While every Hawaiian island could possibly be explored for weeks and even months and nonetheless provide up new experiences, most individuals don’t have that lengthy.
And, for these searching for some laid-back leisure whereas nonetheless getting a style of what’s on provide, going luxurious on the accommodations and getting good with the exploration is the play.
For a 7-night dream itinerary, we explored by way of three of the islands’ five-star accommodations – and explored the islands utilizing an progressive self-driven tour information app to assist us get out and about on this island-hop journey.
All three accommodations have their very own distinctive options and vibes – from Lanai’s utter seclusion, Maui’s awe-inspiring infinity pool and cabanas, and Oahu’s eating choices that elevate the bar on lodge meals.
You can re-work these into a distinct order based mostly on choice, and even skip one of many islands to spend longer at one other.
The island-hop started with a brief connection from Hawaii’s predominant airport to Maui, the island recognized for its Road to Hana – one of the vital stunning drives on Earth.
A brief cab journey from the airport took us to the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. It’s tucked into the west aspect of the island overlooking Wailea Beach, and the elevated north-western a part of the island within the distance.
The lodge makes probably the most of those views – and the swimming pools at this resort are mind-blowing. The predominant saltwater pool is organized round a big fountain and is surrounded by an abundance of complimentary cabanas.
There are extra ‘oceanfront sanctuaries’ tucked into recesses of land overlooking the seaside, which supply a further stage of privateness and calm.
High above, there’s an adults-only infinity pool that was so discreetly hidden I didn’t even understand it was there throughout my first morning on the resort. Tucked across the edges are loungers with panoramic views of Lanai and the West Maui Mountains, and the swim-up bar was a cool spot to hang around and chat with fellow visitors.
We employed one of many giant paid-for cabanas someday and have been grateful to have a shady, fan-cooled place to lounge between dips within the infinity pool – whereas taking in some TV when issues acquired actually scorching.
As for our room, we have been in one of many deluxe ocean-view rooms, that are on the lodge’s middle-to-higher flooring. It featured a king-size mattress, huge couch mattress, and was round 600-square-feet with an outsized marble rest room.
The rest room was gigantic, with deep soaking tubs, a separate highly effective bathe, double-sink self-importance, and a separate bathroom. And one small characteristic that had an outsized impact on my leisure was the sound system, which pipes in a handful of music types on-demand. It’s not radio, and it’s not fairly Spotify. It’s only a ‘set it and go’ scenario – a easy and stress-free approach of selecting a vibe and forgetting about it, which within the streaming period typically results in determination fatigue.
The lodge has a U-shaped structure which broadly faces out throughout the ocean. We have been on the south aspect of the lodge, which will get superbly drenched in solar within the morning, which means that even in the event you arrive within the low season, you’ll nonetheless be bathed in rays even when somewhat cloud cowl rolls in round midday.
One actually distinctive characteristic on the resort is an IV infusion facility from Next Health, the place you’ll be able to lay again in gentle leather-based recliners whereas vitamin infusions steadily drip into your blood stream.
I acquired the power booster infusion with an add-on of NAD+ (Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide). In all, it price round $500. So, ‘does it work?’ is the apparent query. Well, whereas the hit wasn’t speedy, we each felt extremely refreshed the following day regardless of some fairly heavy consuming and a heavy meal.
In phrases of longer-term results, it was onerous to inform, however there have been repeated clients who swore by it and I might image getting one in every of these once more on the primary day of arrival to counteract the results of jet lag.
Now, I additionally recognize a lovingly assembled lodge fitness center, and the open-air cardio part dealing with the ocean, plus a well-stocked weights room, was a genuinely pleasing method to work up a sweat whereas on trip.
The lodge additionally has outrigger canoeing within the mornings, which is tremendous widespread and requires early reservations. Unfortunately, some gusty commerce winds meant it was canceled whereas we have been staying on the resort, however individuals we spoke to who’d partaken mentioned they liked it.
There’s additionally scuba, water aerobics, whale watching and paddle boarding available, in addition to enjoyable little occasions like hula courses that happen all through the day.
The staff at this explicit property stood out for his or her friendliness and helpfulness – actually everybody who works there involves say hello, and ask how your keep goes.
The resort boasts some actually spectacular views from its eateries – there’s Ferarro’s, which hugs the shore for image good views of the sundown. It served Italian delights like heat home made bread with nduja pork butter, roasted garlic and fried rosemary. Sublime – a must-try.
The finest entree was the bowl of paccheri with Italian sausage, fennel, broccolini, and garlic crumb. It’s fairly heavy, so not someplace to go if you need a lightweight chunk – however for these with an urge for food it’s an incredible choice. Pizzas from its wood-burning oven additionally appeared nice.
Then there’s Wolfgang Puck’s Spago, the elevated, breezy, glass-walled providing from the movie star chef. If you’ll be able to, request the furthest nook of the restaurant, past the opposite diners, for a completely unobscured view of the ocean and the celebrities.
Ahi cones have been a twist on the ever-present Hawaiian dish – served in sesame miso cones which labored effectively with the tang of recent tuna. Hamachi with avocado and maui onion was additionally super-fresh, super-light spotlight. But it’s onerous to go mistaken with the Hawaiian-Californian fusion menu.
The resort’s signature Duo Steak and Seafood restaurant – that includes native seafood and premium steak cuts – is nice, and served up a merely grilled opakapaka fish, a divine New York strip, alongside some decadent sides like truffle Mac and cheese, and caramelized crispy Brussels.
But the restaurant actually shines at breakfast. Alongside the standard breakfast buffet choices, the pancake and omelette station actually shines. The pancake particular on the morning I sampled Duo was a carrot cake pancake which completely slapped; crumbled up carrot cake that sunk deep into the pancake batter because it cooked, earlier than being sprinkled with macadamia nuts. Incredible.
The breezy open-air foyer is half-indoor, half-outdoor, and the shortage of any apparent boundaries makes the large area really feel even larger. While most lodge lobbies are areas to go via, the foyer at Maui is a spot we really frolicked, post-dinner.
The subsequent cease was the Four Seasons Resort Lanai, which presents super-cool personal constitution flights from Oahu – however in the event you’re arriving there from Maui, the switch is much less glamorous however equally enjoyable.
A cab journey to Lahaina takes you to a ferry port, and the 45-minute journey throughout the water ends with you slicing in alongside dramatic cliff faces to shore.
The switch on the different finish is seamless, with Lanai lodge employees available to tag your baggage, and direct you to the ready bus for the five-minute journey to the property.
Lanai is a novel island which was as soon as the protect of the Dole empire – the place 80% of the world’s pineapples have been grown. It’s now the house of two Four Seasons accommodations … and little or no else in the best way of growth. Even the downtown ‘Lanai City’ is little quite a lot of blocks of low-rise plantation town-style properties, with no visitors lights. It makes the distinction with the lodge all of the extra dramatic.
The Four Seasons resort right here is among the world’s most unique – the place Bill Gates had his marriage ceremony, and the place Elon Musk (in keeping with DeuxMoi) stopped by shortly earlier than we visited.
It’s a sprawling however serene property with a clifftop location overlooking a gorgeous, white-sand seaside – whose waters will be explored with the lodge’s complimentary snorkel gear.
Our jaws dropped at our room, which featured darker jungle-chic wooden finishes – teak and zebrawood – which are a step change from the standard seaside resort vibe of whites and blues.
High-tech fixtures and fittings elevated the expertise; together with an electronically managed bidet; one-touch lighting and window shade mechanisms, and a Dyson hairdryer that delighted my spouse.
We stayed in a garden-view room, which means as an alternative of rolling waves we had leafy, shaded outside area. To me, this was simply as cool, and much more distinctive; thriving tropical foliage made me really feel like I used to be holed up in a personal mountain retreat, slightly than steps from a seaside.
Even the stroll to the room is an occasion, with a meander via themed gardens that includes koi ponds, rescue parrots, waterfalls and peaceable nooks.
The property opened on the Manele Bay lodge in 1991 and have become a Four Seasons in 2005. A Google search of the outdated structure exhibits pretty meh grounds – a big pool, little foliage – which has since been reworked into two lagoon-style swimming pools, cascading waterfalls, a nook cave, winding paths, and secluded eating spots.
The prime spot, for me, was the 2 rows of 20 or so seaside chairs, barely distanced from the remainder of the resort, which lay in close to silence – no music, no loud chatter – with solely the crashing waves down under for firm.
Given the island’s lack of growth, all of finest eating on the island will be discovered right here, and we discovered it to be a seafood lover’s dream.
We dined on the rooftop Nobu restaurant, the place the black miso cod is the star of the present, and an omakase menu is out there for $198 per particular person. Our favourite dishes have been the ultra-fresh yellowtail sashimi with warming thinly sliced jalapeño, delicate spicy hand rolls, and cod marinated in black miso earlier than being fired within the oven.
The following evening we settled in at One Forty, the place we have been very impressed by the wine choice – notably the chardonnays – and took on a large seafood tower collectively, that includes extremely scrumptious lobster, a recent tuna tartare, delicate oysters, chunks of king crab, and fats juicy shrimps. It was elevated simplicity.
We saved issues easy for breakfast at One Forty, sampling completely cooked omelettes, amongst different objects, and extremely suggest the oatmeal which was completed with kiwi, mango, bananas, blueberries, almonds, roasted coconut and native honey.
Lanai is thought for its Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, which is constructed on lava outcroppings and hugs the beautiful shoreline. And whereas course entry is proscribed to lodge visitors, the author – regardless of his finest efforts – is harmful with a golf membership.
To get acquainted with the island, we took the Holoholo tour as an alternative. It entails two jeeps, one pushed by a lodge worker and the opposite one pushed by the lodge visitor, tailing behind. Both vehicles are outfitted with short-wave radios, so the motive force of the lead-vehicle can provide you a steady guided tour all through.
There are stops alongside the best way – together with the moonscape-like Garden of the Gods – and a scrumptious recent lobster roll lunch. And regardless of the place you land on the island – from dramatic valleys, to the sandy seashores overlooking a WW2-era shipwreck – all of it appears like a personal area to which you briefly have entry.
Close to the lodge, a brief stroll previous the pristine white-sand seaside, are the cliffs closed to Puu Pehe, or Sweetheart Rock.
It’s the right spot from which to look at the solar rise over Maui within the distance, and it’s completely definitely worth the 4.30am alarm in summer season, adopted by a wander via the darkish.
There’s all kinds of different actions – from crusing to mountaineering trails – in the event you’d like to combine it up.
The exit from the island was very slick – a hotel-arranged connection to the native airport, the place the car pulls up proper beside the constitution plane. No ready, no safety, and also you’re up within the air to Oahu inside a couple of minutes. It allowed for lots of additional pool time on the resort, and made for some nice trip pictures.
Ko Olina is about half-hour in a cab from the airport, and Four Seasons Oahu is a resort on an epic scale, sitting on the rugged western coast of the island overlooking a peaceable man-made lagoon with vivid blue waters.
It’s a big resort, and what’s misplaced in intimacy is made up for with trip choices. It’s acquired one thing for everybody: a genuinely personal adults pool the place even the loudest little one’s screech wouldn’t attain; tons of actions for younger children and a pristine children membership space; hidden huts for couple’s massages, enormous add-on areas the place company occasions can happen; and a magical glass-fronted chapel overlooking the ocean, for on-site weddings.
The vibe (exterior of the grownup pool) is larger power than the opposite two accommodations, and that’s what you’re coming to Oahu for; livelier vibes, with all the great thing about Hawaii. And in the event you’re hanging out on Oahu, staying at Ko Olina is the best way higher play than Waikiki, which is simply oppressively touristy today.
Oahu, being a tall construction, has the good thing about peak to benefit from the spectacular ocean view. Our high-up West-facing room – with a protracted stretch of floor-to-ceiling home windows overlooking a balcony and the water past, was bathed in a heat glow within the morning and a late afternoon burst of daylight gave method to a magical sundown.
The balcony was giant, and because it’s west-facing, the sunshine wasn’t too overpowering within the morning, and meant that after a day on the pool, a visit up there for sundown supplied dramatic views throughout the Pacific Ocean.
The room featured as soon as super-comfy king mattress, an enormous TV, tasteful furnishings, and comfortably sized marble rest room. And whereas the part of lodge that I stayed in overlooks, within the distance, a privately owned occasion area that was very noisy on evening one – that died down on future evenings.
We spent the times by the adults-only infinity pool, with refreshing cool water and a cool swim-up bar – a retro truck known as Dr. Mai Tai’s, from which libations are served.
There have been three different swimming pools – together with the outside pool on the spa. Top tip: It’s hardly ever busy there, so in the event you actually need to get away from all of it, that’s an incredible spot to take action.
But it was the meals at Oahu that made the keep actually particular. Of the three choices we tried, two of them have been spots we’d make native detours to revisit, when subsequent within the neighborhood.
Take Mina’s Fish House, a breezy beachfront spot with its personal ‘fish sommelier’. Yeah, the twist-on-the-sommelier factor was stretched to breaking level when that water sommelier man acquired huge on TikTook – however this man’s the real-deal. He’s a neighborhood fisherman with a sideline at this restaurant, explaining to diners one of the best ways to decide on, put together, and eat numerous fish.
As somebody who loves seafood however is typically reluctant to sort out an entire fish, his recommendation was an incredible assist in making an attempt one thing new. The cocktails are creative too, and included a Mai Tai – the basic cocktail of Hawaii – served in an (empty) can of Spam, the ever-present lunch meat widespread on the island.
Another spotlight is the table-side tuna tartare preparation. Tuna is ever current on Hawaii’s menus, so determining a method to elevate it into one thing particular is a formidable feat. The different was Noe, an Italian restaurant from Ryo Takatsuka the place the tasting menu is the order of the day, permitting you to pattern entrees just like the signature tagliatelle with truffle and mushroom, and the wonderful scallops with white polenta, mushrooms, and charred asparagus.
Before our arrival, concierge made it super-simple to ebook a really fairly priced rent automobile, which was delivered and picked up by the valets. It was nice to have for a few days, permitting us to take a 30-minute drive to downtown someday, adopted by a loop of the beautiful north shore the following.
We do suggest the Shaka information app, which is a paid-for app with audio and GPS guided routes round each Maui and Oahu. You hook it as much as a automobile’s sound system and it’s intuitive from there. In Oahu, it took us on a surprising loop from our lodge, by way of Pearl Harbor, and on to the beautiful north shore the place the surfers hang around.
The actions right here have been wonderful, and actually diverse. One morning we set sail on a Wa’a standard crusing vessel with two native guides – it roared out of the quiet lagoon onto wild bumpy waters and hugged the shoreline alongside to the spot the place we pulled on some scuba gear, dipped below the floor, and noticed an array of unimaginable sea-life together with sea turtles that have been 100-years-old or extra.
One night, we wrapped up eating to go as much as the lodge’s rooftop tennis courts for some late-night star-gazing with the lodge’s resident knowledgeable – who takes visitors on guided tour of the skies with a mega-sized telescope.
There are different actually considerate touches right here, corresponding to an artist-in-residence – at present Nick Kuchar, who creates vintage-inspired surf and journey artwork as an ode to Oahu. His work is displayed via the lodge’s floor flooring stage.
Meanwhile the lodge has partnered with Dana Childs, an power healer, for on-demand guided meditation via the resort’s in-room media programs. There’s additionally an upcoming retreat in September that includes rituals and group workshops with Childs and particular visitors.
There’s additionally a cool HI Sessions idea, the place native expertise is well known with a reside recording session that includes a particular musical visitor.
Now, I additionally tried the signature lomi mohala therapeutic massage in any respect three resorts – it’s an historic approach which makes use of particular oils, rhythmic strokes, and leaves to assist leisure. The therapeutic massage and spa at every lodge had one thing totally different to suggest it.
At Lanai, the therapeutic massage felt just like the most-skilled, from a reiki-master with years of expertise. Oahu and Maui had the best settings – with thatched remedy huts proper by the ocean, known as hales.
The spa services at Oahu have been sprawling and actually prime quality, and I ended up spending hours there after my therapeutic massage.
Check-in and concierge in any respect three accommodations is fast, pleasant, and so they’ll do what it takes, inside purpose, to verify your keep is seamless.
At the Maui resort, I used the concierge crew to assist with reserving some facilities and actions, and it was straightforward. Meanwhile the crew at Oahu was glorious at anticipating my screw-up once I’d by accident left the ‘do not disturb’ gentle on my room once I went out for the day. A textual content within the afternoon requested whether or not that was supposed, and ensured I returned to a crisp, clear room regardless of this.
None of the eating places dissatisfied – however as you’d count on, costs are excessive.
All resorts had strong 24-hour room service, and right here’s my suggestion: get the Japanese breakfast. Miso Soup, broiled fish, onsen egg, and pickled greens aren’t the actually the sort of comforting stodge that folks are inclined to need once they’re pulling the pin on trip – however it’s a bracing, scrumptious twist that units the temper for wellness that The Four Seasons does very effectively.
- To ebook a keep at Maui, and to view offers, click on right here.
- You can view Lanai reserving choices and presents right here.
- Booking particulars and presents for a keep at Oahu can be found right here.
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk