Where to Stay on Maui, Hawaii: Wailea vs Kaanapali | How to Pick the Place Right for You

How nice here, do you like Wailea or Kanapali better? Town Hall Do you like Twilio better? We're doing this as battle points to see which whip

place

ment is best and this is all tongue-in-cheek, like it really depends on your personal preference. Everyone has their favorites on this, but it's a good overview of these two tourist areas so you know

where

you want to book a hotel or if it's worth

stay

ing some

where

like somewhere a little more luxurious. Let's get our bearings first. Where are these

place

s located on Maui? So Nepali is located in West Maui. It is a resort area built in the 1960s.

It is located on a three-mile stretch of golden sand beach. Gold sand. White sand. It is a beautiful beach. Keep going up until the end. the coast now the vibe here is definitely a little lively some would say it's busy and it's a lot of fun it's kind of Bali it's 10 minutes from downtown Lahaina in 45 minutes from OGG or Kahului airport while Leia is located in south Maui, so down Here you are about 25 minutes from the airport or just a 10 minute drive from Kihei. It was developed in the 1970s and is home to the luxury of Maui's luxury resorts and the atmosphere here is a little more calm, relaxed and luxurious.

It's raining on us but the beach is empty. We are going to divide this tournament into seven stages. Stage number one. The climate is so both Kaanapali and Wailea are island light, meaning you can expect much sunnier skies and drier weather. Be clear that these are the places where you'll find the best weather, so when trying to declare a winner for weather, it's a little tricky to compare the two. Wailea is drier and warmer than Ka'anapali, so if you really want the absolute best chance of having sunny skies and good weather. Wailea technically wins, but one thing I feel like you won't find in the cards is that it's very windy, so this is kind of our opinion, which we've noticed when we're down.

We are quite low down there, we feel the trade wind action a lot more in the afternoon, so we experience a little more windward down there, it could ruin your beach day, maybe it's not up to you, so aim here for Wailea. for better weather, okay, number two, we have the

right

beaches and in my opinion these are very different between the two, well, first, you got caught in a poly, you have three miles of beach, you have like a big beach that goes to the end. Crossing it has been in the news recently due to the extensive erosion affecting it, but it's still a great beach to sit on, it's really nice.

Wailea is very different, you have these layers of lava and you have them separated into different beaches and they are separated by like a lava rock, so you have Ulua Beach, Wailea Beach and Polo Beach. You continue down the coast to Maluaka and then the large beach. McKenna and Kaanapali just don't have the big beach, but they do have other great beaches nearby. Mileage northwest. We have napili Kapalua. You have amazing snorkeling there, these are beautiful beaches and they are 10-15 minutes up the road, it's really convenient, so the point here is kind of a Bali summer, while Leia gets more swells from the south, those are waves bigger.

The rougher water makes it a little more dangerous to get in the water, doesn't mean you can't just check the lifeguard flags before you get out, but during the winter in Northwest Maui bigger waves can also come in, so that It's a push, but oh well. so you know for safety when you go during those times of year always check with lifeguards check ocean conditions before you go in yeah winning just don't go out number three it costs so where do you get the best bang for your buck money? these two areas and we have some data for you, so the Hawaii Tourism Authority attracts average daily rates for hotels, so we were able to determine that we are using data from June 2022, so that is the peak summer season, so Wailea prices for a hotel in Wailea, the average daily rate was $1025.

Wow, in Kaanapali the average daily rate was 579, so Wailea was almost double what the poly rate is, so if you're looking for a bear price, Kaanapali wins. Katana Poly has hotels with much more value and still has four star hotels there Inca in a poly, but it has a better selection of lower cost options for you, it's great. I mean, why is Leia so expensive, it's ranked as the third highest sun and sea destination in the world, as is Maui, but Maui's High because Wailea is cost averaged, so I mean, literally, Wiley is one of the most expensive places to

stay

in the world during a beach vacation.

I mean, you have all the Luxury Resorts, you know why I let that price go up so the cost points go to Canada. but I will say that those luxury resorts are the reason I like it so much Leah, number four, we have activities for you, these are things to do in the area, we debated this one a lot and there are great activities in both places, but we like plus the napali because you have a Lahaina and you get boat tours that leave directly from Kaanapali beach, so first for Lahaina you have the port of Lahaina, a lot of tours leave there and you also have unique things like the Atlanta submarine The Reef Dancer that reef tours and farm tours on that side of the islands, all very close, you can fill it up, that's why you should check out our itineraries.

We have all these great excursion days all over Maui in West Maui. The day is one of our personal favorites, yes, now Wailea, you still have I like the great tours in the area, but most of the time you have to drive to ma'alaya, the port, to get out. They don't have any that leave the beach, except our favorite Kai Kanani. We love doing their circles and they leave directly from Malawaka Beach. it's a beach load and it's great because it's

right

in Wailea Gaana Poly has beach loads like you mentioned they have a bunch that go there we like to go from Lahaina port we think it's a little better price but they met me for convenience. and hang out in Kaanapali at your Resort and just walk right to the ship and go on a historic trip, yeah, or a sunset cruise, whatever you want to do, it's a lot of fun, so point four, the activities are for this guy, point number five, restaurants, where are you going? eat when you're here which place has better food for a fair we feel very good about the restaurants in Mylanta and in Kaanapali.

The restaurants in those two places are pretty good and pretty uniform yes, yes, it's just now that we don't like them, nothing excites us. We talk too much about them, yeah, they're good, they're good places to go and it's pretty even. I feel like between those two, we had to figure out how to really make a point here, so we incorporated the broader surrounding areas. Kaanapali Lahaina, there are so many good restaurants in Lahaina you have great breakfast places in the morning and then great lunch places and then happy hour and boom, dinner right there, like Lahaina Grill was rated one of the best restaurants in the country by TripAdvisor Fleetwoods yeah, Merriman is in Napili like there's only Star Noodle, you have a lot of great options to choose from and you're like down the street from Kaanapali, you can hop in and Uber

pick

s up your cab and that's it.

Lahaina at night, why Leia and Kihei too Kihei has great restaurants that we love. Havens Havens is great, they have great food truck parks, they have South Maui Gardens which is really pretty and they have my favorite coffee shop besides my coffee in Wailea so they have really great options but unfortunately the advantage here points to the good Wailea is that you find yourself on the boardwalk quite often, it's not a bad place to be. There are two left, these are probably the most important ones for a lot of people. The cost is also huge, don't get me wrong, but why pay all that money?

It's for these two reasons here, first, the crowd, this is where Wailea is going to win. I'm just going to spoil her with this great point for a while playing in the crowd, Erica has the data, yeah, so we've always said why Leia feels calmer, there aren't that many resorts, there are some vacation rentals, but no. as many as you'll find in a poly and now we have the data for this so again from the Hawaii Tourism Authority we looked at nightly demand for hotel rooms for June 2022 and Wailea had 56,000 hotel rooms booked and Kaanapali had 154,000 hotel rooms booked in June 2022, that is, almost three times.

There are more people in Nepali and you can feel it. The busier Whalers Village on the boardwalk gets busier at night, there are a lot of people around and the Resort is a little more crowded, so you don't have these sprawling grounds like in Wailea. Wailea Beach Resort is huge. I forget about the area, maybe like 30 acres, but it's big and even though it's a big resort, it doesn't feel that crowded, you don't run into people, yeah, like we said, big spot here for the crowds. We are paying more money for Wailea and this is one of the big benefits of paying that money: you can have a nice, quiet, relaxing vacation, so the Point goes too and that feeds directly into the Resorts.

This is the most important between the two locations, so Wailea. Resorts Erica and Henry love these Resorts, you have great ones for kids, you have romantic ones, we had a beautiful babymoon at the Wailea Hotel and then we do stays in Wailea like at Wailea Beach Resort and Grand Wailea because of the fantastic pools. yeah, some of the best pools in all of Hawaii, you have the Grand Wailea, you have this huge cool complex of water slides and a lazy river, the other White Lady Beach Resort, you have these huge water slides, it's so much fun, the Nollywood Adventure pool, we spent a day and a half just in that pool it was so good these resorts are just stunning we have created so many special memories yes Wale is full of great resorts watch our other video about Maui Luxury Resorts and you will be able to see many of them in that video, so Kaanapali also has a great place to stay.

You have the Hyatt, you have the Westin, which is our favorite because they also have a great pool for you and as a great value hotel, you have the friendly Nepalese beach. hotel that is the most Hawaiian hotel on Maui and I think they have great activities it has a great Hawaii feel which hotels have the best pools because it has a lazy life for oh The Lazy River at Grand Wailea a smart kid so the final points, I mean, we were playing for fun, which is what losers say, who won this one. I lost the Atlantis reef dancer battle, but kahanapali beats you just the cost, the weather, you know, it doesn't win in every category, but that's why we. like her, that's why I like it, yes, Erica loves Wailea, if you can splurge and really want to have that nice special luxury experience.

Wailea is a place for you to visit and if you want to dig deeper, where are you staying, what hotel? vacation rental, what are you going to book? We have reviews for you so head over to

hawaii

vacationguide.com where to stay and you will have our new vacation rental and hotel directory, there you will find our new hotel and vacation rental directory and it will give you reviews and details of all the places to stay. we have stayed and we enjoyed it very much thank you for seeing us, thank you, welcome