7/31 - Arriving in Kauai

Very behind on posts - having a great time and too tired at the end of the day, but if I don't keep up with it, I won't even remember what we did. Each day in paradise melting into the next!!

As me and the kids were waiting to collect our luggage after the flight, Mike was picking up the rental car. The kids have been asking if we are ever going to get the Mustang convertible, since that seems to be the rental car of choice in Hawaii. I told them we would never be able to fit all the luggage! Never say never to a Baxendell... where there is a will, there is a way, and so with 7 suitcases, this was our 20 minute ride from the airport to the hotel:

Hilarious! And funny, and embarrassing all at the same time. YOLO!

Upon arriving at the Hyatt resort in Poipu beach, we all got leid for the first time since being in Hawaii. It was a touching welcome, all jokes aside!

OMG! I thought the Hilton was amazing, this place is 10x more amazing! The pools and property are unbelievable - beautifully landscaped and maintained. Thankfully it is not as spread out as the Hilton was, with it's tram and boat ride to take you around the property. It's much more relaxed and sophisticated, and doesn't have the Disney World-ish feel that the Hilton had (thankfully!) This is the view out of our ground room terrace, which we can walk right out to the adult pool.

Random views of the property:

There are basically two areas for swimming, an upper area and a lower area, but you can get to the lower area by using the big water slide. The upper area has a lazy river with two small grotto water fall areas. All of the pools have their own little lagoons that you can nestle into. The lower pool is bigger, and called the 'action' pool because you can play basketball and volleyball. There is also a little hot tub island in the middle.

 

Aside from the maze of pools, the resort has their own salt water lagoon and sand beach. The resort fronts Shipwreck beach, which has amazing waves and views of a cliff that people are crazy enough to jump off of. We have yet to make our way up to it, but we will! I place my bets that Mike jumps off...

After ooogling over the property, we headed to the shops at Kukui'ula and had dinner at a tiny fish restaurant called Savage Shrimp. They started out as a shrimp truck, and opened up a tiny restaurant at the shopping village. When you are done eating, you are encouraged to sign the walls, which naturally the kids did. They don't sell alcohol, so you could go to the market within the shops any BYOB, which everyone did and thought was pretty cool. Our meal was amazing - they make all kinds of shrimp scampi. I had ono fish tacos with a fruit salsa that rivals Mike's homemade salsa - they were delish! Austin had Grasshopper shrimp, which he put tons of hot sauce on and then regretted it... Emma had fried shrimp, and Mike had... shrimp! We all left stuffed.

 

But that didn't stop us from having an amazing ice cream at Lappert's Ice Cream and Bakery - the Starbucks of ice cream and coffee in Hawaii. I had the Kaui Pie flavor - Kona coffee ice cream swirled with chocolate fudge, coconut flakes, macadamia nuts and vanilla cake crunch. To DIE for! The best coffee flavored ice cream I have ever had - to fakey or overpowering coffee flavor here! Austin has been dying to get back ever since he had a peanut butter sunday with brownie chunks.