Exclusive: Raúl de Molina’s spectacular vacation in Hawaii with his family

I have traveled to more than a hundred countries around the world, 108 maybe, I have visited almost all the most famous islands, Bora Bora, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Fiji, the Caribbean [but] Hawaii is my favorite by far and I keep coming back. There are better beaches in the world, sure, but here, this is the United States and everything works perfectly- an advantage over other wonderful places that are a little more primitive.

It is a land of fascinating contrasts. Hawaii‘s volcano is the largest mountain in the world, but it starts below ground. If you measure it from where it begins underground to the top, it is higher than the Himalayas. Also, the place where it rains the most in the United States is on this island, but it is very rare that it rains on this side where we are. And if you cross the mountain, the vegetation and the volcanic rocks are something worth seeing, it’s incredible. Here, you are in a drier and more arid climate and on the other side, it is all green, full of pines, horses ... And you go from hot to cold: at the top of the mountain, it only gets up to thirty degrees Fahrenheit.

I would be in the Greek islands, we have been there three times and we love it. Another of my favorite places in the world is Casa de Campo, it has everything and is beautiful, the Dominican service is wonderful.

I get up early, have a coffee for breakfast with something small, and go to the beach at around 8; I‘m there until 12 o’clock and from there we go eat something, then go back to the hotel and stay in the pool until about 4 o’clock. We bathe, get dressed and go to dinner at 6 o’clock in the evening and at eight thirty at the latest I’m in bed, and before nine I’m asleep- I don’t even have time to watch television.

I worry about the show and I‘m here keeping an eye on things; if I see something interesting I call the producer or email her with things, but it’s not a daily thing. I talk to her from time to time, but I care about it, of course I do.

No, no, no... not at all. We get along really good.

I got married because I never thought I was going to get a divorce- although there are days when we want to strangle each other [jokingly]. I am very happy to be here with my wife. After three years of being together, her sister came and asked me: “Hey, you‘ve been together for three years now, what are you going to do, are you going to marry her?” in a mocking tone, with Mily at his side - then I felt sorry for her and decided to do a good deed and marry her, she was already old and had no one to marry, poor thing.

We get along very well. I think I like everything about her, that‘s why we’ve been together so long, she likes to travel, go out to dinner... Mily studied psychology at the university, although it doesn’t work very well for her because she’s always fighting with Mia..

Well ... I haven’t forgiven that she spends the whole night snoring next to me, I can’t sleep! She wakes me up and I can’t go back to sleep!

No, no, me no! I don’t!

My wife, even if they were to drop an atomic bomb, does not wake up, and she will stay asleep. Once I wake up, I can‘t go back to sleep again. What bothers me the most is when Mía is at the university, she goes out at night with her friends and calls home at three in the morning… And Mily answers her and starts talking to her! Then the two of them talk and I‘ve already had a bad night!

Of course… But they don‘t let me rest.

I don‘t think she has learned anything, because everything I tell her, she does the opposite! Well, she likes cars as much as I do, but I don’t like that she likes them. And she loves to travel... When she turned 14, she traveled the world with us and after a trip to India she was shocked by the poverty, and told us that she didn’t want to travel anymore. Well she wanted to travel, but with her friends and where she wanted. She wanted to go skiing because it was the only thing she hadn’t done and all her friends were doing it. So our next destination was Canada, Whistler. By the time she turned 16, she wanted to travel with us everywhere and is very happy about everything she’s learned traveling. In fact, her college entrance essay was about that and how traveling was something she valued most when it came to learning about life because it allowed her to learn about all the cultures of the world. I think she learned that from me. There were times when she had to miss a week of school and I would fight with my wife: “what is more important, a week of school or the chance to see a different world?” Mia has been to Bhutan, Patagonia, China... India and Sri Lanka, Thailand. Africa twice, with a safari at five and another at ten.

They are both hard-headed and do whatever they want! You tell them don‘t do this and, bam! they go and do it .... Mia is very empathetic, she cares about people, if they are sick, etc. She studies Business, but she loves fashion, she creates her own fashion show when she dresses up. Although she gained a little bit of weight in the pandemic, because she came from college and she was very depressed about having to go back to Miami, after being there with her friends, etc. It was very difficult for her to lock herself in the house.

Yeah, but what are you going to do, I tried to teach him: “if you drive, don‘t drink”, and all that, but you know... then you go around with your friends and of course, it’s hard when it’s far away. Although she always takes an Uber to parties and has a number of friends, all Latin American, who get along very well with each other and look out for each other.... She also has a boyfriend now, for the last four or five months.

Yes, very nice, super, super nice, I already met his parents too and they are lovely people.

Well, what am I going to say! She had had a boyfriend before, and three years later she started dating this boy, who is very respectful and looks very decent. He likes very much the same things that she likes, so I am very happy and very happy for her.

I don‘t meddle in those things. I just advise my daughter what I think she should do, but I really don’t meddle in those things. I’m not nosy, that’s my wife! So I leave it to her to meddle, not me. I don’t even like gossip! I only do it for my work in television. Here the only ones who are with that are my wife and my daughter. The whole day.... “Did you see this, did you see that? But, look who’s sitting there! ”The other day we were in a restaurant and Mily said to me: ”Look, Raúl, that’s a very famous actor” and I answered: ”Oh Mily, what do I care, I’m on vacation”. Another time, we were in a restaurant in Honolulu and my wife starts, ”Look who’s in front of you, the boss, the boss...” And I started thinking, where I work... who is my boss, the president of Univision? Until I saw him and realized it was Bruce Springsteen.

I never imagined it would last so long, it is a daily program and it is the show that has lasted the longest on television with the same people, without changing hosts, after Sábado Gigante. Remember that we record five days a week... Here it is Lili and I, I love her like a sister, we have been together longer than most marriages

We both know each other quite well. We get along very well and we‘ve been through everything together, Lili is family to me.

The day she was accepted to the university she wanted to go to... You don‘t know what that was like. There were two or three very good universities that had accepted her, but every day Mia went to look to see if the letter had arrived. And every day with her mother, ’if the letter this, if the letter that,’ looking through her emails, until finally she got it. It took about 20 days and when it finally arrived... You don’t know what a party it was! Such a great emotion... Besides, I was going to study in the capital of the United States, where I know a lot of people.

Mily got up one day in the morning, went to work, to do an inventory with some artwork we have, came back in the afternoon and tells me, “I am feeling ill”. She was on a full regimen, vaccinated with Pfizer, always careful to wear her mask, but she started to feel very sick. I asked her if she had a fever when I got home and she said no, but when I touched her forehead it was super hot- she checked the thermometer and it was 103. I ran with her to the hospital in Coral Gables, where they took wonderful care of her, did the COVID-19 test and it was positive. I had slept with her, and kissed her that morning, but my test, thank God, was negative. They asked me to leave the hospital. They told me: ”You don‘t have it, but she does. They gave her a serum that they give you now if you have had the vaccine and at about 1:30 in the morning I came back for her and she was isolated in our room for eight days, while I slept in the living room, until she tested negative three times in a row... And good thing, because then we didn’t lose this vacation. Now she is feeling great..

Yes, she didn‘t give it to my daughter or me. I would leave her food at her door and she would go out to eat on the terrace, and right there she would take her ten thousand steps around the balcony every day. She had a fever for two days and then it was as if nothing had happened, she never lacked air and her oxygenation never dropped... Everything lasted exactly eight days..

Before the pandemic, I wanted to go out every day to eat somewhere different, but last year we didn‘t leave the house in March, April, May or June, four months cooped up... I have realized that I can cook at home as well or better than in the restaurants I usually go to. I buy food in the best places and it is delicious and we have a great time, so now I have decided to go out only a couple of times a week, instead of eating out every day as we used to do before. I’m happy at home, I get home at 6:30 in the evening, watch movies and do nothing else.