It’s what you’re supposed to do when you go to Hawaii – go to a luau.
We opted for the Marriot’s Honua’ula Luau.
This is not your traveling businessman’s Marriot. First of all, it’s huge. It’s a resort. There are pools (and about a million pool boys,) cocktail stands all around, and that clean starched feeling that you can only get when there’s a multitude of hired helpers waiting in the wings to pick up after folks.
Reservations
We’d bought our tickets online through a discount ticket website, and we arrived to find we weren’t on the list. Alizza Veloonis was though. And she had the same confirmation number as we did, so we took that reservation. (Seriously, we purchased these tickets online – someone then picked up the phone and read – and butchered my name in the process – the reservation to the folks at the Marriot?)
Seating
We’d opted for premium seating, and got some awesome seats at the table just in front of the stage. Our table-mates (it’s sort of like a cruise… you make new friends whether you want to or not…) were nice, a recently married couple who lived apart – he in Maui and she in Arizona, and some advertising folks there on conference (hello, can we get a conference in Maui please?) There were two other couples at the table, one was British (assuming from the accent), and one other Asian couple that filmed the whole entire thing. Are they really going to go home and watch it again? The British woman spoke to the other couple in an Asian language, and none of the 4 spoke to the rest of us. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the British woman’s husband (assuming, again) didn’t say a single word the whole entire time. He was having a ball, apparently.
Food and Show
The food was ok… very salty, but that’s to be expected. I had my first Mai Tai. Still not a rum drinker.
The show was good… what you’d expect. The best part was the fire performance near the end. It was pretty fantastic.
I think one luau in my lifetime is enough. I wouldn’t mind going back, but it wouldn’t be at the top of my list. If we did another, I’d like to check out a different one… we did get a glimpse of one in Lahaina one night as we ate dinner a few restaurants down the beach.
Would we recommend this to a friend? Sure. Would we insist they make this a part of thier Maui trip? Maybe not.
