Ka'anapali Resort is located a few miles north of Lahaina town. This beautiful beach is the first destination resort on Maui. The Ka'anapali Resort includes many fabulous resort hotels and condominiums fronting Ka'anapali Beach, a magnificent stretch of white sand. In Ka'anapali you'll find casual to elegant restaurants, rooms from modest to luxury prices, just about every kind of beach activity there is, fantastic snorkeling at famous Black Rock and at Whaler's Village, Maui's most successful shopping center, a whale museum.

The hotels along this stretch of beach also provide many outstanding restaurants, glittering night spots and exciting events and concerts throughout the year including a Hawaiian cultural festival, Na Mele O Maui, a keiki (child) hula festival and a Hawaiian Cultural Arts Expo.

Black Rock, or Pu'u Keka'a, was once a sacred location to the ancient Hawaiians. They revered it as a place where the spirits of the dead went to leap from this world to the next. It was considered extremely brave to leap from the same spot as the spirits of the dead. This leap is recreated each evening at sunset by a diver from the Sheraton Maui, and during the day by daring tourist.

Black Rock, along with many other sites in Ka'anapali, becomes even more fascinating when you learn about it's mythology and history. This fascination may help explain why a great majority of visitors to Maui stay in Ka'anapali.

The Ka'anapali Resort is located on Maui's western shore, just five minutes away from Kapalua/West Maui Airport. The picturesque drive from Maui's main airport, located in Kahului, takes the visitor along Maui's beautiful coast and is about 23 miles and roughly 40 minutes away from Ka'anapali.

The hotels and condominiums of Ka'anapali are some of the best in the world and cater to their guests every whim. In the center of the resort lies the green expanse of the Ka'anapali Golf Courses. The North and South courses offer an unforgettable experience for any avid golfer. The North Course has been host to the Ka'anapali Classic Senior PGA Tour tournament in October. Tennis is another sport perfectly suited to the Ka'anapali Resort. There are many courts available for play and most of them are lighted to allow play after sunset.

For the historically minded, the Whalers Village 'Whale Museum of the Pacific' is a fascinating look at a period of Maui's history. The museum, which is believed to have the largest collection of whaling memorabilia in the world, has just been expanded to include 'Hale Kohala'.

Another reminder of Maui's simpler times can not only be seen, but ridden! The Lahaina Ka'anapali and Pacific Railroad, known more simply as the Sugar Cane Train, travels between Lahaina and Ka'anapali on its rails that were built during the boom of the great sugar industry. The train once helped move the harvested sugar from fields of Ka'anapali to Pioneer Mill in Lahaina and from there to the harbors to be loaded onto the cargo ships. Now it serves the needs of the tourism industry by providing a scenic ride and nostalgic trip back in time.

Once you've seen everything on land, it's time to hit the beach for ocean activities. Snorkeling should be one of the activities you choose, because Ka'anapali's reefs provides some of the most colorful underwater spectacles to be seen anywhere. The area around Black Rock is an exceptional place to start. The water is shallow, and the reefs are populated with exotic sea creatures that are used to the presence of people.

From November to May, whale watching fever strikes the island when the great humpback whales frolic in the waters off of Ka'anapali. For visitors that would like a closer look at the humpbacks than from the beach, the hotel lanai, or an ocean side restaurant there are whale watch cruises available and can be booked right in the hotel.

The humpback whale is an endangered animal and is protected by international law. They migrate to Hawaii's waters in the winter to breed and bear their young. During the summer, they feed on plankton off the Alaskan coast.

Whether you're driving along the coast, lying on the beach or enjoying a cocktail on your lanai during whale watching season keep your eyes toward the ocean.