DannyTS
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We stayed at Westin Nanea recently. The resort is good, the staff is very nice and hard working and I think the management does a good job navigating the Covid limitations. Yet the resort did not impress us. Were our expectations too high? Maybe, because it is category 8 Marriott and because it is very new (2017?), we thought it would be at the top of the resorts we have visited around the world, certainly not the case.
The Ka'anapali beach is beautiful. Although the sand is not white, the water has a very nice color, better in reality than in the pictures. We have seen a nice variety of fish while snorkeling right in front of the resort, the water was clear about half the time when we were there. I would give the location a nine or a ten, I am sure there are other great locations on the island but Ka'anapali beach had all we could ask for.
Maui is beautiful and we did see quite a bit. We did snorkel tours, road to Hanna, visited many beaches, we did surfing etc. For us, flying from the East coast it is quite an effort, even if it is very nice I do not think it is necessarily nicer than other places we can access easier so for sure we will not visit it regularly (sour grapes?), although we will try the other islands as well.
As I said the resort did not impress us. It feels very crowded, and it is not the number of people (although it was peak season), it is the way the resort is designed. There pools are small, they have a color I do not like (grey-green, the water almost looks dirty even it is not) and they are not positioned in a way to take advantage of the ocean views. Unless you are sitting at the 20 or so chairs closest to the beach, the views would be similar at any resort that is not ocean front. The zero entry pool is a flop IMO. The pebbles are an odd size and are hard to walk on the very small kids seemed to enjoy it though, I recognize it was not designed for adults. A second area with pool chairs is between the buildings in the back, the pools are very small, most of the area is occupied by a pond. I suspect they had to preserve it like that for environmental reasons, otherwise it is a complete waste of space. The rooms have everything you need, but the design is also not impressive at all, the colors are very dull, they look a lot better in the pictures. A problem now during covid is that to go up there are no stairs I could see. Everybody was taking the elevators; it was not uncommon to have 2 or 3 families at the same time. Every time we were in the elevator I could not help but think that as Canadians we were vaxxed AND tested, the others just vaxxed and we could have easily caught something. All good in the end.
Few of the restaurants we tried were very good. Duke’s not only had great food but also one of the best services I have ever had (the waiter was that good!). Café O’lea was also great, we went twice despite the 45 min drive. The food at Mamma’s fish house was very tasty but expensive compared to the others. We did not have a great table in terms of views, I thought we were paying for a location that we could not take advantage of.
The resort restaurants were a detractor from the whole experience. The menu small, the wait relatively long. Breakfast seemed more like a student cantina, you had to stay in line for the food then someone would bring boxes to the table. I wondered how come ALL the other restaurants on the island had proper dishes, cutlery, and normal service but not WNA. The BBQs were very busy in the evening as a consequence of that.
The Ka'anapali beach is beautiful. Although the sand is not white, the water has a very nice color, better in reality than in the pictures. We have seen a nice variety of fish while snorkeling right in front of the resort, the water was clear about half the time when we were there. I would give the location a nine or a ten, I am sure there are other great locations on the island but Ka'anapali beach had all we could ask for.
Maui is beautiful and we did see quite a bit. We did snorkel tours, road to Hanna, visited many beaches, we did surfing etc. For us, flying from the East coast it is quite an effort, even if it is very nice I do not think it is necessarily nicer than other places we can access easier so for sure we will not visit it regularly (sour grapes?), although we will try the other islands as well.
As I said the resort did not impress us. It feels very crowded, and it is not the number of people (although it was peak season), it is the way the resort is designed. There pools are small, they have a color I do not like (grey-green, the water almost looks dirty even it is not) and they are not positioned in a way to take advantage of the ocean views. Unless you are sitting at the 20 or so chairs closest to the beach, the views would be similar at any resort that is not ocean front. The zero entry pool is a flop IMO. The pebbles are an odd size and are hard to walk on the very small kids seemed to enjoy it though, I recognize it was not designed for adults. A second area with pool chairs is between the buildings in the back, the pools are very small, most of the area is occupied by a pond. I suspect they had to preserve it like that for environmental reasons, otherwise it is a complete waste of space. The rooms have everything you need, but the design is also not impressive at all, the colors are very dull, they look a lot better in the pictures. A problem now during covid is that to go up there are no stairs I could see. Everybody was taking the elevators; it was not uncommon to have 2 or 3 families at the same time. Every time we were in the elevator I could not help but think that as Canadians we were vaxxed AND tested, the others just vaxxed and we could have easily caught something. All good in the end.
Few of the restaurants we tried were very good. Duke’s not only had great food but also one of the best services I have ever had (the waiter was that good!). Café O’lea was also great, we went twice despite the 45 min drive. The food at Mamma’s fish house was very tasty but expensive compared to the others. We did not have a great table in terms of views, I thought we were paying for a location that we could not take advantage of.
The resort restaurants were a detractor from the whole experience. The menu small, the wait relatively long. Breakfast seemed more like a student cantina, you had to stay in line for the food then someone would bring boxes to the table. I wondered how come ALL the other restaurants on the island had proper dishes, cutlery, and normal service but not WNA. The BBQs were very busy in the evening as a consequence of that.
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