Stayed here with my wife for our 20 year anniversary.
Overall our stay was very good. However; there are a few things I need to mention here that may help you when or if you chose to stay here.
First, the negatives:
Valet is no extra fee “only if the parking lot is full”. When we checked in the first night, Valet stated there as “No extra fee”, so I decided to use Valet for the duration of our stay. Only fee was the tip each time I got the car. I figured that was well worth it, even if the parking lot was very close. Upon review of the bill there was a 20.00 charge per night on the bill for Valet parking. After grumbling about it to the desk, they removed the Valet parking fees. They were very cordial. But watch out for this. The Valet is free “only if the parking lot is full”.
I purposely saved my Starwood Suite Night upgrades for our 8 night stay. I also used points for our complete stay. Even though you have points to pay for this, you still have to pay 25.00 a night resort fee. A small price to pay for a place on the ocean, but in a way I felt as though it should have been no additional fee.
Before our trip, I was waiting to see an email from Starwood that my Suite Upgrades were honored, and we would receive a Suite. Never happened. So the morning before our stay, I called the Duty Manager (known to work sometimes for non-leveraged Suite Upgrades) for a favor, to get an upgrade for our stay. His name was Michael. I told him my wife and I were going to be there on our 20th, and would greatly appreciate an upgrade to a Suite. He was seemingly very nice, and said he would take care of us. When we go there, our room was on the 2nd floor, overlooking a rooftop, and a part of a strip mall. They told us this was an ocean view. Wow, we could see it, if we went out on the French balcony, and leaned over the railing and looked to our left. I was very disappointed, and thought “seriously”? The point I am trying to make here, is if Michael thought he was doing us a favor, I suspect he does not understand what guests like, or simply did not care, or forgot.
I called the front desk, and asked why we were down so low, and no view. The gal at the desk stated we did not request a higher room. Well, duh, I guess it was kinda expected?
Anyhow…she was super nice, and said she would work on a higher room for the following day, if we did not mind moving the 2nd day. I said sure!
The room we were currently in was in pretty rough shape, it smelled, and was loud from the businesses next door. I was pretty unhappy, and was looking forward to our “new room”.
The following day we moved, and were placed in a room on 10th floor, center tower, right on the ocean. It was perfect, and we were very thankful for our room the rest of the stay.
Now for positives.
Housekeeping was excellent. Restocking was great. Room service was good. Clean room. Updated. Internet worked well for Hawaii. TV was good. Beds comfortable. View awesome. If you are staying on the ocean or probably anywhere in the hotel, be prepared to hear live music outside up until at least 8pm.
Pools were excellent. Food in the hotel restaurants was really good. Breakfast was great. Elevators were awesome…always waiting on the 1st floor to hop on it. People were friendly…however; sometimes I could feel an undercurrent from some of the staff, which was kind of a negative feeling. Not sure if cultural, or a true undercurrent of hostility. I cannot really explain it.
Tipping seemed to be a strange thing. I am used to tipping, but in this case some of the staff would refuse it, and some were happy to take it. So I was somewhat confused as to whether or not I should be tipping. In one particular case we had ordered a bottle of wine via room service. When the waiter brought it, he dropped it off, turned around to leave. I said, may I have the bill so I can tip you? He simply said “Bahhh”, while waving his hand downward, and left. I appreciated that I did not need to tip, but almost felt like I offended him. At the same time, housekeeping seemed very appreciative of tips most of the time, and some wait staff did not, while some seemed very grateful.
They have a towel system here, so whenever you need one, you have to go to the towel stand and exchange a towel card for it (which you get at check-in). Don’t lose your towel, or you will get charged 25.00 for it. At the end of stay you are supposed to return your towel cards so you do not get billed for them.
Food prices are pretty reasonable, which surprised us. Probably about 2/3 the cost of mainland hotel restaurants. Not sure why, but I am not complaining about it.
We snorkeled in many locations around the island, and found the snorkeling out front to be about the best on the island. Just watch out for the commercial craft in the area.
There is a really cool pool here, where you can swim through a cave to another pool, and in the cave there is a hot tub on the side, you have to climb up into. Really neat in my opinion.
There is a place to the north of the hotel, a 10 minute walk down the beach called Black Rock. You will notice people jumping off it. I would suggest you not do it because we personally witnessed 2 people get injured from it. This keeps the paramedics busy. Don’t be one of the injured.
If you need groceries, there is a Safeway about 5 minutes away. Front Street is about 5 minutes away.
There is a little mall right next to the hotel. I think called Whalers Village or something close to that. We ate at a couple places there. Hagen Das was very good. But the Dragon whatever (don’t remember the second word) was absolutely awful! I ordered the Chicken Teriyaki, waiting for 25 minutes (seriously), watched them dump teriyaki sauce over the meat from a big bottle off the shelf. It was horrendous. Avoid that place. Otherwise, everything else was excellent. Went to I’O’s on Front street, pretty good. Leainis was the best place we ate at, which is real close to the hotel. Ate in the upstairs section. Had the Surf and Turf….really good!
We will go here again, we had a great time, and really appreciated Maui! I have tons of pics, email me if you would like some more.
Room Tip: Please see review above for more information.
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This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
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