Regular Guy Reviewer

Happy New Year, Alex Urban and Amanda Wolf. Hope you had a chance to celebrate and maybe catch a few bowl games. But now it’s the first week of January and the PGA Golf universe is on your lanai and expects a whale of a show. Good luck. No mulligans. Hit’em straight and replace your divots. Scorecard Notes:  the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions (STOC) is taking place on January 5-9 at the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Maui. The island…

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Our room AC is dripping and making strange noises. Which is the best sunset dinner cruise to take? The valet didn’t bring our car around for 20 minutes. Who’s running this show? In many ways at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa, Mark Manderscheid is running the show and sports a fuller-than-full dance card. Mark is the hotel’s Guest Services Manager and with that gig comes a daily dose of doing right and dealing with minor issues before they escalate…

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SCUBA = Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus PADI = Professional Association of Diving Instructors SCUBA diving. To me it looks like underwater ballet. Float like a jellyfish, swim like a blue marlin. Never done it, looks exhilarating. Gear up from mask to wet suit to fins. Tank up with a supply of compressed, purified air and take the plunge. Hold on. Not so fast. Newbies need to find their comfort zone when breathing air out of a compressor tank. Take it…

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Talk about a cushy job! As Beach + Pool Manager (BPM) at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa, Philip Akeo goes to work five days a week in his polo shirt, tennis shoes, and cheeky grin. Another day at the office (hale) means Black Rock magic, snorkel-gear frenzies, and swimsuits à la mode. Along the way this BPM has earned his MBA (Master of Beach Administration) and become a valued role model for the young staffers he hires and the…

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Holy Honu (green sea turtles) – so far the summer of 2021 at the Sheraton Maui Resort & Spa in Kaanapali has been teeming with tourists and guest numbers that exactly no one saw coming. No kidding.  Who opened the barn door? Industry experts were predicting a “gradual return” of visitors to the Valley Isle as the pandemic initially waned but instead got a Gold Medal rush of voracious vacationers with dollars to drop and depths to snorkel. It’s reasonable…

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Full disclosure – the content you’re about to read took place pre-pandemic. No masks. No social distancing. No Dr. Fauci. The good ole days. It was bumpy. It was curvy. It was 204 miles of beaches and waterfalls and rain forests and all the wide-eyed natural wonders Maui’s windward side could showcase in high-def living color. On the first Wednesday of March 2020 my BFF Harry and I boarded a Road to Hana Tour courtesy of Valley Isle Excursions. We…

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Mahalo, Papakea Ocean Front Resort. Looking back to February 2021 I was bored out of my gourd after being furloughed for 11 months because of the pandemic. Wanting to get back into the Pool Attendant game, I perused a fancy-pants employment website (rhymes with spindeed) and saw that Papakea was looking to staff up as Maui was gingerly beginning to open up. Papakea, shoot, it was literally right down the street. I could walk there in six minutes and drive…

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Looking back on the morning of July 1, 2019, I had no idea what lie ahead. Twelve hours earlier I had arrived at the Kahului Airport (OGG) with four packed suitcases, Alamo rental-car reservations, and the lock-box combination to the Maui Sands Seaside condo in Honokowai that would serve as lodging for the next 40 days. This was it. All the pondering and planning was in the metaphorical rear-view mirror. I had chucked it all (or at least most of…

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