Hi all... I'm posting this in the *Wood forum instead of the trip reports forum since it's all about my experience at the Maui Sheraton. I'm writing this from the hotel room as I wrap up the last night of my stay.

Overall my impression of the hotel is a fairly good one. I'd give it a 7 on a scale of 1-10 (10 being best). It's pretty centrally located in the Ka'anapali area, and isn't too far from great restaurants, beach actvities and other attractions (i.e. golf), and the hotel is pretty quiet. They've done a few things that I'd like for them to change - but who am I?

I arrived at the hotel after a half-hour drive (or so) from the airport in Kahului (airport code OGG). It's very easy to find. But when I arrived my room wasn't ready. This is something I think the hotels and airlines need to figure out, since most flights into OGG from LA, San Fran, Chicago or other major airports come in between 10am and 2pm. Checkin isn't until 3. I arrived around noon, and was told I should hang out. Since my bathing suit was in the suitcase and I didn't want to drag out everything, I decided to grab some lunch. The desk staff made up for it by buying me a drink - a nice gesture. They also took down my cellphone number and said they’d give me a call when the room was free.

Thinking I had 3 hours to kill, I went down to the pool-bar and had a sandwich and checked the place out. Before I could finish lunch, my phone rang and my room was ready. YES!

I got to the front desk and she informed me as a *wood Gold guest, I’d been upgraded to an ocean-view room. Perfect. I collected my keys, my bags from the bellman and found my way to the room.

The room is pretty standard. It has a King bed, a smallish TV (no local NBC affiliate or HBO, for some reason), the commode is too close to the toilet paper roll, meaning you have to sit at an angle, if you know what I mean. Also, the shower is setup so that the bathroom door will not completely open to 90-degrees. It only opens about 60-degrees or so. On the bright side, it has a refrigerator and free internet access (part of the $17/day “resort fee”, so not really free). My ocean-view is a partial ocean-view, if I go onto the balcony and cringe my neck to the left. I can see ocean, so they didn’t lie, I guess.

Anyway…. The pool areas are packed with kids and adults alike, and there is direct access to the beach from the pool area. That means there’s sand and more sand in the bottom of the pool from kids coming and going back and forth. There’s plenty of waitresses serving drinks and snacks, and I really didn’t have any trouble finding a chair to lay on. Towels are distributed in a central location and you can get as many as you like, so long as you fill out a form scaring you into returning them or else you get a $25 fee. The pool attendant told me to scribble some stuff on there. Nobody was going to charge me anything. Nice.

The restaurants in the hotel were a bit disappointing. Not a lot of variety. There’s one that claims it has the best salad bar on Maui. I think my local sizzler has a better salad bar, so if this claim is true, there’s tons of opportunity for a salad bar investor here in Maui!

I only ate one meal at the hotel restaurant. Instead, I opted for heading a short walk down to the Whaler’s Village, where the restaurant selection and nightlife were a little more appealing. The Westin Maui is right next to the Whaler’s Village, and after visiting that property for dinner (signing privileges there for Sheraton guests), I should have stayed there instead. The pool was better, the pool chairs looked more comfortable and plentiful, and the bar scene was easier to enjoy. I had several tapas at the Westin pool bar one night and flirted with a few nice ladies – one who just LOVED to drop the F bomb. Interesting.

I ordered room service tonight, ordering a club sandwich. The sandwich was ordered on wheat, and came on white. It says on the menu it comes with avocado, but there was no avocado on the sandwich. Also, I ordered mayo on the side and they brought extra ketchup – no mayo!!??!! Then the guy tried to argue with me over whether a service charge that they put on there was indeed a tip or not. I said it was, he disagreed. I told him he got my sandwich wrong, no mayo and they didn’t give me an option of turning down the service charge, so it was all the tip he was going to get. I’m still waiting for a callback from the manager about this. I wasn’t going to make a big deal about the sandwich, but I did want the mayo. I didn’t expect to get a hard time about what was a tip and what wasn’t.

Overall, the room isn’t all that bad. I’ve read previous items on Flyertalk about the hotel being overrun with kids. There’s lots of them, but they’re pretty manageable. And I’m shocked at how quiet the hotel is in general. I never even heard the doors closing of my neighbors. If you have points to blow on a free vacation, like I did, the Sheraton Maui may be a good selection. My next trip will be to the Westin though! ;-)