Kāʻanapali, Maui's Coastal Playground

From its lūʻau lawns to its golf tees, Kāʻanapali is fit, trim and manicured, a playground for all tastes. Its hotels line a 3-mile coastline with premier accommodations, gourmet dining rooms, lagoons with swans and exotic waterfowl, art treasures in improbable places, and vast landscapes and waterscapes that elicit shrieks of excitement from the mega-pools and thrill slides. Favored by the Hawaiians of old, Kāʻanapali has maintained its playful spirit with more modern enhancements: catamarans, outrigger canoes, boogie boards, surfboards, snorkel and dive gear, and more.

In ancient times, the rulers of Maui savored Kāʻanapali as their royal retreat and playground. They liked the perfect stretch of white sand beach, the gentle waves, the ideal weather, and the broad swatch of green that swept up the slopes of the rainbow-laced Mauna Kahālāwai, the West Maui Mountains. Maui's "royals" surfed, raced their canoes, feted at lūʻau lasting for weeks, and, where the Kāʻanapali Golf Courses now blanket the land, they played ʻulu maika, a form of lawn bowling using stones.

Kāʻanapali was Hawaiʻi's first master-planned resort and has become a model for resorts around the world. The hotels and condominiums offer the gamut of experiences, from soaring marble lobbies to beachside bungalows. All are planted in a 1,200-acre enclave amid lavish gardens along the beach and golf courses. A perfect three-mile stretch of white sand invites you to experience every imaginable water sport. Kāʻanapali Beach is ranked among the world's best reaches, with good reason. In its center is Whalers Village, an open air, world-class shopping complex complete with a whaling museum.

The shops, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, activity centers and golf courses, as well as Lāhaina town, are all connected by shuttle transportation. Children and adults are invariably thrilled by the Lāhaina-Kāʻanapali and Pacific Railroad, a restored sugarcane train pulled by a vintage steam locomotive. Chugging through former sugarcane fields between Kāʻanapali and Lāhaina, it evokes the plantation era of West Maui.

Having hosted many of the best players in the world, the name Kāʻanapali has always been synonymous with golf. It began back in 1962 when the Royal Kāʻanapali Golf Course opened with none other than Bing Crosby doing the honors. Shell's Wonderful World of Golf was held here in 1963, and a year later, the formidable U.S. team of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer teamed up to capture the World Cup. That was just the beginning. Years of championship golf have since taken the stage on the Robert Trent Jones Sr. design. Other prestigious events such as the LPGA's Women's Kemper Open and the Champions Tour's Kāʻanapali Classic enjoyed long runs at this famed layout, and now, this popular course is home to the Wendy's Champions Skins Game.

Architect Robin Nelson added a number of personal touches to the resort's second layout, the Kāʻanapali Kai. The course is user-friendly for its reasonable length, the fairways are generous, and the green complexes inviting. And, like its sister course, the land on which the Kai is laid is steeped in history, including being the site of a famous battle between two ruling chiefs in the 1700s.

Kāʻanapali's rich history and traditions are honored daily. Every evening at sundown, cliff divers reenact the feat of Maui's revered King Kahekili who bravely dove from the cliff at Puʻu Kekaʻa, or Black Rock, into the churning sea. The Hawaiians of old considered this spot to be a leina, a leaping point where the soul entered the ancestral realm. Tiki torches are lit along the shore as ancient pahu drums and conch shells call the hula dancers and revelers to the beachside lūʻau.

To preserve the unique culture and Maui way of life, some Kāʻanapali properties have adopted innovative cultural programs that encourage employees to share their heritage with guests. They do this in large and small ways, such as greeting them with genuine aloha, sharing music and family lore, and in colorful programs during Aloha Festivals, Lei Day and Kamehameha Day, in honor of Hawaiʻi's greatest king.

Even with the amenities that have grown with time, Kāʻanapali has retained its core of natural beauty and gracious, royal Hawaiian hospitality – two of the many qualities that made it the choice of kings.