Here a few impressions of our Maui trip:

As we drove from the airport to our resort on the  west end of the island, I was a bit shocked to see the land from highway 30 inward to be dry, almost desert looking while the resorts, hotels, residential and commercial properties that typically occupied the space between the highway and the sea were green, even lush in composition at times.

You can feel rain droplets coming down upon you but when you look up to find the offending cloud, only small white innocent puffs of white might appear.  We surmise that the rather strong trade winds carry the rain drops from long distances.  This was not a fluke occurrence but quite common.  I just loved this effect except tying to keep my digital still camera dry.

ABC Stores are all over the island.  We found this a terrific place to buy food and clothing items.  I found shirts and hats at very good prices.  http://www.abcstores.com/about.htm

The Safeway in Lahaina is a very good place to buy food and drink.  We took our dinner back to out room one night.

The airport at Maui is really nice.   It seems to be well planned layout, has a quiet interior and comfortable ambiance.  Problem is, the maintenance is falling behind.  We could not understand any of the voice announcements made over the public address.  Some items were marked as being broken, like a belt walkway.  The island is short of water but the faucets in the rest rooms would run way past the time anyone needed the water.

The opportunities for photo images is most impressive in two ways.  For any given measured amount of space on the island, you get many more chances to take interesting shots.  Time is also a factor.  One can stand in one small space on the island and over a short period of time the chances to take a shot that did NOT exist before presents itself.   Nature always seems to be changing on this island, especially the clouds.  Yellowstone comes close to beating out Maui for the number of opportunities for a given space and in some instances time.   My point is this, if photography is one of your hobbies, you must bring a good camera to this island.

Our daughter picked the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa for our stay using the AAA guide for Hawaii.   She did good.  This place is not cheap.   The AAA guide showed four diamonds.  My wife found a good package using Expedia.  We recommend this resort for a whole list of reasons.

The AAA guide, was most useless on for our stay once on the island.? We recommend the guide for picking out the places to say.  I would rip out the pages for restaurants to save size and weight.  The book that was most helpful was Maui Revealed by Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman, a Wizard Publication.

The AAA map we picked up prior to the trip, we seldom used.   The map we always used, we were given by the resort concierge called Maui Driving Map.   I think the proper web site is here for the Internet version: http://www.mauidrivingmaps.com/
This map is so well laid out, tells you so much, it rocks!

If you want a discounted price for the Road to Hana CD, call or stop by Boss Frogs Dive and Surf.  They have a couple of stores on the west side of the island.  I got my CD for $10.67.  This is also a good place to rent snorkeling gear, beach chairs, and umbrellas.  They offer 3 grades of masks and breathing.  We paid $31.20 for the top grade and weeks use.  Beach chair rate for a week was $10.42.  A float belt cost $15.62 for one week.   Note that these prices are only for reference and can change.   http://www.bossfrog.com/