After doing much research and reading many reviews, we stayed at Punahoa in mid-September for the last 5 days of our Honeymoon (the first 5 were in Kauai). When we first arrived we were a little unsure of the location, but we were pleasantly surprised during our stay with very friendly management and the best views of the sunset that you could imagine. We made a point to eat dinner on our lanai so that we could enjoy the sunset each night.

The small beach directly in front of the apartment is usually empty, and when it's calm it's an easy place to snorkle. Charley Young Beach (Kamaole 1) is only a short walk away, and is a great big beach with sugary smooth sand and great water conditions.

There's a cool shopping complex nearby called Kalama Park (I think). There's also the best shave ice place we found there called Local Boy or Local Girl. We ate out one night at Bada Bing, which was a great Italian place at the Kalama Park shopping area with good outdoor dining.

Overall the studio room was pretty small, but it was unbelievably well equipped and ended up being perfect for our stay in Maui. If we ever go back we'd definitely stay there agian.

My husband and I stayed here for a week during our honeymoon in October 2004 and loved the Punahoa. The rooms were clean, the location was quiet and convenient and less "touristy" than some other areas on Maui and the view of the ocean from our unit was completely amazing. We appreciated having a kitchen as we were able to save money by cooking a few meals ourselves, leaving more funds for exploring the island. We would definitely go back!

However, if cooking and cleaning up after yourself is not what you want to be doing on vacation then this might not be the place for you, but the Punahoa is a great budget-conscious option in a beautiful location that we thoroughly enjoyed and would recommend to others.

This was our second visit here. It's a 20 minute drive from the airport. We stayed in a one bedroom unit on the second floor, and we were able to surf for 7 days of our 9 day visit. We kept our boards in the basement, checked the swells from the deck in the predawn light, and launched from the beach next door when the surf was up. Within walking distance were restaurants that varied from fast food to excellent French food, a movie theater, a Foodland grocery store, snorkeling, and Charley Young Beach for sun bathers and swimmers. We'll be back.

Just returned from Maui - spent 5 days at Punahoa Beach Apt and 4 days in Hana. A few comments:

The location of the Apartments is great - on a quiet street right on the beach. However, there aren't many good restaurants in Kihei - we ended up driving to Lahaina 2 nights to eat (~35 min drive each way). But, the awesome lanais at Punahoa make up for it because you can find pretty good takeout or cook and eat dinner one the lanai.

We stayed in the top floor, center apt. In addition to private lanais, the top floor has patios to share (only allowed for those staying ont he top floor). But the patios are right outside the 2 end units and the end units have windows looking on to the communal patios. So, it's a little awkward for the people in the center unit (us) to use them. The pros of the center unit is that it's the only one with a/c. The patio situation upset me at first - it wouldn't have bothered me if I was told about this in advance, but I wasn't.

Overall - nice place to stay, and I'd go back.