Agreed. The hotel did the right thing. They should not schedule events in front of any guest rooms. The rooms were almost $500/night when you include taxes and fees. There is no reason to inconvenience guests in these rooms when there are other parts of the property that could have been used for their dinner.

The fact that the room was an upgrade is irrelevant. That is part of the SPG program for platinum guests and it has been paid for through other stays and business given to Starwood because of their program. They did the right thing and made me happy, but I don't view it as incredibly generous. It does show that the Sheraton Kauai is a good property.

It also wasn't just a matter of people in the distance blocking a sunset - they were almost in the lanai of the room. The lanai doesn't have any separation from the grass. The buffet table was almost where the rail would have been if the room had had one.

If the hotel really needs to use the area it should not rent out the rooms or at least only rent them to participants in the event. In this case the participants seemed to be staying elsewhere, according to the manager. Same if the hotel wants to rent out its facilities for a movie. If they think it is a good business decision, then they should tell guests about it during the reservation process or through e-mail if they didn't know when the reservation was made. If they don't, then they should make up for it to the customer by, for example, providing alternative water activities while the pool is used for the hotel's benefit. I've found most Starwood properties to be very good at taking care of issues like this. Sorry to hear that this particular property is bad in this respect.