Honeymoon in Kauai, Hawaii!

So it's been almost a year and my mind keeps wandering back to our amazing honeymoon!  We traveled two weeks to Kauai, San Francisco, and Napa Valley.  

But for now, let's go back to the amazing Hawaiian island of Kauai....

We stayed at the beautiful Marriott (Kauai Beach Resort) in Lihue and absolutely loved the location!  For us, once we land at the airport, we prefer not to drive far to be at our destination (especially after an entire weekend of wedding festivities!).  So the Marriott was perfect since it was literally about 5 minutes from the airport.  We picked up our rental car (yes, it happened to be a white mustang convertible like every other tourist!) and made our way to our amazing hotel.

Poolside at Marriott Beach Resort

Kauai was just the most perfect place for us because it was the perfect balance of relaxing and doing nothing on the beach, and when we felt like adventuring, there was a ton of things to do.

Sadly, our priority is food.  We love to eat!  Fortunately, the restaurants at the hotel were great:

Duke's: We ate here the first night and enjoyed Mai Tai's, salad bar, and local fish (Ono).  It was a great, casual environment and pretty perfect since we were exhausted from traveling.  We went back again the last night and sat downstairs at the outdoor terrace area...we preferred it down there!  On the terrace (not sure if it's a different menu), I ordered the fish tacos and they were delish!

Cafe Portofino: Italian restaurant with views of the water.  This felt like a more romantic dinner spot.  We enjoyed a bottle of wine, way too much bread, and an Italian feast.

Toro Tei: Sushi restaurant right at the resort.  We had dinner here a few times that week.

Kalapaki Grill: Light snacks or lunch basically on the beach.  It was a great location but only open for lunch.  We enjoyed lunch here once.

Every morning we enjoyed coffee and breakfast at Aupaka Terrace.  In fact, I think the picture above was taken one morning at breakfast.  It was such a great spot to start the day!

There were also amazing places to eat right nearby - literally across the street!

Kalapaki Joe's:  This place was our downfall!  Seriously, every single day we were here for either lunch or dinner.  It was such a relaxing, casual spot with ocean views and TVs everywhere.  We both fell in love with the Pan Seared Fresh Fish and Capers.  Oh my goodness, I can taste it now!  The atmosphere was super laid back and it was so neat to watch Monday Night Football at lunch due to the time difference.  When I close my eyes and think about Kauai, this is one major thing I think about!

Mariachi's: Mexian restaurant in the same little plaza as Kalapaki Joe's.  We love Mexican so this was also a favorite.

Papalani Gelato: OMG, amazing gelato and amazing service. We went here a few times and absolutely loved everything we tried.  They also make a great iced coffee here.

To save on costs, we went up the road about 10 minutes to the local grocery store.  We bought little snacks, bananas, fruit, water, wine and beers for our room.  The little shopping center was great - Starbucks, Costco, Walmart.  We only took advantage of the Starbucks and grocery store but it was nice to have all this so close.

Now onto the adventures!

On our first full day, we ventured (only 5 minutes!) to Wailua Falls.  This amazing waterfall is only about 3 miles uphill from the main road.  I've heard some people say they hike around this area too.

Our view of Wailua Falls

Our next adventure was off to Waimea Canyon.  It took us about an hour to drive to the Canyon but definitely worth it, in our opinion.  The camera does not even capture the beauty of this Canyon.  They say it's the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific".

Driving up the Canyon

Canyon lookout (3,400 feet)

Our Day 3 adventure was Zip Lining!  

Before!

We were scared but lots of our wedding guests donated towards it on our Honeyfund (Honeyfund is awesome, by the way, we highly recommend it!)  For the zip lining, we used Backcountry Adventures and this was, by far, our favorite adventure of our trip mostly because of the great tour guides we had.  We traveled up the mountain in this fun yellow thing...

We then zoomed down the mountainside on a series of 7 ziplines.

After!

At the bottom, they provided us with snacks, drinks, and sandwiches and we could swim in the fresh water swimming pool.  We zipped around noon, which was perfect because it started out rainy but cleared up by the end.  It took about 3 hours and we were off to our next adventure!

Next up, our first Luau.  We went to Smith's Family Garden Luau since it's named "best luau on the island".  We started the evening at 5:00 with a garden tour, Imu ceremony, cocktails, Luau feast (seriously, a FEAST!), and the show went from 8:00 - 9:00.  We met some nice honeymooners at cocktail hour and the food was tasty!   It was a great experience and I'm glad we did it!

On our last evening we went to venture in Poi'Pu.  I'm so sad we waited until the very end of the trip to explore Poi'Pu because we absolutely loved it.  It felt tucked away and had a great relaxed, beach-town vibe to it.  Before dinner, we explored a little and found the Sprouting Horn blowhole.

Sprouting Horn in Poi' Pu

We had dinner reservations at the Beach House Restaurant.  Since we were early, we took advantage of sitting outside, watching the sunset, and the surfers.  This was one of our favorite spots of the entire honeymoon. 

Sunset in Poi' Pu

As for the Beach House Restaurant, we're glad we went but it wasn't our favorite.  I think it was a tourist spot and we were really bummed when they sat us in the back of the restaurant with no water views, let alone a window.  We were celebrating our 1 week anniversary and it would have been so much better if we had a window spot with views of that amazing Hawaiian ocean.  The food and service were okay but the sunset views before dinner made the experience worthwhile!


I have to be honest with you...Hawaii was never high on my bucket list.  After tossing some possible honeymoon locations around, my husband and I picked Hawaii mostly because we felt it was a safe choice in prime hurricane season (September).  However, it's been almost a full year since our visit and there's not been one day where my husband and I don't reminisce about our Kauai adventure!  If you ever have the opportunity to visit we highly recommend it!  We can't wait to go back!