 Monday - Day 4 (part 3) We returned to our hotel to change before going to Smith Family Luau a few miles away. I had planned to wait until close to the start of the Imu Ceremony at 6PM, but a frequent traveler to Kauai told us to be there right at 5PM when it opened so we could take a tram tour. There was heavy traffic into the property a bit before 5 and there was a long line to enter the gardens as each person received a shell lai and each party was photographed with staff in hope that we would buy pictures later. The narrated tram tour of the gardens took about 5 minutes and it was hard to tell even what plants the driver was talking about as we hurried around the 30 acre gardens. The property is pretty, but it wasn't like visiting an arboretum and we had plenty of time to kill before the program started.
The Imo Ceremony at 6PM explained the Hawaiian cooking method called Kalua - where Kalua pig is wrapped in ti leaves and cooked in an earthen Imo oven and ended with opening the earth and removing the pig which would be served latter. A member of the Smith family narrated the ceremony.
We had reserved seats near the stage earlier and returned to them, where we met a couple from San Diego, sitting across from us. Soft drinks, juice, mai tais, beer and wine were available at the open bar and there were three buffet lines with kalua pork, beef teriyaki, chicken adobo, sweet’n’sour mahimahie, lomi salmon, fresh poi, Hawaiian sweet potato, mac salad, namasu salad and tropical desserts. There was guitar music during the meal, followed by a dancer and singer.
The party moved to the Pele Amphitheater for the 8PM main show and we followed the previous person's recommendation to hurry down as soon as the instructions were given, to get a seat in front center. That did help, but it still felt like we were far from the stage and most of the performers. A few dances were done near the seating, but the stage was across a pond. It was a fairly deep stage and things done at the back seemed very far away. There were performances from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, Philippines, New Zealand and Japan. There was a fairly large cast and they seemed talented. The Maori Haka dance performed by male dancers was the most interesting to me. The show lasted about an hour.
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