I stayed at the Moana the week before Thanksgiving.

I am SPG Gold and as the previous poster stated, culd not book an ocean view room with points (as I recall.... I know there was defintely only a certain type of room wtih points you could get).

We stayed for 8 nights: Paid for 4 with points and got 1 bonus night. Plus paid for 3 nights with cash. booked separately.

The 3 nights with cash we paid for a Historic Banyan Ocean room. I think the rate was about $309 per night.

When we got there, the had automatically upgraded us to a Deluxe Ocean View Room in the Historic section for ALL 8 NIGHTS. They claimed this was a 4 category upgrade.

Yes the room is small but coming from Manhattan that is no biggie. The bathroom was small but again no biggie.

Now this is key.... this part of the Ocean view in Historic wing is the TRUE ocean view. We had a little balcony and an amazing, direct view of the ocean.

The Banyan Ocean view (what we booked for the 3 nights) would have looked out on the banyah tree and pool area....which is in front of hte ocean so it would not have been "direct ocean view".

SO the upgrade was really great, and we got it for all 8 nights!

I kept wondering about the Tower so we looked at a Tower room and to be honest we didn't like it. The view form our room was much better and the room was not much different.

The lobby and public spaces of this hotel are really great. It's also the first hotel in Honolulu. It's truly beautiful. The room, admitely, are not quite as grand or "luxe" but I think this is the best hotel in HNL. The ROyal Hawaiin was not open then but I would be interested to see how it compares.