On our two cruises we spent lots of time in Maui. It was the last port before Cruise #1 ended in Honolulu, and we had an overnight stay there as our first port call on Cruise #2. As a result I’ll divide our experience in Maui into two posts.
We started all our Maui experiences in the port of Lahaina.
The first thing we noticed when we arrived at our tendering location was how dry everything looked ashore. It came a quite a surprise after the the lush greenery we saw in Tahiti. Later we learned that Lahaina is on the Kona (dry) side of the island. Our guide joked that Lahaina is Hawaiian for “more sunscreen.” At one time most of the land around Lahaina was used to grow sugar cane so when it was under irrigation from the mountains it was probably much greener.
Here’s the Lahaina tender port. A whole lot of surfin’s goin’ on not far from here.
Lahaina was at one time a whaler port, then a sugar cane processing town. Now it is a tourist mecca – a bit like Carmel CA and a bit like Key West FL but with a vibe that’s uniquely Hawaiian.
Nice view from the other side of the main street.
There are lots of historic buildings like the former Seamen’s Hospital.
Some pretty nice oceanside homes as well.
If you want to have a meeting point for your friends, tell them come to the Banyan Tree. You can’t miss it.
Pretty nice shopping mall if you ask me.
It’s a bit off the beaten path but we made a visit to the former Pioneer Mill sugar processing site. It was redeveloped as an outdoor museum after the mill closed in 1999.
Here’s the big smokestack for the mill’s power plant, erected in 1928 and preserved in 2010.
And here’s one of the steam locomotives that pulled the sugar cane to the mill. This one is from 1898 and recently was completely restored and installed at the site. It served the mill for more than 50 years.
That’s our story about Lahaina on the leeward side of the Island of Maui. Later on, we took a tour over to the Iao Valley on the windward side but that’s another post.