Viewing posts in: Hawaii

12 Jan 2017 Travel

Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea

Maui is one of my husband & my favorite destinations in the world. Our first trip in 2014 was our most enjoyable vacation we’ve ever taken & we’ve been dreaming of visiting again ever since! Since moving to LA almost two years ago, we’ve been looking for any excuse to go since it’s such a short flight from here and we finally pulled the trigger for a quick weekend getaway in October for my 30th birthday. This post is SO long overdue but I got pregnant soon after and life has been a whirlwind ever since! Before our lives get flipped completely upside down in 2017 (in the best way possible!), I’m making it a point to backtrack and get all of my remaining 2016 travels up on the blog! *ahem* Can’t fall behind while I’m brainstorming babymoon destinations! 😉

We stayed in the southwest side of the island during both visits – Kihei during our first trip and Wailea this past October. Kihei is a working/beach town so this time around I wanted a more luxurious experience in the gorgeous resort community of Wailea – just south of Kihei. Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea was so generous to host us for my birthday and it was such a wonderful quick trip! I’ve stayed at Four Seasons Resorts around the world and this is the first hotel I’ve experienced with staff that will remember your name every time!

They were undergoing some renovations during our stay and they let us know beforehand that there might be some noise but we honestly didn’t see or hear a thing. I do believe that their renovations are now complete anyways! The friendly staff welcomed us with tropical drinks and fresh leis before we were quickly transferred to our ocean-view room  – where we had even more treats waiting for us! We had a huge fruit and cheese platter that we seriously munched on all weekend lol at one point we were scooping cheese with more cheese it was so good haha!

Since our trip this time was for such a short weekend, we stayed at the resort most of our time (aside from one Road to Hana day of course!). The property is huge and restaurants are so good so if you’re not in the mood to explore the island, there is more than enough to do at the hotel! We had my birthday dinner at Ferraro’s and the food was amazing of course but what I loved most was the atmosphere. It’s located outside and oceanfront so the temperature, sounds, and fresh air are so relaxing! It was already past sunset by the time we made it down for dinner but even without the views, I was loving all the fresh Hawaiian air and the sounds of crashing waves.

The beach and reef are spectacular so even though the Four Seasons has amazing pools, you have to take the couple steps down to the beach. We spent our first afternoon strolling along the shore and playing in the water. The next day we loved our time at the adults-only pool and lounging in our cabana. The friendly service was so quick and the drinks were awesome!

A huge thank you to my husband for such a great birthday while I was moping about turning 30 lol! & to Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea for the lovely stay! Let’s get on with the photos..!

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28 May 2015 Travel

O’ahu Travel Diary, Hawaii Part 2

Aloha my LOVES!!!! Ahhh, you guys are the BEST! Thank you so much for all of the wonderful feedback yesterday on my video and part 1 of this blog-post! I know I keep saying this but I worked so hard on this video, I wanted it to be perfect and interesting for you guys (& helpful for anyone planning a trip!) – so to know that all of these sleepless nights paid off is an amazing amazing feeling. I loveddd reading all the comments from those of you that have trips planned already or are now planning trips because of my episode, to know that you all are actually engaged with the content is incredible. I felt so cheesy recording my voiceovers but I wanted to be super informative and share things that I wish I knew before my trip!

Enough with my rambling though, let’s get on to Part Two of my Hawaiian vacation where we spent a few days on the gorgeous island of O’ahu. Each Hawaiian island is supposed to be completely different in terms of the landscape, culture, and all around vibe. While O’ahu is by far the most modern and Maui is super lush and relaxed, I found O’ahu’s mishmash of modern & utopian to be fascinating. Within very short drives you can see the city’s high rise buildings, lush rainforests, mountains, cliffs, charming towns and villages, gorgeous sandy beaches and crystal blue water. I’ve said this twice already but in my opinion, O’ahu is the absolute perfect way to close out a Hawaiian vacation because it’s a great transition back to city life. I was still living in Chicago when we went on this trip, if we had come back straight from Maui I think the harsh contrast would freak me out LOL! Alrighty, as usual.. I’ll blab as we go 🙂 Enjoy!

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26 May 2015 Travel

Maui Travel Diary, Hawaii Part 1

I completely underestimated how incredible Hawaii would be, in my mind I thought tropical is tropical they’re all the same – I was in the Maldives two weeks prior so I was under the impression that I’ve already set the bar so high on beachy vacations that Hawaii wouldn’t even compare. Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong!!! Hawaii has so many different landscapes and visuals… cities, mountains, rainforests, beaches, the ocean, cliffs. All it takes is a short drive to see all of these things within minutes. Hailing from the FLAT midwest, this completely blew my mind; I couldn’t believe just how beautiful everything is. No question, this trip is my favorite yet, my chest actually felt heavy when we were leaving to come back home after 8 days. I usually feel antsy after a couple days to get back into my routine but this time around I had absolutely no desire. Every island has a completely different look and feel, we only explored Maui and O’ahu but I know we’ll be back asap to experience the remaining six.

You all know that I’m very.. generous with the camera(s) so after narrowing down thousands of photos and hours of footage, this is the final result. A long vlog and a blog-post so long that I had to break it up into two parts after completing, ha! Part one today will be the first leg of our Hawaiian vacation on the lush island of Maui, grab a snack and get comfy – I’ll chat and reminiscence as we go! Part two in O’ahu will be posted tomorrow so don’t forget to check back! xo

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19 Nov 2014 Travel

The Modern Honolulu

Located at the apex of Waikīkī, steps away from everything you could ask for: luxury shopping, yummy dining, the beach, The Modern was a nice change of scenery after our more laid back, slow-paced, stay in Maui. I think it was a nice way to slowly transition back to the hustle and bustle of Chicago. This hotel is known to be the destination for both business travelers and vacationers. We were greeted with lemonade, cool towels, and the most gorgeous leis in the lobby upon checking in, you have to see the broken surfboard art piece hanging above the desk — I didn’t get to snap a photo of it but you can see it creeping in the background of a photo of Waseem and me somewhere below. The art piece was designed by a local surfer, and the surfboards he used are real, broken in action, and signed by all of their riders, how cool! All I wanted during our trip was to get lei’d and I couldn’t stop obsessing over the beautiful ones The Modern adorned us with, I kept moving them around the room (& hung them in our rental car) throughout our entire stay just for photo opps lol. The Modern’s style is very contemporary and clean, it’s extravagant but minimalist at the same time. There are 353 rooms, including 26 oceanfront suites. We stayed in one of the suites and it was simply perfect.

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