miles_navigator

We just got back from a 5 night stay at this property I booked two (2) separate studio rooms using 5th night free for 1 room and cash ($90 + tax) + points (4,800/nt) since I took some extended family along on the trip. The 2 studios was much cheaper than booking a 2 bed room villa for our needs.

My only request on the room was to have the rooms in the same building/floor and down the hall from each other. Hotel did great in accommodating the 2 rooms down the hall in the North Villas Bldg 6 where we had partial ocean view from the balcony of one unit and the other corner unit out the window. I was expecting to face the parking garage since I don't have SPG status and needed 2 rooms close to each other. Kudos to the team here.

They said I could check into upgrading to a 1 bed room villa later in the week but when I checked back they wanted $150 extra per night and more importantly we wouldn't be down the hall anymore...so I passed on trying to work an upgrade.

The facility is excellent and very well kept. The beach is excellent and not too busy like the Westin (hotel) Maui area. The pools are great for children especially smaller children. My toddlers had a lot of fun at the pirate ship pool.

I visited the other 2 SPG properties in Maui to see if we prefer another one later since this one is generally more expensive to purchase with $$. My impressions/opinion is:
Westin Villas - great for families and w/ young kids
Sheraton - good for families w/ middle school age + kids (water dept in pools is min 3.5'/4' so kids must be able to swim).
Westin Maui - I felt like i was in a Maui version of Waikiki beach. Definitely more geared for adults or high school age + kids in the family. Don't get me wrong; I really like Waikiki beach personally but I'd rather pay Waikiki prices. Same water dept as above in Sheraton.

There seem to be a lot of activities right at the hotel like snorkeling lessons for children.

The location is good. The Lahina Market grocery store across from the Safeway was a little better in quality than Safeway.

Internet use was free. Wireless internet was fine except starting around 6PM local time; I guess people get online before sunset since beach and pool activities become more limited. I couldn't reach the wireline internet plug from the little table so I switched to the lobby wireless internet and problem of bandwidth was solved.

The main area of improvement for this hotel is in the area of service. My main comparison is our experience at the Marriott Vacation Club in Ko Olina (time share for time share in Hawaii). In general I found minor issues when mentioned don't get addressed and require constant follow up and escalation to a supervisor before they get dealt with. Unfortunately this happened 3 times to us on a 5 night stay so my impression I am left with in this category is they need to button up their level of customer service.

For example on issue we had a shower handle that broke one late evening. We called 2 separate times in the morning and asked it be attended to while we were out in the morning at the pool. Returning to our room 6 hours later and I find no one did anything about it. A visit to the manager on duty and stressing the lack of customer service got he problem fixed right away but it shouldn't have to turn out that way.

So in summary; great facility but digest some of the lack of service. I'd return on points/cash and points again but if Ko Olina is cheaper and flights there are cheaper I can get a similar resort experience at the Marriott Vaction Club Ko Olina.