When it comes to Hawaii pool time, all that diving, bobbing and sliding in the sunshine can really work up a thirst. How do active guests balance their love of the water with their craving for a mai tai or margarita?
Four Maui resorts have come up with an answer by creating swim-up bars as part of the pool experience. Guests ages 21 and older can simply paddle up to the bar for a signature drink and even a bite to eat.
Check out these watering holes where clients can wet their whistle without drying off first.
Fairmont Kea Lani, Maui
Fairmont Kea Lani’s upper lagoon area presents an adults-only lure that’s part of Ama Bar & Grill. Bathing suit-clad clients perch on submerged seats and savor food, cocktails and views of the ocean and nearby islands.
Like all of the resort’s menus, Ama’s drinks showcase local ingredients. Consider the Long Paddle In, a blend of rum, pineapple, coconut, mango and raspberries. In addition, guests can order dishes such as sugar cane chicken teriyaki skewers. Get your cocktail from 11:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Fairmont Kea Lani's Ama Bar showcases local ingredients.
Credit: 2023 Fairmont Kea LaniFour Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea
The swim-up bar at Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea’s Serenity Pool is elegance epitomized. An infinity-edge pool design provides unobstructed panoramas of the Pacific Ocean. Guests can freestyle stroke underwater to the strains of Hawaiian music and then relax with a drink on one of the eight in-water stools. There are even poolside spa treatments available.
Classic concoctions include the Ananas Della Passione, a mai tai served in a freshly-cut pineapple. The food menu is equally sleek, from salmon and kale salad to a Thai chicken wrap. The Four Seasons bar opens at 10 a.m. and serves until sunset.
Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa
In Hyatt Regency Maui’s half-acre pool, swimmers can linger in a cool oasis — also called the Grotto Bar — beneath two waterfalls. Sunlight and water cast reflections on the cave walls while a television adds to the show. Clients take just a couple of steps out of the water to reach the bar, which appears to be floating.
Hyatt Regency Maui guests can linger at the Grotto Bar.
Credit: 2023 Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & SpaPopular picks include Pele’s Lava Flow with white and dark rum, coconut syrup, ice cream, banana and a strawberry swirl. It’s a decadent drink in a splashy setting that’s open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Grand Wailea Maui, a Waldorf Astoria Resort
On their first pass through Grand Wailea Maui’s nine pools on six levels, guests might be so distracted that they miss the Grotto Bar, tucked in a waterfall-laced cave. If so, they can return to the top of the complex and make their way back down to this five-seat hideaway.
Among its heady libations is the Hana Mudslide, with vodka, coffee liqueur, Bailey’s Irish cream and ice cream. The bar, which also serves salads and burgers, is open from noon to 5 p.m.
