Maui pre-wedding welcome dinner, dinner sailing cruise or Luau?

[jennifersyble]

I have been thinking of hosting either a welcome dinner at a restaurant on the beach in Maui, a dinner sailing cruise, or going to a luau as a welcome to all of our DW guests. I can't decide which would be the most fun for everyone. Any recommendations? Thanks!

If we do the Luau, I think it would be the Feast at Lele Luau since it has a seated dinner instead of a buffet.  

[schmizer]

All would be alot of fun!  I think it depends on your guest's interests.  

 

For example, I originally was going to book a snorkel sail for everyone, but found out alot of my guests get sea-sickness.  Therefore, we are still doing the activity, but it is going to be optional and not hosted.  

 

For our welcome party, we are going to do a beach day with surfing lessons instead, I think.  As part of our OOT bags, we are including gift certificates for snorkel equiptment and boogie board rentals.  We will do apps, cocktails and be more low key...  This seemed like the best option for everyone, since we could be together, but everyone could do their own thing.

[pinklilikoi]

A luau sounds like a treat for all the guests! We thought about doing one too for our welcome dinner, but it was just too spendy at $100/head. We looked at a bunch of other ideas to try to keep it friendly on the pocket book (under $25/head) and while still doing it nice.

 

After looking into options in South Maui:

Capische -- broke the bank

Da Kitchen -- fantastic local grinds, but way too ghetto and hole-in-the-wall

BBQ on the beach -- too risky not getting a good spot with other tourtists/visitors

 

We finally settled on doing a casual BBQ at our private rented condo for a more economical and intimate option. We had to search high and low for a nice condo with BBQ and grounds to accomodate our party of 30, but we found several in Wailea and Makena. We're planning to get drinks and alcohol from Costco (yes, they sell alcohol & wine!!) and platters of BBQ and pupus from Da Kitchen (in Kihei). Fun and hits all our criteria.

 

good luck!

[bridetov]

We had an optional chartered sailing snorkel cruise (we chartered the entire boat so it was much more private) as, like someone above me said, we found out many of our guests got sea sick. But for those that did come- it was a blast! 

 

For our welcome dinner, we all went to the Old Lahaina Luau. It was superb and again, everyone loved it. The Feast of Lele is also nice- it's just not a "traditional luau" and I really wanted my guests to experience that. They are both really great though. 

 

Then for the rehearsal dinner we had a very informal lunch at Aloha Mixed Plate. 

[jennifersyble]

Sounds like a great time!

[aleedoc17]

what did you decide?

 

because those were my two choices, but my mom gets sea-sick & that's what worried us about other guestsso we're going with a luau, get the whole hawaiian feel..