October 31st, 2022
Finally, it was Halloween! The main theme for this trip was Halloween. We toured around California sampling all the best Halloween events the state has to offer, as you can read about in the first part of this blog. Finally, the actual big day had come and we were in possibly the least Halloweeny places imaginable. Hawaii.
Halloween always conjures up images of brown leaves, pumpkins, toffee apples, and all things fall. Maui just doesn’t have seasons like that, sure some plumeria were heading towards a winter snooze but it’s not the same as the full autumnal colors of a temperate climate. Most plants and trees were still in full bloom! However, Lahaina is (was) actually very well known for holding one of the biggest Halloween festivals in the Pacific! Known as the Mardi Gras of the Pacific Halloween is a big event out here. More on this later, and more on the current situation after the fires
Seahouse – Breakfast
For breakfast, we decided to head over to the Seahouse again. We had not been here for breakfast before as their menu was never very appealing, but it’s had an overhaul and there were some really good-looking options on the menu so we went to give it a whirl. We walked out around Napili Point and then along the beach, which must be one of the most stunning walks to breakfast imaginable. We spotted several turtles in the shallows along the way.
We got seated almost immediately but were struggling slightly with the gaps in the sunshades and the direct sun beaming down. It was still early so we had skipped sunblock for the time being and this was proving a mistake!
I went for the Banna Bread French Toast with Hawaiian vanilla custard + fresh blueberry compote + Chambord whipped cream which was pretty awesome, maybe not quite as good as it sounded, but then nothing could be as good as that sounded! Kate went for the Corned Beef hash which was exceptionally good. This is my go-to order and tbh I was pretty jealous as it was so good!
Overall breakfast was excellent, and the food is always good here, but dining on the balcony overlooking the ocean is pretty unbeatable. The perfect last morning in Napili.
Relaxing and Packing
The rest of the morning was largely spent packing and organizing ready for an early dart tomorrow morning. This was naturally interesting with some sunbathing and general downtime.
This is the time when on a normal trip for us, we would have done something. Packed another activity in and got maximum value from our time. But this was meant to be a part vacation, so we just did nothing. And it was bliss!
Final Swim
We decided to head over to the pool for a bit, and as we took in the sun, I got hot and decided to take a dip. I had not actually been to the pool here yet and as I stood about to jump in I realized why…the “BIG pool” is just 100ft over there, and is filled with fish and turtles. So I decided to skip the small concrete pond and take another swim with the turtles.
There was nothing really to report. It was just the regular amazing coral, teeming with fish and 10-12 Sea Turtles, just your average day in Honokeana.
After this, it was getting time to get ready for Halloween! We were going to repurpose our costumes from Disney, but in the end, decided to go as American Tourists to Hawaii. We still have the Lei’s from the Luau and the Convertable Mustang, so we had all the garb, so went with this. TBH it was a bad choice. It was just a bit too subtle, and there were a lot of real American tourists in town who didn’t get this look was ironic.
Some people got it, but most just thought we were American tourists…
We had taken the decision to drive into town. We had Uber-ed in the last few nights and just didn’t fancy another $50 Uber bill ($25ish each way). This meant sacrificing one element of the evening, drinking, which is definitely part of Lahaina’s Halloween, but really we had been doing plenty of that already and we did have a long day tomorrow, so a dry night wouldn’t hurt.
Lahaina Halloween
NOTE – It is pretty much unbelievable to us, that merely a year later, Lahaina is gone. Not just the Halloween Parade, but the whole town. Burned to the ground in a few minutes the Lahaina fire is so unbelievably devastating, just opening up this post to Edit It, in order to note the devastation now, has brought floods of tears to our eyes. We can’t believe it’s gone…but it has.
The Main event for the evening is the Keiki Parade, The parade closes off Front Street for an hour or so as the floats pass through and people toss candy at the kids. After the parade, the streets reopen and the more adult part of the celebration takes over.
The event has been a little stressed for the last two years, to put it mildly, as the pandemic kept the islands largely closed, but things are back up and running this year, and while there is no official event planned apart from the Keiki parade. It was pretty obvious a lot of people were planning on descending on Front Street.
We struggled with parking, and in the end, parked up at Safeway and walked into the town. Front Street was closed off when we arrived and every (free) lot was completely rammed. So we headed away from the center. By the time we had walked in we just caught the end of the parade and then there was a lull in proceedings.
Lahaina Sailing Club
Note – The Sailing club was burned to the ground in the Fires…
The first stop for us was the Lahaina Sailing Club. We had been given a guest pass by our Condo owners, partly as an apology for the building works issue, but mainly as they were just nice.
We had never been to the club before as it is Members only, so didn’t really know what to expect. But it can get pretty manic on Halloween down on Front street so we thought having a bolt hole might be a good idea.
Overall it wasn’t what we expected. We guess by now if you don’t know what the Lahaina Sailing Club is, you probably have an image in your mind. Upmarket, Refined, Civilized, expensive. It was actually none of those things. It felt more like a working man’s club, only filled with old white people. It was pretty raucous and looked set to get worse. As we were not drinking we didn’t stay too long and instead headed out to see the real Lahaina at Halloween.
By now the streets were rammed, the sidewalks filled with thousands of costumed revelers just having fun and enjoying the festivities. There was nothing really organized just people roaming the streets checking out each other costumes. There was a kind of unofficial parade going on constantly down Front street with various cars, all decorated for the event cruising through the town, often with music blaring. It was really good fun and just wandered around taking it all in.
Cheeseburger in Paradise
Note – Cheeseburger in Paradise was burned to the ground in the Fires…
We also wanted to head to one of our other traditional haunts in Lahaina, Cheeseburger in Paradise. We know this has a tourist rep, but we always come here and always have, so we don’t really care about its rep.
The restaurant was VERY busy. The host was very unwilling to give any timeframe on how long until we could be seated. They just took our number and said to hang around. Overall it was about a 45-minute wait, but we were just wandering the street enjoying Halloween.
Kate had the classic Cheeseburger in Paradise and I went for the excellent Buffalo Blue Burger. They are really good burgers and the atmosphere was really good. We normally demand a window seat overlooking the ocean, but tonight we got the other side so we could watch the madness going on outside!
After dinner, we spent a little longer on the streets before we headed off to grab the car. We had come as tourists so thought we would join in with the parade and cruise through town with the top down, the car adorned in Leis, and strong tourist vibes. Our costumes seemed to come across better like this!
We called it a night pretty early as we were not drinking. The party surely went on to the wee hours as there were thousands of people in town and the mood was getting more and more energetic. There were lots of loud parties raging in all the bars, and things were probably just getting going when we left.
But we had done our reveling for now and were happy to get to bed and then start the next phase of the Maui leg of this trip. Hana…
Maui Fires Update
We just wanted to add a note to this as a memorial that the fires that swept Maui in August 2023 have all but erased most of the establishments and events in this post. We know Maui will rebuild. But we still cry with them as we approach one of the best nights in the year in Lahaina that is sadly no more.