Enjoying the island with a wheelchair

Author: By Robert C. Samuels, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, March 1, 1998

Page: M1

Section: Travel

This Hawaiian island, it seems, is one of the world's best whale-watching spots. Before the weather turns nasty in Alaska, large numbers of humpbacks leave there and head here to mate and have babies. Summer in Alaska, winter in Hawaii -- no one ever said whales are dumb.

Maui is also a smart place to go if you're a wheelchair user, as I am, and want to escape winter's bleakness. That's just what my able-bodied traveling companion, Karen Brown, and I did for a week last year. Everything wasn't as accessible as we'd have liked, but we sure enjoyed poking around this beautiful sunny island. Besides whale-watching, we took a helicopter tour, sampled a luau, peered into a volcano's crater, and found a way for me to take a dip in the warm Pacific.

To get around, we rented a specially equipped minivan from Wheelers of Hawaii. It had a ramp that allowed me to roll right in. When we went anywhere, Karen drove and I sat next to her in my wheelchair. Wheelers had removed the front passenger seat to make room for it.

Over the Rainbow, the island's travel agency for people with disabilities, had booked us into the Lahaina Islander, an all-suite hotel. Our wheelchair-accessible digs (Number 1346) had a roll-in shower -- and that's a big plus -- but I found the bathroom cramped and awkwardly arranged. Because Suite 1347, across the way, has a slightly larger bathroom, we moved into it on the second day.

Aside from the cramped johns, which wouldn't be a problem for everyone, the Islander is ideal for wheelchair users. At $125 a night, it's also a bargain. And you can cut costs even more by making breakfast in the suite's well-equipped kitchen, as we did. There's also a sofa bed in the living room, if you're traveling with children or another couple. The swimming pool, alas, lacks a lift or a ramp.

But the hotel's central location in Lahaina, Maui's most interesting town, is its major advantage for us wheelers. Front Street, Lahaina's bustling main stem, just a gentle, two-block roll away, is lined with art galleries, restaurants, and curio shops. Push along the sidewalk and you'll soon find the town's celebrated, acre-square banyan tree. Dozens of artists set up shop in its sheltering shade on weekends and holidays. Besides artists, Lahaina, with just over 9,000 residents, has more than its share of colorful characters. There's a group of middle-age guys frozen in 1960s' hippiedom. My favorite pedals around with a large live parrot perched on the rusty handlebars of his balloon-tire bike.

Most of Maui's excursion boats leave from the town's dock. We'd planned to go for a half-day snorkeling trip on the Four Winds or the Trilogy (both welcome people with disabilities), but they were booked. If you're interested, reserve space as soon as you can through your travel agent, hotel, or by calling directly. Choose a morning trip. You'll see more fish then.

For a while, it looked as if we weren't going to get out on the water at all. Then we learned that we could go whale-watching on the wheelchair-accessible Lahaina Princess. There's only one big step up to the gangplank, which is just wide enough to handle a chair. While the captain hunted for whales, we sat on the foredeck of the 65-foot boat, enjoying the sun and an occasional spray of warm salt water. During our two-hour voyage, we were lucky enough to see about 20 whales, mostly calves playing on the surface.

Whales were the only thing we didn't see the afternoon we took our helicopter tour. A number of companies offer these flights, but only Hawaii Helicopters has a special lift for wheelchair passengers. You transfer into the lift seat and it inches you up an incline to chopper level. Then it's just a matter of sliding into the cabin seat. The ground crew is more than willing to help.

Maui, the second-largest Hawaiian island (the Big Island is first), looks even more beautiful from aloft. You see untouched rain forests, rainbow-arched waterfalls, and remote beaches that you can't see any other way. Surprisingly, much of the island is uninhabited. We flew over the famed, twisting, two-lane road to Hana, a town at the island's remote eastern end. We also hovered over the almost two-mile-high peak of Haleakala, the world's largest dormant volcano. The flight to the top took about 10 labored minutes.

It had taken us several hours to drive to the same summit just a few days earlier. The 27-mile-long road is mostly harrowing hairpin turns and switchbacks. However, the views going up Haleakala, which is a national park, are spectacular. You begin in swank Hawaiian suburbia, pass through pineapple plantations and cattle ranches, and end overlooking the rugged moonscape of the gigantic crater. It is seven miles across, 10 miles wide and 2,000 feet deep. Up here, it's some 35 degrees cooler than at sea level.

Maui has some good restaurants in beautiful places. The most attractive we found was Mama's Fish House on the island's windward side. The seafood is superb, but the tropical setting alone makes it well worth the 40-minute drive from Lahaina. We sat in a screened dining room, overlooking an outrigger canoe on a palm-tree shaded lawn. Just beyond, thunderous waves pounded the beach. As we watched, wind surfers jumped waves on a churning turquoise sea.

They say you're not an authentic Hawaiian tourist without trying a luau, that native all-you-can-eat feast. The Maui Marriott had the nearest wheelchair-accessible one to us. It's just 15 minutes outside Lahaina, on Kaanapali Beach, a two-mile stretch where they've stacked the luxury resort hotels one after another.

Every night at sunset, the hotel efficiently hosts a $57 a person open-bar luau. Before the big feed, handsome natives demonstrate coconut tree climbing, grass skirt weaving, and other local crafts and games. Then they peel back the leaves from the pig that has been roasting all day in a big pit. Everyone sits, like anxious airline passengers waiting to board, until their table is called to the buffet line. Finally, you can heap your plate with a staggering variety of food. We found the remarkably lean roast pig the best of all the dishes. After dinner, there's a nightclub-type show highlighting various Polynesian cultures.

Before the luau, we asked to see one of the hotel's 14 rooms for the disabled. All are on the ground floor with ocean views. In addition to spacious, well-designed bathrooms with roll-in showers, they include thoughtful amenities like flashing lights to signal a ringing phone for the hearing-impaired, and lowered thermostats and clothes racks. Although the listed winter rate is a pricey $320 a night, the rooms are often available for much less as part of a package. (Another Kaanapali Beach hotel, the Embassy Suites Resort Maui, we were told, also has excellent rooms for the disabled.)

The Marriott's pool has a lift that gently lowers disabled guests into the water. There's also an accessible beachfront walkway that runs for two miles, but if you use a wheelchair you can't get down to the beach from there. The hotel doesn't have beach wheelchairs.

Maui's general lack of those fat tire chairs was disappointing. Before our trip, we were told we'd find them at many waterfront parks. In reality, Kamaole Beach I in Kihei, has the only two. Unfortunately, they were much too low for me to transfer into on my own. The lifeguards, who are supposed to be watching the water, are under orders not to help. For a while, it seemed I was going to be one of the few visitors not to swim.

But the day before we were to fly home, we gave it one last shot. We headed for the narrow public beach just south of Lahaina to see if we could find someone to help get me in the water. The first person Karen asked, a strapping short order cook on his day off, was glad to try. A vacationing physical therapist and her boyfriend joined him. They tilted my chair back and maneuvered it to the water's edge. Then they lifted me out and put me in the water.

Suddenly, I was bobbing along like any able-bodied tourist. I scooped a handful of water, half expecting it to look like blue ink. When it turned out to be just sea water, it didn't disappoint me too much. Hey, I'd just enjoyed a wonderful week in Maui.

Maui Islander Hotel, 600 Wainee St., Lahaina, Maui, HI 96761; 800-367-5226 or 808-667-9766; fax 808-879-0649.

Lahaina Princess, whale-watching cruises, 808-661-8397.

Four Winds snorkeling trips, 800-736-5740 or 808-879-9188. Trilogy snorkeling trips, 800-874-2665 or 808-661-4743.

Hawaii Helicopters, 800-346-2430 (from the mainland), 800-994-9099 (from Hawaii), or 808-877-4724.

Mama's Fish House, 799 Poho Place (Route 36), Kuau Cove, 808-579-8488.

Maui Marriott, 100 Nohea Kai Drive, Lahaina, HI 96761; 800-763-1333 (from the mainland), 800-542-6821 (from Hawaii), or 808-677-1200; fax 808-677-8192. Embassy Suites Resort Maui, 104 Kaanapali ShoresPlace, Lahaina, HI 96761; 800-362-2779 or 808-661-2000; fax 808-667-5821.