Sensible traveler Destinations Where they went Travel gear Student travelSaying 'I do' on Kauai
By Diane Daniel, Globe Correspondent, 06/16/02
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Sensible traveler Destinations Where they went Travel gear Student travel |
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Caroline (whose maiden name is Waddel), 26, is from Tulsa, Okla., Greg, 28, is from Boston, and they met through friends in Boston six years ago. She is media relations manager at WCVB-TV (Channel 5), and he is a pile driver with Local 56 in Boston.
They did most of their wedding research online, including hiring a coordinator. They chose Kauai because "it had more local flavor and culture, and wasn't real touristy," said Caroline. They treated their guests to a Friday night luau, the wedding reception on Saturday, and brunch on Sunday.
Greg had been studying the weather in Poipu, on the lush south side of the island where they stayed. Sure enough, it was sunny with temperatures between 75 and 83 all week. The couple arrived five days before the wedding to find everything in order, so they went touring. They visited a big landmark, Wailua Falls, an 80-foot tiered waterfall; they went snorkeling at Poipu Beach; and they saw Spouting Horn, where water is forced into a lava tube by the surf, and gushes into the air with a loud hiss.
They were thrilled they "didn't even have to look" for marine life, Caroline said. On the first morning, they saw four whales, a mother and three calves, frolicking offshore — and this from their balcony at the Embassy Resort, where they stayed for 10 days. Other times they saw sea turtles and "an enormous monk seal" that "just parked itself on the beach in the middle of the tourists," she said. "The lifeguard came and roped it off."
The couple had sent their guests packets of tourism information, and most ended up staying for a week. The Friday night luau was at the Hyatt Regency Kauai. "I don't know how it ranks on the authenticity scale," Greg said, "but it was fun." It featured a pig roast, fire eaters, and traditional hula dancers. The wedding was at the Moir Gardens, a cactus and succulent garden.
They were surprised when the native woman who married them showed up in a muumuu. "It definitely added to the local flavor," Caroline said. The reception was a five-minute drive away at The Beach House. "We were outside, and there was a picture-perfect sunset," Greg said. They winced a bit when the Hawaiian-slide guitar and steel drum band performed its rendition of "Stairway to Heaven."
Caroline's mother and stepfather had rented a house for two weeks, and they hosted the Sunday brunch. The house "had an amazing panoramic view of the bay, and if you went out the front door, you could look down into one of the craters that had been a volcano," Greg said.
After the wedding weekend, the couple spent a few more days on Kauai, seeing much of it that is inaccessible by car, in a helicopter.
"The northern part of the island is very different, like a rain forest," Greg said. They flew over Waimea Canyon, 10 miles long and about 3,600 feet deep; and Mount Waialeale, said to be the wettest location on earth, with about 350 to 400 inches of precipitation a year. "There were thousands of waterfalls everywhere you looked," he said.
Greg made some time for improving his golf game. He took several lessons and was particularly impressed with the Poipu Bay Golf Course, home of the annual PGA Grand Slam.
The "official honeymoon" was on the Big Island of Hawaii for almost a week. The Shaws stayed first at Volcanoes National Park, then at the Mauna Lani Bay Resort & Spa, a synthetic "oasis" plunked in the middle of lava rock on the Kona-Kohala Coast. "We were really glad we liked it because once you're there, you're there," Caroline said.
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