i know there was a recent thread on "which hotel to stay in honolulu" but this thread is specifically about the royal hawaiian and upgrade problems. i didn't want to bury it in a thread that also discusses the moana surfrider and the W.
i posted my upgrade problems with the Moana Surfrider in another thread. this thread is about upgrade problems at the Royal Hawaiian.
i checked in using an award stay last week (one night stay). for backgroud, there are six room classes at the hotel: 1) Garden View, 2) Royal Garden, 3) Royal Ocean, 4) Tower Ocean Front, 5) Large Luxury Ocean, and 6) Suites.
when i inquired about a suite, i was told that they usually book award stays at the "Royal Garden" but that i had been "double upgraded" to a tower ocean front room. i said that while i appreciated the double upgrade, starwood policy requires platinums be upgraded to the "best available room at check-in" (i.e., not a double, triple, or quadruple upgrade).
the agent went to the back office and gave me a few other options, none of which were suites. when i said that i was only staying for one night and that i was going to log onto spg.com when i got to the room to see if there were suites, miraculously, a junior suite appeared.
after all that exhaustion, i was not proactively offered my platinum amenity.
other than that, the royal hawaiian is a great hotel and the staff is wonderful. the junior suite i was assigned was a x11 room and it was lovely. i think i could have easily died in the bed it was so comfortable.
as for food, while the breakfast buffet was great, the seafood buffet looked a bit gross. there is just something disconcerting about a tray of salmon sitting in a pool of butter for an hour with a heat lamp over it. since it wasn't super busy, it looked like everything had been sitting around a bit (since the sauces were all congealed).
like the moana surfrider, i thoroughly enjoyed my experice. i just wish it was easier to secure the "best available room at check-in."