Our family of three (the two of us and our three year old son) stayed at Kaanapali Shores from Feb 12-26, 2013. At best it was overpriced, at worst it was filthy.
We booked an "Ocean View" 1 bedroom suite, and leading up to the trip we tried requesting a room near the ocean side of the building; all along we were told that they would try to accomodate our request but wouldn't guarantee anything. The room we were put in upon arrival was technically "ocean view", in that we could see the ocean, but most of our view was of the
parking lot. This in itself, coupled with the dated decor, was disappointing, but upon looking over the room, we found that it was actually filthy, and appeared to have been poorly cleaned for years. For example, in the bathroom there was some kind of build up on the walls and thick dust
covering the vents - very obvious things that should have been cleaned on a regular basis but obviously had not been.
Had we been able to find another hotel on short notice we likely would have moved, but in high season this was not possible. We had one of the managers come up so we could show her what we were talking about, and during the course of discussing with her what our options were, she abruptly walked out of the room. Yes we were upset and a little heated, but she was just as
heated and had no real solutions for us then. Her only other option was a room with a worse view that she herself said we would not find to be any better or cleaner than the one we were in.
By a couple of hours later, they had found us a cleaner room, which also had a much nicer view, so with no real option to go anywhere else, we stayed. However, this room was still not terribly clean - as evidenced by the long black hairs left on the locked closet doors in the bathroom.
The next day we spoke to the Rooms Division manager, who was very understanding of our concerns and offered us a goodwill credit on our room and restaurant bill, and also spoke to housekeeping to have the room properly cleaned. However, after the first time housekeeping did their "deep clean", we were not convinced, as the same hairs were still on the closet door, as
well as a large clump of hair in the bed sheets. We had the Rooms Division manager up to the room to show him, and he once again had housekeeping do a better cleaning, after which it appeared to our eyes to be at least decently clean. However, we had our son sleep on a rollaway bed rather than the sofa bed, as we were uneasy about what might be living in the sofa bed.
Throughout our stay we saw other evidence of low cleaning standards, such as the same piece of garbage remaining in the corridor for days.
The other major drawback for us with this hotel was the lack of a beach. On the website there are photos of a decent sized sand beach, but what we found was a tiny beach (i.e. non-existant at high tide), full of rocks. Very misleading. This forced us to go elsewhere to find usable beaches.
We did make a lot of use of the oceanside pool area, though if we had not had a three year old to wake us up to get down there right for 8 o'clock opening, finding pool chairs would have been difficult. The hottub did not always appear to be terribly clean.
Poolside food/drinks service was slow at times, but seemed to be due to not having enough staff on at busy times. We found the food to be average - for example, the macadamia nut pancakes did not have actual macadamia nuts in or on top of them, they were just made from a mix that apparently had macadamia nuts ground up in it.
The one bedroom suite was a decent size, and definitely bigger than what you would get in neighbouring hotels at higher prices, which is really the only reason we didn't book at a place like the Westin Villas, which would have been something like a minimum of $400 a night for a garden view studio as opposed to $300 a night for a 1 bedroom ocean view at Kaanapali Shores. It was also nice to have a washer and dryer in the suite. The kitchen appeared to have been recently updated and was in good shape, though the placement of electrical outlets meant having to move the toaster and coffee maker to somewhat odd places to plug them in.
Bellmen were happy to help us load our luggage and groceries up to our room when we checked in, but stood and watched us load all of our luggage into our rental Jeep when we were leaving without so much as offering to help, other than offering to take our picture after we had loaded everything already.
Positives? If you're in the right room (only by luck of the draw apparently) the view is lovely - saw plenty of whales, once very close off shore as we watched the sunset. The hotel is located close to amenities such as a grocery store and convenience store.
Overall, not a very good experience. The worst part is that there seems to be a lack of pride in taking care of the place and providing quality service to guests. The one manager who did make the effort to try to make our experience better has moved on to a new job in Honolulu, while the manager who walked out on us is still there as far as I know.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
March 16, 2013
Our housekeeping department cleans over 120,000 rooms each year. While theyare known for doing a very good job in general, it goes without saying that by the law of averages, there will be an occasion where the cleaning doesn't meet the individual guest's expectations. If/when that happens, we apologize and address the issues that are brought to our attention with the team members who were responsible for that specific room.
With the above said, it is important to share some additional information in this case, because this guest referred our recently departed rooms division manager specifically. The manager the guest refers to kept a record of this encounter which reflects that his inspection revealed a very difficult to see a folicle of hair that could have been easily missed and that he was in disbelief over the guest's reaction to the condition of the unit, which he found to be clean. Naturally, in an effort not to create confrontation with the guest at that point and because we try to do everything we can to accommodate guests needs/desires, though he personally didn't feel the concern was valid, he arranged to have an additional cleaning take place on the unit.
In the end, our team went out of their way to re-clean the unit for these guests. We're sorry that our housekeeper missed the tiny hair that was brought to our attention and that our efforts didn't meet the guests expectations, but don't feel that their representation of events is fair and wanted to provide the additional background in this regard.
With respect to the beach, winter ocean swells had taken their toll on the beach over the last month or so, but it has already started to rebuild and we expect it to be back to its more normal size/level soon.
Mahalo.
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This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
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