HAVE YOU EVER HAD A $100 JAPANESE BREAKFAST?

For nostalgic Tuesday last week, I began a new series on the best hotels I've experienced, and began with the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel.  Stayed there for two night, then drove the short distance to the Four Seasons Hualai.

I also had a professional interest in this site, because I was once a geothermal reservoir engineer for the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute.  To quote from that posting of 20July2010:

I have stayed at various Four Seasons, with the Chiang Mai and Hualalai properties being my two favorite.  The latter ranks as #1 in celebrity honeymoons.  Gayot and Travel + Leisure rate Haulalai as #1 in Hawaii.  There was a period 14 years ago when the hotel just opened when my staff and I discussed the possibility of drilling for warm water and providing cold deep ocean water for a unique spa providing full range of "natural" temperatures.  Hualalai is a volcano which shows potential for geothermal energy.  I guess there is a negative connotation to this too.

The hotel chain started as a Canadian company in 1960, but was bought out by Bill Gates (yes of Microsoft) and Prince Al-Waleed  in Talal of Saudi Arabia (who is only worth around $10 billion) in 2007.  There are 82 Four Seasons in 35 countries, all  featuring terrific service.

There are now 130 Four Seasons in 47 countries.  Gates now owns 71.25% of the Four Seasons.  He was married at the Four Seasons on Maui in 1994, and while they are longer together, he returns regularly to stay in a $50,000/night suite.  This property is owned by fellow billionaire Larry Ellison, and will be the focus of my Tuesday series next week.

So returning to my 2009 visit to the Four Seasons Hulalai for two nights, one morning I said:

Have You Ever Had a $100 Japanese Breakfast?

Had breakfast on my lanai.  Today, this is like a $90 breakfast.  See the beach in the background?  That is where I tossed Pearl's ashes at sunset.

In a posting the next day, I compared this hotel with the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and Park Hyatt Tokyo, which was my wife's favorite.  This Japanese hotel is where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson stayed for the movie Lost in Translation.  This is the film where Murray makes an ad for Suntory whisky.

About that comparison?  Mauna Kea Beach Hotel was expensive, but in those days, the cheapest of the three.  Four Season Hualali sort of came in at #2, while Park Hyatt Tokyo exuded elegance.

Had dinner in the PHT New York Grill.  In honor of the director of Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola, ordered a glass of Francis Coppola Syrah Diamond Collection Green Label Syrah-Shiraz.

In a way, I'm now up to a third favorite hotel.  Yes, the Park Hyatt Tokyo is among them.

I've now stayed at the Four Seasons Hualalai around half a dozen times.  One of them was a 2013 outing with Chaine des Rotisseurs, which was originally founded in Paris in 1248.  Turns out in those days that the top four golf courses in Hawaii were located on the Big Island, with the Hualalai Golf Course ranking second.

Returned in 2015, and that $60 breakfast was now free for kamainas (someone who is a resident of Hawaii).

A photo of a gecko.

Here is my 2017 posting:

TUESDAY, JUNE 27, 2017

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A $100 JAPANESE BREAKFAST?

So the $60 breakfast seems now to be worth $100.

I should add that my stops at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel and Four Seasons Hulalai included one more visit as I drove around the island.  I went on to stay at the Volcano House, with a view of Halelemaumau, where Kilauea Volcano now erupts every 10 days or so.  This is where I also dropped off Pearl's ashes.  You can just about see a rainbow in this photo.

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