I just got back from a trip to Guam with the family including a 2 year old kid. We stayed at the Outrigger for 10 days and I must say overall it was a very pleasant stay. Only one thing might stop me from staying here again and why I didn't give 4 stars was the smoking.

Staff: Polite, and helpful and generally pretty responsive. With a bit of a ‘encouragement’ they changed our room fairly quickly and even brought up a microwave. Not the most knowledgeable about the area or transport options however.

Rooms: The rooms are good, all with flat screens even in the basic rooms and the twin rooms have two good sized queen-size beds. Bathrooms are a little dated, but if you are spending enough time in there such that it would be a problem with staying at the hotel, well, you have other problems. Some people on here recommended asking for a two-lovers point facing room to avoid being on the side of construction. I would actually recommend the opposite. The west facing rooms (construction side) get the sunset and I found were slightly quieter (no construction noise anymore).

Location: Definitely the best in the Tumon area. Lots and lots of restaurant options and proximity to DFS meant the best transport options, some of them free.

Pool/Beach: The hotel is right on the beach, can’t really ask for more. The pool has a single slide which is good for kids but can get a little crowded and staff don’t stop people from ‘reserving’ deck chairs with their towels and returning hours later. The pool layout at Westin and Hyatt was more open with a bar and restaurant (something the outrigger lacked). Annoyingly, if you want a sun chair on the beach you have to pay $30 a day to rent one, not what I would expect from a hotel already charging $200/night. From what I could tell this wasn’t the case at the Westin.

Gym: actually pretty good and always empty, free for all guests

SMOKING: THE ONLY SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM I had was smoking. This is a non-smoking hotel but guests (mostly from certain asian countries where smoking rates are high) still smoked in the rooms. The first room we had smelled of smoke, and we requested a room change which fortunately after day 2 was possible. The next room was much better, but even walking down the corridor you could occasionally smell smoke wafting under the doors and people would get into the lifts smelling of smoke, clearly having just come from their rooms. The other area where smoking was really annoying was at the poolside. Considering how many kids there are there i found it incredibly inconsiderate that people were smoking everywhere, especially as the beach was only 10 metres away. The hotel seems to encourage this by putting ashtrays all over the place, with one large smoking bin about as close as they could possibly put it next to the kiddies pool. The two hotels I checked out nearby (Hyatt and Westin) both had a no-smoking policy at their pools. Outrigger really needs to get its act together and put smoke detectors in the rooms and ban smoking at the pool. Of course, if you are a smoker, the Outrigger is probably a dream hotel.

So in summary:



Pros:

- Best location to shops

- Good beach access

- Decent rooms
- Fun for kids
- Great staff
- Free gym

Cons:
- Smoking in rooms and around pool
-No free sun loungers on beach

The location of Outrigger was great, but the hotel itself was awful. The bathroom tub was not draining and I had to call the the front desk "twice" for fixing the tub in the bathroom. I did mention that if fixing the problem was not possible, a room change will be fine as well.

After coming back to our room late at night after "two" calls, I found out that the draining problem was not fixed at all. I called the front desk to ask for an explaination as to why the tub was not fixed, and they said " the handiman did come but the problem was not fixable, and they could not get a reach of me." !!?? How could a four-star hotel have this kind of reply and this attitude of handling such a simple and essential problem? First of all, it is impossible for a hotel not being able to contact their guest. Second of all, why wasn't there an offer of room change after noticing the draining problem can not be fixed??

After so many useless " oh, i'm so sorry", they did offer a room change , but it was simply too late and extra trouble for us to change a room late at night. She did say that they will track this incidence down and their manager will come to explain to me when I check out at 4 AM in the morning. It turns out that no one bother to explain to me anything.

Other issues including a loose faucet for the shower, which seems really sloppy for a four-star hotel. Also, the bed was really sinking in the middle as it appears a shallow U-shape if seen from the side of the mattress. Moreover, there are flies/ fruit flies flying and resting on the bread when I had the buffet-style breakfast at the hotel.

I wish not one has to go through this like I did, and I strongly suggest you don't choose your stay at Outrigger when you visit Guam!

I was nervous coming to Guam because none of the hotels, restaurants, or activities got rave reviews. Lots of middling reviews all around. So I was quite pleased with our stay in the Outrigger.

The Good
The lobby is nice. The rooms are even nicer. The view was 50% great and 50% awful. Half of the view is the clear blue ocean. The other half is grungy rooftop. Better than 100% grungy rooftop though. My in-laws' room had a view of the ocean and the pool. And construction. But the construction wasn't noisy. Nor is it the fault of the hotel.

Good access to shopping. It's connected right onto a mini-mall. I think it is called the Plaza, but that is confusing because there is another Plaza right down the road. And it's right across the street from the Galleria.

The front desk was great. Always cheerful and helpful. Upon check-out, the lady there found a strange $60 charge, and immediately looked into it and found it was an error. At most hotels it takes arguing, and calls to the manager, and calls to the travel agency to figure out what's wrong. Here, she looked into it without having to be asked.

The Average
Housekeeping/Engineering. When we asked for services (deliver a microwave, spray some bugs, fix a TV), we ended up waiting a long time, or had to make an extra phone call. I don't expect them to drop everything to get to us right that minute, but within 10 minutes is reasonable, and if not, a phone call saying, "Sorry, it will be another X amount of minutes" should be made. Housekeeping did a great job cleaning the rooms though.

Elevators. They don't go down to the street level. You have to get off at the lobby and walk to another elevator or take an escalator down. Weird.

Swimming pool. The slide is fun, but the rest of the pool is boring. And it's cooooold. If they had a bar or something else besides the slide it would be more fun. Maybe make it deeper and have a lifeguard on duty. The hotel should really run the beach there too. It's sad that it's a separate company who runs it and charges extra for all the activities and chairs and tubes.

The bad
Breakfast. We had breakfast included, so we thankfully didn't have to pay for it. I don't know how much it costs, but if it is more than $5, it's not worth it. The french toast and omelets (friendly omelet chef) were about the only things I ate. My family members (Korean) thought everything was too salty, including the yogurt. There weren't many Asian dishes represented, besides some kimchi and rice. It's surprising considering 95% of guests are Japanese or Korean. The toasters were broken. My niece was sick one morning and couldn't come down for breakfast. I had my niece's breakfast coupon with me and asked a lady there if I could take some fruit for my sick niece. I showed the coupon and would have given it to her. She said I'd have to order separately and pay to take anything out. Really? I am giving you my breakfast ticket which was basically paid for, and which shows I won't be using it again, and I just want to take an apple and an orange (no plate or bag needed)... Bah.

Thin walls. People weren't noisy, but if they had been... it would have been awful.

But yes, overall, the Outrigger was very nice. I would definitely stay there again.

This hotel has great location.Very combinient.We can use Wi-Fi in the room,good.But in the room,we heard next room's voice.It was too noizy.