We stayed for 5 nights for the second leg of our Hawaii trip. I'm not too hard to impress with hotels. I already knew about the renovations, and the slightly outdated, so I was prepared. The adult pool was closed when we were there, but the oceanside pool was was better anyway, and it wasn't busy at all, ever. Honestly, the property was very quiet right now. If you don't like crowds, it was worth it to stay during these renovation times. I loved the store, it had a little bit of everything you need - snacks, souvenirs, drinks. All the staff we encountered was great. We only ate the restaurant once - it was okay once, I recommend checking out other places after that. The spa, poolside bar, and manta viewing restaurant were all closed. Although the viewing deck was nice, we couldn't see mantas from there. I very much recommend taking a manta snorkeling tour instead! We did multiple tours out of Keauhou Bay, so the location was great for that. The shopping center isn't very far. Otherwise, yes, it is a bit away from town. There is a shuttle you can take in if you want. There's a very nice farmer's market on Friday and the Feast & Fire luau twice a week. We took advantage of everything close by. The walking trails and garden and views along the coast are amazing. We had an ocean view room and it was beautiful. The room was huge. Sure the bathroom could use a touch up, but do I really care about the toilet? The layout of the hotel is confusing and takes some getting used to. Not all towers have elevators. If you self park, make sure you unload your luggage first. It is a long walk from self parking, there is no easy elevator access from the parking level - we ended up lifting our luggage up flights of stairs ugh. We also had issues with no hot water in our shower about half the time. When I addressed this to the front desk, they really only had to option to moving to another room on the ground floor. Which we really didn't want to do, so we just took cold showers so we could keep our view. The property has good potential. I overall enjoyed our stay and enjoyed the amenities and resort benefits we were able to take advantage of. I hope some of the maintenance issues get worked out for the future guests. Despite so many things being closed during this time, we made the most of our stay. Its a beautiful property to walk around, and that alone, I was satisfied with.
