Heavenly Spa at Westin Maui

Aloha.

I've been living in the Chicagoland area for some time now, and I know how the weather effects me. One way to unwind after a long work week is going to the spa. Unfortunately I haven't gone to one since my last trip to Maui, last April.

Once a year for the past three years Kris and I have gone to Maui, and stayed at the Sheraton Maui Resort, in Kaanapali. One of the activities I look forward to do is going to the spa. "Heavenly Spa," by Westin is located at the Westin Maui Resort, located in Kaanapali.

In my opinion there is nothing more relaxing than going to the spa and getting pampered. You walk in and you have a beautiful view overlooking Kaanapali Beach, and the shoreline. This is my second time to the spa at the Westin. Last year I had my first facial, and my first massage, the 25 minute Cabana massage. I enjoyed it so much I treated myself to what was called the Custom Day package, "Two Dream". It consisted of a 50 minute full body massage with a feathery touch of Westin's specialty oil blends. It was fully energetic and rejuvinating. For the second choice, I had the Westin Heavenly facial. It was a facial treatment that utilizes an active blend of fruit enzymes, and hydroxy acid to clarify my skin. The whole massage and facial treatment was worth it.

The Sheraton Maui Resort is suppose to open their Spa at Black Rock this fall. I'll let you know where, and which location is better when we go to Maui in February.

Mahalo,

Cindy.

New Spa Coming Soon to the Sheraton Maui Resort

Spotted this little piece of news over the weekend while looking at rates for the Sheraton Maui Resort for our upcoming trip in February.

Spa at Black Rock Opening Soon

The spa at the Sheraton had been closed for a few years during this renovation, so Cindy has been going over to the Westin Maui Spa instead. Now, come February, she'll either have to make a choice to try out the new Black Rock Spa or do both.

There weren't many details available yet about the new spa opening at the Sheraton, except for the fact that it's going to be the entire first floor of the Hale Nalu building at the resort. We're there every year, so we know that's a big building, but you can see for yourself on their property map.

On a side note if you're looking at the map, we always stay in the Hale Moana building all the way on the left. It's usually a safe distance from all the keiki in the Hale Ohana building. :)

Hale Moana building at the Sheraton Maui Resort

Monday, Week 2

Aloha,

It's our second Monday on Maui this trip, and Cindy is getting ready for her spa day at the Westin. Normally, she likes to jump right to the spa in the first couple of days, but this year, her silly husband booked almost all of our activities the first week, so it was delayed just a little. She still enjoys it, though (and she certainly deserves it).

As for me, I'm just working on some of my homework for my digital photography class and trying to come up with a few more good poster-quality photos while we're here this year.

Yesterday was a little slow, which most of this last week will be. The focus now is really on unwinding and relaxing before we have to head home to our stressful jobs. Speaking of stress, I must have spent 3 hours yesterday trying to save my whale watching videos in a file format that YouTube wouldn't absolutely destroy the quality of. At this point, I haven't had any success, but will keep trying.

We went to the new Outback Steakhouse last night across from the Lahaina Cannery Mall, which was somewhat of a taste we're used to back home. They've only been open for 7 days, so the service still needs a little bit of work. It was quite a bit of food, though, so no one went home hungry.

Last night, the clouds did stay away long enough for Cindy and I to lug all my gear down to the beach. I tried taking a few photos of the the stars, but it wasn't long before than giant full moon came in and had plans of it's own. We were down their pretty early, too, relatively speaking. It was about 8pm, so the torches on Black Rock were still lit, and many of the rooms at the Sheraton still had their lights on, so it wasn't the ideal conditions we had last September.

Either way, we just put the camera away and took out the binoculars instead. Using my handy little PDA and a very cool little piece of software called Pocket Stars, I spent the next hour playing tour guide and astronomy teacher with Cindy. It was a pretty entertaining and productive night for the most part as the clouds stayed over the mountains where they belong. We ended up finding both Saturn and Mars, saw Orion, Gemini, Leo and parts of Taurus, just to name a few. Gaging her interest and her willingness to listen to me ramble on and on, I think tomorrow's Tour of the Stars at the Hyatt is going to be just as much fun for her as it will be for me. That is, if it doesn't get canceled again.

Really not much else to report at the moment. Not as exciting to blog about, but still worth it's wait in gold being out here and not having a care in the world.

Mahalo.

Spas, Stores and Stars

Aloha,

Tuesday in Maui was pretty relaxing and low key, with us just hanging out locally and not having to drive anywhere.

Cindy's day began after breakfast with her spa day at the Westin Heavenly Spa. After dropping her off, I took some photos of the Westin and along the beach before stopping at Whalers to pick up a few things. My day of relaxing was hanging out at the hotel, shooting video of the sea turtles from our lanai, and working on the website.

When Cindy called me on her way back from the spa, she sounded a lot chipper and energized, so I think the spa treatment is probably something she'll be adding to her regular regime back on the mainland. She was trying to talk me into going next week, but right now, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.

A light lunch was next at the Lagoon Bar, only really consisting of nachos and some pineapple wedges (nice combo, eh?). We didn't stray too far from the beach because we were heading out to Leilani's for dinner, which was around 6:30pm. The sun set while we were waiting for our food, and we got to watch about two dozen people scramble for position along the grass lawn outside of Whalers Village to snap a picture of the sun just over the horizon. We enjoyed it just fine from where we were.

We finished our ono eats at Leilani's a little after 7pm or so, and enjoyed a nice stroll on the beach all the way back to Black Rock. It was nice taking our time and teasing the waves as they ran up the sand. As much as I tried, however, I could not get any good shots of the torches lit on Black Rock with just my camera and no tripod, so that will have to wait for another night this week.

As we were watching the sunset, the clouds started to roll in over Moloka'i and we thought for sure that the stars would not be out to play tonight. Luckily, we were wrong, and they were just as incredible as the night before.

And my luck didn't stop there, as far as the stars were concerned. Not having any success with photographing the stars on Monday, I went back to look at some of the photos I took of the stars last year on my laptop. Man, do I love technology, because all the camera settings that I used to take those photos last year were all saved in the photo files themselves, so I was able to dial in my Canon and point my tripod to the sky once again.

That's where I came out big. I must have gotten over twenty good shots of the stars from all different parts of the sky. Most of them were 30 second exposures, so you can pretty much guess how long I was out there. :) My next task is to try to identify have those stars and constellations after I post them on Flickr and make them available here. That's my kind of homework.

That pretty much wrapped out our Tuesday for this week.