the hawaii treehouse.

 

On Friday morning, Mike and I leave for Hawaii.  We are crazy excited, and not just because it is May 1st and there is snow in the ground.  Neither of us has ever been to Hawaii.  We are excited out of our minds.  Did you get that part?

I work for a wonderful and amazing company that allows me to work from home, doing things that I would call "play" more than "work".   I have been with Creative Memories for 20 years this spring.  Besides providing some of my richest relationships in my life, Creative Memories also offers incentive trips to their sales team from time to time.  This dream vacation to Hawaii is an all-expense trip from Creative Memories.  We are still pinching ourselves.

The company allows you to extend your stay (at your own expense) so I got busy reading the Frommers Guide to Hawaii from cover to cover.  The CM part of the trip is at the Aulani Resort on the island of Oahu.  We had to decide what to do for our extra two day adventure...

After reading and studying, I decided that the ultimate Hawaiian adventure would be to swim in a clear pool that a waterfall is cascading into!   Mike concurred.  After reading and studying some more we decided that ultimately, we wanted to hike the Seven Sacred Pools in Oheo Gulch in Haleakala National Park on the island of Maui.

In this remote part of the island of Maui around the little town of Hana, the accommodations are tricky.  There is one magnificent (and very pricey) resort in the area and several what I would call more-janky options.  Since we were being treated to the deluxe resort experience with CM on Oahu, we decided to look for something more rustic.  We found yurt accommodations at a spa in Hana but to our disappointment, they were booked.  Then, we found THE TREEHOUSE.

The web site clearly says "not for everybody"and located "in the jungle", but even the no electricity and "lit by tiki lamps with mosquito netting over the bed" sounded charming to us.  Just the Hawaii adventure we were looking for to accompany our hiking adventure! We made our reservations and started day dreaming about our dream trip...

Then last week on a fluke, I stumbled on some reviews I had missed before.  I did not know whether to laugh or cry.  I knew that the photo of Our Treehouse (above) was in "soft focus" and I actually had the thought that the photo probably looked better than the real thing.  Well, the reviews brought the negative aspects into sharp focus!

If you want to share my alarm, please take a moment to read a few of these reviews here.

After doing some laughing and crying - and talking to Mike - we are excited again.

More to come...