Honeymoon Recap: Part III

One of our most anticipated dinners was at Red Salt in the Koa Kea boutique hotel. Their service and presentation were impeccable, but the decor is a bit modern for my taste.

I totally goofed up my favorite drink (French Martini) and told the bartender to make it with vanilla vodka, pineapple juice, and grand marnier (<chombord
). It tasted good but that one martini was freaking strong.

 The next morning we took off on a hike that was right off of our hotel's property. The major of the hike was along the coastline, which was amazing.

The water was so clear we could look down and watch the sea turtles.

 Joel carried our water in his backpack and hid a beer (that he had in a bag of ice) for us to open on the beach together. We sat on the beach, quickly exchanging sips because we thought we saw a state trooper, at 9am...but it was one of my favorite memories of the whole trip.

The night we made it to the popular restaurant on the island - Plantation Gardens. This was my favorite of all of the places we dined. 

 


It was the most "Hawaiian" feeling of all the places we were at. We sat on an open back porch, and even with no ocean view in sight, the grounds were so beautiful you didn't even miss it.



 Joel ordered the Lao Lao which is basically like a paella, but served and cooked in a giant banana leaf.



The next day, we work up at 5:30am to drive up to Waimea Canyon. Joel is an avid trail runner, and hiking the Kuku'i trail was his #1 must-do while we were in Kauai.



Thankfully the sun never came out, because it was the hardest hike I've ever done. It took us almost 4 hours to hike the 4 miles because it had such rough terrain and was really, really steep.



The views were gorgeous, but this particular trail was tough. I only did it for Joel and would probably try and find a better traveled trail the next time. We never saw anyone else on the trail and I felt like it would have taken days for our bodies to be discovered.

Joel obviously loved every second of it. 

Since he had put me through hell and back, Joel took me back to Josselin's for more happy juice sangria and small plates. 

To die for Rock Shrimp

 

Our last day on the island was 4th of July and so to celebrate both occasions, we decided to attend the Grand Hyatt's Luau. It is $100/person - but includes tons of food and open bar.



I'm so glad we decided to do it. It was a really entertaining performance and we ended up sitting by great people and having such a fun last night.

Our honeymoon was beyond perfection. Joel and I laughed and laughed, relaxed, and just enjoyed every freaking minute. We both felt like we took advantage of everything Kauai has to offer and we would both go back in a heartbeat. 

The best part of leaving this blissful trip was that we got to go back home as husband and wife, and start our newly wed life together.

Honeymoon Recap: Part II

Another great thing about our resort, was that at their Seaview Terrace lobby bar, they had local music and dancing during happy hour. 

Watching the Hawaiian sunset, drinking mai-tais, and listening to that music is seriously my new happy place. 

 Directly across the ped-mall in downtown Koloa is Josselin's Tapas Bar. This turned out to be one of our top restaurants while on the island. 

They're non-stop sangria service had nothing to do with it, I'm sure...

Joel and I love to have small plates for dinner, because you can try so many more things on the menu - and every dish we had a Josselin's was amazing - and, more live music, which I loved.

Tempura Ahi Roll

Since we were honeymooners at The Grand Hyatt, we got a few fun perks like a free bottle of champagne and a free pool cabana. We decided to upgrade the cabana so that we could be ocean side, and it was so worth it.


We smuggled in our free champagne, had a bunch of mimosa's, took naps, and watched the waves roll in for like 7 hours straight, which was blissful.

A highly recommended restaurant on the island was Beach House.

The views are insane, but since it's pretty popular, the only time we were able to get in was 6:00pm, so the sun was beating down on us hard. 








While we were drinking our wine.......  which, one side note, every time we ordered a bottle of white wine (at many different restaurants) it was never pre-chilled....which I found seriously bizarre.

 

....we experienced our first "Hawaiian Blessing" - which is when the sun is shining and it starts to pour rain. The reason it's a blessing is because it produces rainbows.

We were extra blessed.

That next day, my cousin back home in Chicago was having a very seriously surgery - and I felt like my Aunt Peggy and Papa were popping in to say hi and keep me rest assured that all was going to be okay.




The following day we were up before 6am to head to the north side of the island for a boat tour of the Napoli Coast.

This was on Joel's must-do list for our trip, and although I was initially hesitant, it was one of the coolest thing we did on our trip.


Before we left for the coast, we spotted like 40 spinner dolphins hanging out and feeding. They put on a twenty minute show for us and seriously got the party started.


The napoli coast was so beautiful and our tour guide took us into caves, waterfalls, and volcano sites. 

 Joel was in his heaven.

It was a 6 hour tour, with 3 hours of driving time, so by the time we got back to the hotel we were exhausted. We had an early dinner at the Italian Restaurant Dondero's on the property and were in bed by 9pm.

Which, was perfect.

Honeymoon Recap: I

 Sunday, after the wedding, we were supposed to take a  6:30pm flight from Chicago to LAX, land at 8pm, make a pit stop at home, and then leave the next morning for Hawaii from LAX at 8am.

A few of our California friends were on the some flight, so as we were having a few drinks at an airport restaurant, a huge summer storm rolled through and ended up delay our departure by an hour.

Once we were strapped in and cleared for take-off, a mechanical issue stopped us from taking off and we sat on the runway for another 2.5 hours.

By the time we got home at 1:30 in the morning, I had to do some last minute packing adjustments, Joel had to completely pack, and we made it into bed at 3am, only to wake up 3 hours later.

The  silver lining to this, was it made the flight to Hawaii a breeze because I slept like a rock for all six hours!

 

Once we landed in Kauai we picked up our rental car and made a trip to the grocery store to stock up on some essentials for the 12 days in a hotel. Hawaiian prices are outrageous, but we escaped for about $200 with vodka, beer, chips & salsa, fruit, bagels, peanut butter, bars, and a few other odds and ends. It probably saved us about $500 or more, because we always had breakfast in the room and enjoyed lots of happy hours outside, too.



We stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Kauai, and looking back, it was the best hotel we could have ever stayed in. It had everything and more for us - as you will see...and service, food, amenities, etc. was beyond my expectations.

 Our room was on the ground floor looking at the ocean which was amazing.

 During the day, the hotel would set up a badminton net, boccie ball, and croquet which made for some pretty competitive happy hours.

 The first night we had dinner on the resort at Tidepools.

That new bag I'm holding was a wedding gift from my husband.

The restaurant was all open air and sat directly on a large koi pond.

We ate bread, drank wine, had an amazing ahi poke appetizer, split a piece of fish and indulged in hot chocolate molten concoction that I'm still thinking about...





We were both hesitant about eating on a resort...especially such a big one...because sometime the food can suck, but Tide Pools blew us away. The food - and wine selection - was TOP notch.

The next morning, and most mornings after that, we played an hour's worth of tennis. Joel played tennis in college, and I did in high school, so it's a sport we really enjoy playing together.

Joel is worlds better than me, but by the end of our time there, both of our games improved quite a bit.

Tennis was usually followed up by a beer, lunch by the pool, and lots of reading time. 

The resort has 2 main pools, a huge salt water lagoon (with a sand floor) and a huge lazy river, with waterfalls and a water slide.



 We spent most of our time at the salt water lagoon because while you were in a nice, warm pool - it still felt, sounded, and tasted like the ocean, and we could see the ocean from our seats.

 

The beach that the resort sits on - Shipwreck - is not the safest beach to swim in. Apparently most of Hawaii's beaches are pretty rough, with very strong rip currents, so we were very careful with the beaches we chose - and I'm (or was) a certified life guard myself., A local told us there have been 91 drownings since January, and even as a strong swimmer, the currents were hard to compete against. Just a PSA in case you are going to Kauai soon.

Shipwreck beach is known for cliff jumpers so we watched a few insane idiots jump off, and decided to climb up to see the view too...






The second night, we had our happy hour outside and I bought all the fixings to make my vacation cocktail; absolut vodka, pineapple, splash of cranberry, and a twist of lime. SO beyond good.





We ventured into town for our first dinner off the resort. We ate at Merriman's and I have to say it was our least favorite restaurant of the entire trip. The view was average, the food was below average, the prices were high and our waiter seemed clueless. I would skip it in the future.

However, even when dining at a bad restaurant in Hawaii - you are still dining in HAWAII!

Lots more to come.