Maui's Newest Ritzy Digs

A major renovation at the Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, gives paradise a little extra padding.

Walk through the doors of the newly renovated Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, and you will truly feel as if you’ve passed through the gates of paradise. The open-air lobby, which prominently features richly textured Hawaiian koa wood, looks out over a three-tiered swimming pool lined with tall palm trees. Below the pool deck, a verdant landscape descends to the vast deep blue of the Pacific. The view alone is worth the $180 million spent on the resort’s renovation.

Accommodations

The Ritz-Carlton’s 463 remodeled guest rooms feature dark wood floors, marble bathrooms, flat-screen TVs, Hawaiian-inspired artwork, and private lanais. Guests who stay on the top two floors have the additional benefit of access to the Club Room, where snacks and drinks are available throughout the day—bagels and cereal in the morning, salads and bite-sized sandwiches in the afternoon and evening.

Also, the hotel built 107 residential suites available for vacation rentals. The suites have one- and two-bedroom layouts—the two-bedroom setup, which includes two separate full bathrooms, is especially cushy.

Feeling pampered yet? If not, head down to the new spa. The 17,500-square-foot relaxation palace has outdoor couples cabanas, a yoga studio, and treatment rooms that open onto private shower gardens. Treatments include Hawaiian Lomi Lomi massage, a powerful yet gentle method inspired by traditional Hawaiian concepts of mind, body, and spirit.

Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, 1 Ritz-Carlton Dr., Kapalua, rooms starting from $395–$1,300, (808) 669-6200, www.ritzcarlton.com.

Restaurants

The Ritz takes advantage of Maui’s impeccable weather with several open-air restaurants and bars. From the lobby, make an immediate right, and enjoy a mai tai at the Alaloa Lounge. Sitting at the onyx bar, drink in hand, staring at the black lava stone wall, you’ll feel like Tom Hanks in Joe Versus the Volcano (the part about living like a king, not the part about being inexplicably in love with Meg Ryan). Or, take a left, and have a seat at the Kai Sushi Restaurant for fresh-out-of-the-water fish. We loved the melt-in-your-mouth maguro and the ahi salad drizzled with tangy ponzu sauce.

Open-air dining is also the modus operandi down by the pool, at the hotel’s flagship restaurant, the Banyan Tree. Chef Ryan Urig emphasizes local and seasonal ingredients, and his menu is loaded with seafood and vegetarian dishes. A good way to experience a variety of tastes is to order a pupu platter (a far cry from the deep-fried plates we see on the mainland): Manila clams in a miso sauce were spectacular, hearts of palm bruschetta were mouthwateringly crisp, and mushrooms served two ways (carpaccio and tempura) complemented each other perfectly.

If you want to leave the resort for a meal, especially a waistline-expanding feast, we can’t recommend the Feast at Lele highly enough. Located at the southern end of Lahaina’s touristy Front Street, this luau is known for its outstanding food. Servers bring courses that take their inspiration from Hawaii, New Zealand, and Samoa as performers entertain with traditional Polynesian dances, all in an oceanfront setting that affords a view of the sun setting over the island of Lanai.

Feast at Lele, 505 Front St., Lahaina, $110 per person, (866) 244-5353, www.feastatlele.com.

Activities

The most popular activity at Kapalua is golf. The resort is home to the Hale Irwin–designed Kapalua Golf Academy, the Arnold Palmer–designed Bay Course, and the Ben Crenshaw–designed Plantation Course, which hosts an annual PGA Tour event, the Mercedes-Benz Championship, in January.
Of course, there are multiple beach options. Relax directly below the hotel on D.T. Fleming Beach with cocktails and café-style eats from the Ritz’s Beach House restaurant. Or, take a short shuttle ride to the impeccable white sand of Kapalua Bay Beach. Rent snorkeling gear for a mere $7 an hour, and while away a morning exploring a reef swarming with a kaleidoscopic variety of tropical fish.

Those in search of a slightly offbeat experience minutes from the resort can check out the Maui Gold Pineapple Tour. The land on which the Kapalua Resort is built was all once a pineapple plantation, and a functional farm still sits just up the hill from the Ritz. The tour bus ride is rather bumpy, but you’ll learn a bunch of interesting tidbits (for instance, an expert worker can plant 12,000 pineapple plants in an eight-hour shift), and you’ll get to sample the sweetest, juiciest pineapple you’ll ever taste. You can even pick your own to take home.

Maui Gold Pineapple Tour, $32–$65, (808) 665-5491, www.mauipineapple.com.

For those looking to experience more of the natural beauty of Hawaii, Hike Maui offers great opportunities for ecotourism. Tours range from short waterfall hikes to daylong excursions on 10,000-foot-high Mount Haleakala. On our six and a half hour tour, we met Aaron, a friendly and knowledgeable guide who took us kayaking in the ocean—where we saw several breaching humpback whales—and then led us to a reef where we snorkeled with Hawaiian green sea turtles. Back on shore, our next guide, Kahi, a jovial native of Maui who seemed to know everything about local culture and ecology, took us on a hike to several waterfalls. The hike was especially fun for those willing to jump in the falls and get wet.

Hike Maui, $75–$154, (866) 324-6284, www.hikemaui.com.