Thursday, October 27, 2011

24 HOUR GETAWAY - WESTIN KOR

Every so often, Anabelle and I like to get away from the rest of the world and do nothing but enjoy the company of one another. Well, I can’t really say “do nothing”. We actually like to do as much as we possibly can in whatever amount of time, together.

I wanted to do something special for Anabelle for her 29th birthday. We had an amazing dinner with a few of our loved one the night before but we definitely wanted our “us” time with Damien. We initially wanted to stay at the Sheraton Ka’anapali but they were unfortunately booked up. We instead decided to stay at the Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort.

On our drive to the hotel, we picked up Damien and his friend Noah from their several hour long ping-pong-a-thon. It seems that whenever we try to plan any type of getaway, time is always of the essence. However, our day was moving along quite well. We were making good time so far and we were now on our way to the Westin KOR.

As the boys and I were getting everything out of the car and giving it to valet, Anabelle got us checked in. We then made the (super) long journey from the desk to our room. It was a zigzagging maze of walkways, corridors, and elevators. On the upside, we got to see a lot of what the Westin had to offer us. Had our room been so close to the lobby, we wouldn’t have made the effort to really wander around. Once we found our room, Anabelle and I checked it out while both Damien and Noah changed into their swim clothes so they could attack the pool. The room was beautiful. From all the hotels that we’ve stayed at, the room at the Westin may vey well be one of the nicest if not the nicest we’ve stayed at. It was a one bedroom one bath condo with both an ocean view and garden view. The bathroom was equipped with both a hot tub jacuzzi and walk in shower. The décor was great; very welcoming but very modern. Both Anabelle and I were very impressed.

We eventually got changed and headed down to the pool to meet up with Damien and Noah. There were two towers which meant there were two pools. Each tower and pool seemed to have its own demographic. The pool that belonged to our tower, the North tower, had a lazy pool which the older crowd congregated around. Obviously, that’s not the one that we were wanting. Anabelle and I made our way to the South tower where the waterslide and basketball hoop were. It took us forever before we were able to find the pool attendant stand so we could get towels. After jumping in and soaking myself, I made my way up the stairs and decided to give the slide a try. As you can see in the video, though the slide was rather a quickie, it was still fun. From there, Anabelle, Damien, Noah, and I swam over to the basketball setup and played HORSE; man, that  was fun.



After a few hours in the pool, Anabelle ordered some food which was very much needed. We snacked on tortilla chips with salsa and furikake french fries. We were all so hungry almost each drop of furikake and every crumb of tortilla chips were consumed. It’s exactly what we needed. Moments later, we realized that the sun was about to drop and we needed to get the boys to their drop off points; Noah got picked up by his mom and Damien got picked up by his grandparents. Anabelle and I were now officially alone. And that meant one thing, relaxation.

Anabelle and I then got ready for a night on the town. We didn’t know where we were going to go or what we were about to do but we wanted to capitalize. We left the hotel around 8:30 Saturday night and were full aware that most restaurants close shop at 9. There were a few spots that we could have gone but we opted to wait for 10 p.m. so we could hit Maui’s best sushi spot, Sansei’s. At 10 o’clock, Sansei’s offers 50% of everything except alcohol. It was a win-win situation for all parties. We decided to kill some time at the Lahaina Gateway Center, Footlocker, Afterthoughts, and Barnes and Noble to be exact. Without knowing it, we killed 90 minutes with absolutely no problem. From there, we were Kapalua bound.


Arriving at Sansei’s was great. When we first got there, there were only about 15 people there. Normally, the Sansei’s in Kihei is flooded with people and you see more than 15 people waiting just to get a table. So that was definitely a nice change. I seen my boy there and gave him the pound as the doorman pretended he was checking our IDs. Once we got seated, the server quickly got our drinks for us. I stuck with my trademarked Diet Pepsi as Anabelle went for a lava flow, which she loved I might add. Once we decided on what to get, we gave our order. It literally took us a few minutes before each and every one of our dishes was on our table before us. Anabelle was seriously on cloud 9. She was in heaven being drowned in plate after plate of sushi at her disposal. I was in heaven just seeing her smile ear to ear. I love seeing her happy. In an instant, she went from being giddy with pure joy to being giddy with pure joy, with a mouthful of California Roll in her mouth. She was officially in her zone. There wasn’t anything I could really do but sit back and watch the plates of sushi dwindle down to a mere smearing of sauces on the plate. I can almost mean it, from that point on, it almost became a blur. The food was just that good. As we were eating, there were several karaoke singers to entertain us and they were all good. As our bellies began to bulge, we decided to put in one last order to go and use it for breakfast before we paid the bill and headed out.

I decided to be the driver back to the hotel so I greased my belly and the bottom of the steering wheel and slid into position. As we made our way back to the hotel, Anabelle and I recapped our amazing day and wobbled our way back to the room. We were both so pooped with everything that we both called it a night and went right to bed.

The following day was pretty uneventful. After packing up and loading up the car, we decided to take a few more pictures to remember this little getaway. I think we were both emanating the scent of “Check out” because the housekeepers were right there waiting for us to leave; it wasn’t even check out time yet. Anabelle took a quick minute to check us out at the front desk and we made our way back to civilization.

Man, oh man this was a great getaway. I really feel that we capitalized on almost everything that the Westin KOR had to offer. For the things we didn’t get a chance to do, it only gives us something to look forward to the next time we go there. Great hotel. Great stay. Great times. Great memories.


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