We made reservations and PAID in FULL on January 19th for our April 13th reservation. On March 11th, the hotel called to move us to another hotel of "equal" quality. After researching their alternative, we discovered it was definitely not equal - quite inferior. Now, 1 month before our date of arrival we had to find another location. This wasn't easy since many places were already booked. To obtain equal (as best as we can tell) accomodations, we needed to pay an additional $600. Now they tell us it can take about 30 days before they will give us our money back. So, as far as I can tell Castle Hale Awapuhi borrows your money free of charge and leaves you in a bad situation. I spoke with Client Services from Expedia (we booked through them) about this situation. Expedia told us that this is becoming quite a problem because of its frequency.

Our advice: don't risk your reservations to the "Castle" organization. In addition, send them a message that this fraudulent behaior will not be tolerated by not giving them your business. If our experience isn't enough to convince you, continue searching the internet about the "Castle" organization (i.e. Castle Hale, Castle Poipu Shores Resort, Castle Lae Nani, etc.) there are many other reported occassions of this scam.

Good luck!