front lawn with mats and towels provided at 7:30, the only day it was offered during the time we would be there. After breakfast, where we sat out on the covered patio by the pool and attended by sparrows and spotted doves and red crested cardinals and mynahs (you didn't want to walk off and leave your plate full of food for even second) 

the girls and I sprawled out on the coarse sand beach, 

taking the occasional swim (them) and the occasional stroll on the beach (me)

here's another view of Molokai.

We could actually see two of the islands from the beach, Molokai on the right and Lanai on the left.

Lanai...

until we got too hot and moved to the pool where I sat in the shade and the girls lounged on the chaises until it was time to go to the lei making class at 1:30.

The lady had a huge bag of orchids and she dumped handfuls in a pile in front of each of us and we strung them on needles that were about 18” long, and then gently pushing them down onto the string that was attached, about three needles worth for one lei.

Properly bedecked with orchids we went into Lahaina for a late lunch/early dinner and then later strolled along the waterfront, going into the shops while the girls picked out things for their friends and family and themselves (we did this a lot throughout the trip).

I bought a rainbow plumeria stalk and a bamboo and coconut wind chime of course.

next: the twins birthday and the road to Hana