Four Seasons Maui at Wailea...

After the suggestion of Deon's brother and sister-in-law that Four Seasons are some of the best hotels for service, quality and scenery, we decided to give it a shot. We are pretty big fans of Caribbean all inclusive resorts, so we didn't know whether staying at a hotel-style resort would be our "thing," having to pay for meals and drinks separately, and paying a fair bit more than an all inclusive resort. So we decided to give the Four Seasons one chance so that we could determine whether it really was worth the money, the extra travel time and whether it was all it had been chalked up to be.

Let's just say that we're Four Seasons fans at this point(although we've only been to one). We flew from Inuvik via Dawson City, and Whitehorse, overnighting in Vancouver, and continuing on to Kahului, Maui. It was my decision to spend the first night at a regular hotel in Kahului because (a) I didn't want to "waste" half of a Four Seasons day when we only arrived in Maui in the afternoon, and (b) it gave us the chance to stock up on lunch items so that we didn't have to eat out for all meals each day.

We stayed at the Maui Seaside Hotel for the first night, which was straight out of the 1980s, but it was very clean and the pool and beach were nice for our first day of summer temperatures in a year! For $99 USD/night I was pretty happy.


The beach at Maui Seaside.


The somewhat 80s decor. The room had a nice view of a park... Deon was up at 5am and was looking out the window and thought he saw fireflies, so he woke me up to show me. Turned out to be a bum, laying down and having a smoke.


The pool area at Maui Seaside.

Being the true earlybirds that we are, Deon was up at 5am as previously mentioned, so we went to McDonalds for breakfast since we hadn't had fast food since Christmastime. We waited around until about 8:30am until we just couldn't bear to wait any longer, and got a taxi which drove us about 20 minutes to the Four Seasons at Wailea.


Here we are upon arrival, with our leis (mine was made of tons of real orchids, and Deon's was some sort of nut or something).


Needless to say we were pretty happy to be at our much anticipated destination.

Since we got to the Four Seasons so early, the bellboys took our luggage and stored it until we were able to check in to our room. We were greeted with leis, cold, wet towels, and impeccable service. We then went to the check in desk to let them know that we had arrived, and they put a rush on the cleaning of our room, and in the meantime gave us access to their "Aloha Suite" which had beautiful showers, towels, bathrobes, hair dryers, L'Occitane bath products, free internet, and an espresso machine. We took the opportunity to change into our bathing suits, and take the camera with us for some photos around the resort. We then hit the beach where the beach attendants would put chair covers on the chairs for us, put up the umbrella, bring us ice water, and fresh towels. Deon did some snorkeling reconnaissance while I held down the fort in the sun on the beach.

We then moved on to the pool, where there was the same routine with the chairs and servers would come around for food and beverage orders regularly. They also brought around little "treats" every so often, no matter where you were- brownies, rice krispies, pineapple, cucumbers for your eyes, refreshing towels, and sunglasses cleaning services.


Enjoying my first and only mai tai, while Deon had a Corona.


A picture of the pool (taken on our last day when it rained), which had a fountain in the middle, and two hot tubs, and was surrounded by cabanas and beautiful gardens.

Our routine stayed the same throughout our entire five night stay- lounging at the pools, or on the beach, dining at the restaurants, and generally soaking up the sun, service and relaxing with books and magazines.


A view from the infinity pool in the adult serenity area. The pool had a two hot tubs, two bubble areas, a swim up bar, and music underwater.


The serenity pool again, taken on the last (rainy) day.

Here are some pictures of the eating facilities:


The view from Ferraro's restaurant overlooking the beach. This was our "engagement celebration" dinner at sunset.


The dessert they made us to commemorate our engagement celebration- a little off, but who would complain about free truffles!


The view from Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant at sunset.


Duo, where we had the breakfast buffet several times- the BEST pancakes known to man, in our opinion. They would also bring around complimentary fruit smoothie shots each morning.

As you all know, we both love flowers and gardening so the landscaping at the Four Seasons was not lost on us. They had fresh arrangements throughout the hotel facilities each day, and these were a few of our favourites:


The number of bountiful orchids were unprecedented.


Loved these yellow Bromeliads!


The most beautiful orchid arrangement I've ever seen!

That pretty much wraps up the Four Seasons Maui at Wailea experience. Everything was wonderful from the start of our stay to the finish. From the jazz music in the bathroom, to the snacks in our room upon arrival, to the complimentary shuttle service to the Shops at Wailea, the attention to detail was excellent.

In conclusion, we are now very much fans of Hawaii, and of the Four Seasons. We will definitely return to Hawaii, and are anticipating stays at different Four Seasons resorts in the future... Next up, Bora Bora??