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Guests can choose a hunting safari for wild boar, goats or pheasant on the slopes of Mauna Kea ($550 for the first person, $200 each for the next three). The game will be dressed and served for dinner that night, or shipped home upon request. Or deep-sea fishing on a luxury yacht ($1,380 for up to six people), Formula Ford race-car driving (not available until April), a day in the saddle with the paniolos (Hawaiian cowboys) of the vast Kahua Ranch ($1,460 for four) or dinner at the Hulihee Palace, former home of the Hawaiian royalty ($1,995 for four). Visitors can also watch whales or sunsets or moonrises from the deck of the 50-ft. catamaran Noa Noa, with its two amiable skippers and well-stocked bar.
Some of the most spectacular scenery on the largely undeveloped 4,038-sq.- mi. island -- the gizzards of an active volcano, for instance, or thousand- foot cliffs of the Kohala coast -- is virtually inaccessible to all but island birds and their kin, which includes the Bell JetRanger III helicopter. For a mere $1,380, the copter will take four people on a tour, complete with a champagne picnic on windswept Lauhala Point and a view right into the maw of the active volcano Kilauea. This jaunt is not for the faint of heart or weak of knee. When the tree line below suddenly drops away, leaving the swaying copter to swoop deep into an amphitheater of waterfalls, even the rush of peaceable New Age music injected through the passenger headphones may fail to tranquilize a white-knuckle flyer.
Perhaps the most popular fantasy of all involves a visit with the resort's most distinguished guests: eight Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins, in residence under the care of marine-mammal veterinarians Rae Stone and Jay Sweeney. Rather than ricocheting around a concrete pool, the dolphins frolic in a protected saltwater lagoon. "Everything about this place is fake, except for the dolphins," observes a guest wryly, as she wanders by. The Dolphin Quest program offers a model environment for research and study, as well as a unique aquatic encounter for the guests. "These animals can humble anyone," says trainer Christian Harris. "Guests may arrive at the dock complaining about something or other, but they get in the water with the dolphins and are smiling in about ten seconds."
At $55 for half an hour, the dolphin encounter strikes many guests as a bargain -- enough, at least, to ensure that there is usually a waiting list for a spot on the dock. Reservations at the restaurants are also hard to come by when the hotel is full, but the relentlessly eager staff has invented a solution: Vacations by Design. Upon arrival, guests check off all the activities and restaurants they want to try, and the Aloha Services staff will make all the reservations and print up a schedule. "And you know what?" says manager Cowell. "This will be happening in most resort hotels in the future. It's going to end up being a standard service."