The Luau was a real journey through the Pacific and took us through cultural dances and legends from Hawaii to Fiji all in dance, song, fire and talking story.
The evening started and luckily we had already had a couple of Mai Tai’s as our first task was to master the art of the Hukilau.
Everybody was up on their feet and walked through the beautiful dance…beautiful when performed by the professionals, not so much with Alex’s complete lack of ability to move his arms and legs in different directions at the same time and my two left feet! Anyway, we laughed through it and it really broke the ice. Suddenly the table was awash with conversation and we got stuck into the food! All traditional Hawaiian cuisine including Taro, Poi, fruits all grown on the Island, salads and passion fruit and papaya seed dressings all scattered with local Macadamia nuts and served with a Mai Tai of course!
The show was absolutely amazing. The dancing was exceptional, at one point you wanted to be on your feet dancing along and the next you could be moved to tears by the passion or the love depicted through the moves. The girls were all stunning and I have never seen anyone move their hips as fast as that in my life! The men were pretty great too (!!!), tanned and muscular and full of the great Hawaiian energy!

Half way through the show we watched as the men pulled the pig from the Imu which is an under ground oven where the pig had been cooking all day. They blew the conch shell to mark the ritual and carefully lifted the whole pig which was wrapped in leaves and cooked traditionally.

The pulled kalua pork was served alongside every kind of meat imaginable, purple sweet potatoes, vegetables, rice and laulau which is pork and fish wrapped and cooked in ti leaves.

The meal was outstanding and the show was just excellent. They had Alex on stage doing the Hula which was just hilarious yet I glowed with pride as I watched him dither about! He was good at the rolling his hips bit funnily enough! The Mai Tai’s were really helping with the whole participation thing and everyone was happy to go up and dance with the gorgeous girls!

The mammoth meal ended with mini deserts and more Mai Tai’s thrust into our hands by our wonderful host for the evening Susan and the fire dance ended the show with a fabulous grand finale!

We were sprung during the night when the host of the luau announced we were there and having 30 weddings so we happily explained to everyone what on earth we were doing and we even had a lovely lady recite a few poems to us as we left. It left the night on a high and we were, if possible even more excited about the wedding Jaques had planned for us!

Obviously the next morning bought along a hangover and we spent it wandering around enjoying the hotel grounds, watching the turtles and the dolphins, relaxing on the powder white sand beach and we eventually managed to force a beer down by 3pm to try to bring us around. Jaques had again, so kindly booked us the best table in the house at the Kamuela Provision Company, the most popular restaurant on the hotel grounds. We arrived just in time to watch the sun set in our VIP seats with a perfect glass of champagne.

Rammel was our fabulous host for the evening and his opening words were “the sky is the limit tonight, we want you to have the most perfect evening”…and we did just that. Everything was perfect, first class and we felt like royatly.
Our amouse bouche was gorgeous little local crab cakes with tropical fruit salsa and we struggled to choose from the menu! Eventually after lots of recommendation from Rammel Alex had Pacific Oysters and I of course had the pork belly with a great glass of red. The sun had just dropped and the stars started to twinkle as we started our mains of steaks with lobster tails with fresh as the day broccolini and a bottle of velvet heaven Pinot Noir. By the time we got around to our dessert decision the sky and the Ocean had become one and the night was black but the mood was not. Tiki torches glow all around the grounds and create the perfect ambiance for a great romantic meal.

We shared an icecream dessert and I had an apple martini which pushed me over the edge and I may have accosted a brass rhino on the walk home!?!? We had
such a great night and it was the first time we had eaten out in a fancy restaurant since we left Didsbury, it was a real treat and we will never forget it!

One more sleep until wedding number 7!

Click here to read all about the wedding!