Kaanapali

Maui's Fun Coast

Kaanapali is fit and trim, manicured from its lu'au lawns to its golf tees. The hotels possess gourmet dining rooms, lagoons with swans and flamingoes, art treasures in improbable places, vast landscapes and waterscapes with mega-pools, cascades and thrill slides. The toys in the once-royal playground are catamarans, outrigger canoes, boogie boards and surfboards, aqua bikes, snorkel and dive gear, rafts, windsurfers and sailboats.

In ancient times, Kaanapali was a royal retreat for the rulers of Maui. They liked the perfect three-mile stretch of white sand beach, gentle waves, warm sunny days and the broad swatch of green land that swept up to the rainbow-haunted West Maui Mountains. Maui's "royals" surfed, raced their outrigger canoes, feasted at lu'aus that lasted for weeks, and where the Kaanapali Golf Courses now blanket the land, they played ulu maika, a form of lawn bowling using heavy lava rock balls.

Kaanapali's two championship golf courses are open to all. One is the creation of the eminent Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and the other designed by Arthur Jack Snyder. The way the courses are laid out, both duffers and pros get a good game. The only problem is whales. If they're jumping offshore in their fantastic gymnastics, nobody seems to make par. The magnificent vistas of sea and mountains are distracting enough to be considered outright hazards on the links.

Kaanapali has four "A's" in its name, and three of them stand for "Action." The other "A?" It stands for "A Surprisingly Great Deal" because Kaanapali hotels and condominiums offer a wide spectrum of accommodations, packages and rates.

Kaanapali was Hawaii's first planned resort and has become a model for resorts around the world. The hotels and holiday condominiums offer a variety of experiences from soaring marble lobbies to beachside bungalows. All are planted in the 1,200-acre enclave amid lavish gardens along the beach and golf courses, each so private they appear solitary. In the center is the Whalers Village, an open-air, world-class shopping complex housing a whaling museum. The shops, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, activity centers, golf courses and even Lahaina town are all connected by free transportation. Alternately, the Lahaina-Kaanapali and Pacific Railroad, a restored sugarcane train pulled by a vintage steam locomotive, chugs between the resort and Lahaina through sugar plantation fields.

Want to see more?

• Maui with Kids: Making the Most of Your Hawaiian Vacation
• Hawaii's Big Island: Paradise Without a Passport
• Wow! It's a Luau!
• Check out our Article Library.
• Talk about it!