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Posted on Dec 11, 2007 - 1:55am by John P. in Reviews, Travel, Videos
Waikoloa Village is basically a subdivision on the Big Island of Hawaii that has a wide variety of housing units ranging from single family homes, to condos, to high end hotels. Among the hotels is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, and this is where I spent the week on my recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. (View in Google Earth. What is Google Earth?)
The hotel is ideally located for branching out to explore all the various parts of the island, and the facilities are enormous. 64 acres of highly manicured grounds complete with a private bay, swimming pools, and even a dolphin habitat. With over 1,200 rooms, this is a large hotel by any measure. A local man told me that the property was originally developed by a Japanese company for $360 Million, but later sold at a huge loss for $90 Million to Hilton.
Although the hotel is basically a Disneyland for adults, there are some critical flaws which greatly detract from it as a serious vacation destination. At the same time, there is some great stuff to see and do… like swim with the dolphins!
The Hilton Waikoloa Village is part of the Waikoloa Beach Resort. They offer an interactive Village tour
Here is a short (7 minute) promotional video about the Waikoloa Beach Resort. It covers more than just the Hilton, but it shows the wide range of activities at the overall resort.
Before I talk about the good things, I’m going to start off with the bad points:
Its never good when you have problems right from the start, but unfortunately we ran into some at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. It started at the front desk when we were informed that the property is quite large, so either a train or a boat will take you from building to building. The agent advised us that we could simply hop on the train and it would take us right to our building. Additionally, we were told we were on the first floor.
Based on this information (and the fact that the valets seemed very young and unprofessional – hence I didn’t trust them with my bags) we decided to self park our Jeep and carry our own bags. However, after unloading everything and parking in BFE, when we arrived at the tram station there was a sign saying it was ‘out of order’. This forced us to pile all of our crap on and off of a tiny little boat that was clearly not designed for ingress and egress with baggage.
After the slow ride to our building (12 minutes) we then had to carry our bags all the way down a hall past 40 other rooms (I’m not exaggerating). This was a long, long way and not the quick easy trek that was described at check-in. (Here is a video I took to demonstrate the distance.) We saw a lot of older people complaining at the front desk over multiple days about this issue.
Which leads us to the second issue…
I’m not exaggerating when I say that it takes over half an hour to take a round trip from your room to the hotel lobby. In fact, it could take up to 45 minutes. This means that if you forget something in your room and want to just run back and get it, it’s going to blow your whole schedule.
There is no way to park even within a half mile of your hotel room. The self-parking lot is $9 per day, and much too small. (We learned it also suffers badly from flooding if it rains hard.) Its at least a block from the parking lot to the lobby alone.
From the lobby you have the option of taking a “boat”, which is on an underwater rail system; or a train which comes by around every 10 minutes or so – but only when the boats and trains are actually working. There were multiple times on three separate days when the train was not working, and even times when neither the boats or trains were working. Clearly you cannot rely on their transportation to be operational.
The boats:
The trains:
At these times the only option was to walk upwards of a mile to the room. Now imagine that you had just checked in and had to carry your bags this far! It happened to a lot of people while we were here, and they were all very pissed off. The bottom line is that getting in and out of this property is such a pain it will make you think twice about leaving for any reason – which is, I’m sure, what the designers of the property wanted.
One of the little annoyances that begins to get old really quick is that they are trying to sell you on the Hilton Grand Vacations Club.
The good news is that if you are a Hilton Gold member they will give you free continental breakfast coupons for every day of your stay. And the food is actually pretty good.
The bad news is that the open air Palm Terrace cafe, where the breakfast buffet is served, has such a bird infestation problem that it is actually disgusting. Seriously, I can’t believe the place hasn’t been shut down for sanitary reasons. In fact, a bird flying over our heads crapped on our table just inches from our plate. That’s when we stopped eating and never went back. In other words, they couldn’t even give me the breakfast for free!
Here is a short clip demonstrating the swarming bird problem. Now just imagine trying to eat a meal with this going on literally all around you. If you even stand up and walk away for 30 seconds there will be birds all over your table. In fact, they come and bug you even while you are sitting there eating.
One of the best things about visiting this hotel was the fact that there is a highly interactive and personal dolphin habitat. You have the option to suit up and actually swim with and pet the dolphins while getting some first hand training about them.
The other option is just to stand right beside their pool and watch them swim around and generally be awesome. I highly recommend that people visiting the Big Island come here just to see this, even if you don’t stay at the hotel. It’s free to watch, so why not!?!
Oh, and here is a tip… if you are just coming to visit the hotel for the day, don’t pay to park in the hotel parking lot! Right across the street from the Hilton is a public beach access parking lot that is free. It’s basically as close as you’d get by paying the fee to park on property, so don’t do it!
In the private bay, where you can snorkel, kayak, and generally mess around, there are actual Hawaiian Green Turtles. Here’s the video proof! Beware though, these turtles are endangered and protected so don’t even think about getting too close.
One thing they got here is a beautiful golf course. Now, it’s going to cost you nearly $200 a round if you aren’t staying at the hotel, or over $130 if you are a guest… but hey, if you’re willing to lug your clubs all the way to the middle of the Pacific ocean are you really going to complain about the cost? Didn’t think so…
Ok, if golf is not your game… no problem! Everyone can play Putt Putt Golf! And they’ve got the nicest mini-golf course I’ve ever seen. The whole thing is real grass, and it’s a real putting green.
Be prepared to pay $13 per person to go around, but hey that’s 1/10th of what you’d pay to play the big boy’s course so it a fantastic deal by comparison.
As I mentioned previously, this is one very, very expensive property and as a result the entire thing is beautiful. I highly recommend taking a walk around as much of the property as you can stand to see it all from the outside.
Then after you’re done you can go hang out at one of the pools, lay in a chair on (or near) the beach, or monopolize one of the hammocks strung up between idylic palm trees on the property.
Now, there is a lot more that I could talk about on the property, the restaurants (all overpriced and the ones I ate at were mediocre quality), the spa (extensive menu, but we didn’t partake), the pools, shopping (stores for clothes, shoes, art, etc.) and more… but after a while a review like this gets boring, so if you have questions just ask me in the comments section and I’ll dish out the info.
Ok. Here is the part where I get into my standard hotel Q&A.
Hilton Waikoloa Village
69-425 Waikoloa Beach Drive
Waikoloa, Hawaii 96738
Phone: (808) 886-1234
Wow! It’s so beautiful!
I stayed at the Hilton Waikoloa Village about 1 1/2 years ago and loved it. It is large, but using the trains and the boats are really quite fun.
I thought the rooms were really comfortable and plenty big enough.
The Dophins are amazing! You’re right, watching them is just plain fun!
The vacation club (timeshare) stuff is just annoying! I did it one time to get tickets to the Jim Nabors show in Honolulu, but never again.
Kids absolutely LOVE the Hilton Waikoloa Village….the water slides, the swinging bridge, the lazy river…all fun.
We went on a Cruise recently and were bothered almost to the point of being harassed about their vacation club. You can’t go anywhere anymore without being upsold in to something else. Kind of ruins the experience.
Wayne,
I know what you mean. That’s kind of why I posted that particular detail about this Hilton… I think some people seem to have a higher level of tolerance for putting up with these sales pitches, but personally I feel insulted that they can’t be content with the money I’m already giving them! Why do they have to try to extract more before they even deliver value on what they’ve got?
It’s just bad business in my opinion.
Now, if they wanted to follow up after my vacation and make sure I was happy with it and then try to sell me another it would be different. But to begin hitting me up at registration is absurd.
Take care, and keep on truckin! ;-)
John
Parking $9 a day and Internet $16 a day…
Only Free Breakfast if you are a gold member…
How much do they charge for the rooms?
It sounds expensive and with all these issues it did not sound like a place you would ever go back to…
Kim:)
The editing function doesnt seem to work for me any more… I just see a thin black line where the edit bar was before…
Kim:)
Oh yeah… sorry about that. I learned that the edit script had a memory leak or something and it was taking my server down during Diggs! I had to remove it. :-(
If anyone finds a good Wordpress plugin that allows users to edit their post for a period of time please let me know and I’ll put it up!
John
We spent the night a few weeks ago and would not recommend it to anyone. It is very expensive yet poorly maintained. The planters outside our room had dead plants and rotting fruit. The buffet cost us $30 apiece and the food was cold and tasted bad. After staying five nights in volcano and eating in some good and reasonably priced restaurants the Wailkoloa was like staying in a high priced slum. Do yourself a favor and avoid this place.
Don’t waste your time going to a Hilton Grand sales pitch.They will lie to you to get you to sign the timeshare documents since their is a high turnover of sales people from the mainland who move back . They will hold you hostage for 5 to 6 hrs by talking you into their presentation shuttle and drive you away from the hotel to a timeshare property far from the hotel. You are held hostage listening to them because you have no other way back to the hotel. Believe it.They will write VIP price just to make you feel good but the sales person will erase it when they turn in your application . You can’t even give the timeshare away if you decide to sell it later because it does not appreciate like a vacation home would. Research it. They will promise you the world so you sign to take out the timeshare loan. You can get the same timeshare units at any discount timeshare place for 65% less with the same points and RCI privileges. Check the Timeshare discount place on Alii in Kona first. The Japanese fall for timeshares sales the most because they don’t read or understand English fully.
Regarding the “Blog”:
Before going on vacation and spending the kind of money you seemed to have put out (unless this is a free trip), spend some time researching. Check the rooms, check the activities, the prices, the freebies, the blogs (?), A few minutes of proactivity…………….?
Take charge, acting like a victim and whining does no good. Want a cheap vacation? There are lots of places: Mexico, Novato, Plains, Nicaragua, Brazil, Bahamas, New Orleans, San Juan Island, and more.
Want something worthwhile? Spend some money.
tnq
First of all, do you see how much freaking documentation there is in the article above? Do you really think that someone who would write this much after the fact would fail to do their homework beforehand? Think!
Secondly, price is not the issue here (clearly you didn’t read my bio). I listed quite a few things about the property that I liked. But no matter how you look at it, there were some significant issues. The bird infestation at breakfast was completely unacceptable. As was the fact that the trains were not working 50% of the time.
I’d go back to visit the property, but I’d never stay there again.
John
Thanks for all the tips. Do you really get held hostage to the time share pitch for 5-6 hours? We are going on a “free” hotel stay if we do the sales pitch. We have the option of extending to 6 days from 4 for another 200 dollars. From your blog we are thinking of doing only 4 and staying somewhere else for 3. What is the low season- we are going the second week in March. How crowded do you think it will be? Are there refrigerators in the room? What is your suggestion for breakfast? Buy food and eat in your room? Thanks for all the great information.
Leslie
Thanks for all your hard work. My husband likes the disney affect with lots to do. We want to visit Hawaii for our 15th aniversary and were considering this property. I noticed in your blog that you visited the property in 2007. Any update on your likes/dislikes? I really appreciate having the heads up as money is an issue for us, this is a once only/dream trip for me and I am trying to keep hubby happy with lots of activities. I would prefer an ocean view, any other hotel recommendations that would make us both happy?
The Hilton Waikoloa Village looks really nice. I’m going this summer but won’t be staying at a plush resort like that. I’m sure i couldn’t afford it. I enjoyed the article on it though. I can still dream. Lol