Hello Hobson: Honeymoon in Hawaii! Part 1: Maui

What better way to break this baby in than with recapping our honeymoon in the beautiful Hawaii. I'm insanely jealous looking back at these photos and really need to plan our next getaway STAT! With all the snow, cold temps and the threat of the next polar vortex approaching, I think we all need some warm tropical surroundings.

We started off our journey on a direct flight from JFK to Honolulu. The flight there was really decent. They estimated for 10 and a half hours to get there, but if I recall we made it in about 9 hours 45 minutes. We napped, watched a movie or two, ate some food and napped some more. From there we hopped onto a connector flight to our first destination: Maui!

We stayed at the Westin Maui on Ka'anapali Beach for the first 5 nights. The location was great! There was a little shopping mall just to the right of our hotel which had a bunch of different shops, restaurants, etc. It was a great location. One restaurant we ate at was seated just along the beach with tiki torches lighting the sidewalk. It was picture perfect. The Mai Tai's were great, the breakfast was good, we didn't really have anything bad to say about our stay here.

They were doing all sorts of renovations at the hotel but we lucked out with being in a separate wing. Originally they put us in an ocean view room, on the 3rd floor. The view was really just the roof of the second floor. We were disappointed and they upgraded us to a room on a higher floor. We didn't get the grand king sized bed, but it was a much better view!

The Road to Hana - I made Wayne drive! There's three hundred some odd one laned bridges to cross. Well back up, we went to Boss Frog's and were given a free cd to listen to that told you the sights, history, etc as you drove along. This was definitely a great idea! The road winds you along the coast of East Maui. The views are seriously amazing. We started fairly early and are happy we did as it takes about 4 hours each way if you're stopping and sight seeing. You pass waterfalls, state parks, trails, etc. It's endless. We really enjoyed sitting back, listening to the cd and taking in all of the gorgeous scenery. I think our favorite was the stop at the national park with the black sand beach.

Sunrise / Bike down Mt. Haleakala - So cold, yet so worth it! They claimed the temps were around 40, but we both believed it was around freezing. We had a 2am shuttle pick up that brought us and a group up to the top of the mountain. We were at about 6,500 ft. You got out, stood around for about 1.5-2 hours and watched the sun rise. You're literally above the clouds! So cool! We then got taken up to 10k feet to the summit. We walked around a bit there, and then headed back to around 6,000 ft to bike down. A little scary, but the environment was very controlled. We had to go in a single file line with girls in the front and guys in the back. It wasn't terrible as we stopped every now and then for pictures, to let cars pass, etc. This was a great experience and we are so happy we did it!

Other than that we did a sunset catamaran, drove down to some cool remote beaches, and checked out the little whaling village, Lahaina. One night we were lucky enough to get seats to the Old Lahaina Luau. It's generally booked up about a month in advance, we were so excited to be able to get seats! The show was really cool and it was a great experience! A must do for a Hawaiian Luau.

I could so go for a Mai Tai and this view right about now