Hi there,
My husband and I are considering staying at the Four Seasons Kona and the Four Seasons Maui. We are interested in "oceanfront" and "ocean view prime" rooms, respectively. These are not cheap options - can anyone give us personal experience with these accomodations?

Thanks!

I stayed at the Maui hotel, and visited the Big Island one. They're both just perfect. Four Seasons is so good at making everything just right, but without going over the top.

We always stayed in "garden view" rooms in Maui. In other words, no view, ground level. The upside is you get a large grassy patio outside your room. You save a lot of money with this option -- money you can spend on your pricey dinners!

I think you'd really enjoy a Four Seasons visit.

We've stayed at both of these places a few times.

The Maui 4S is kind of U shaped with the opening of the U facing the water. So if you have a room on the bottom of the U, you'll be directly facing the water but you'll be seeing hotel to the left and right. There are also rooms on the outside of the upper part of the U which kind of face towards the Grand Wailea and parking lot next door but also give a pretty good view of the water.
That sounds worse than it is.
The rooms on the inside side of the U probably have a similar view of the water.

The rooms which are on the ends of the U are really nice. I think most of those are suites of some sort though.

The 4S on the big island is completely different with separate 8 or so unit bungalows. It's fairly spread out too.

I think the big island one is a much nicer resort and place to stay but there's a lot more stuff to do on Maui. Or at least a lot more stuff that we like to do.

The pools are nicer at the big island one but the beach is nicer at the Maui one.

Restaurants (both in the resort and nearby)
are a whole lot better on Maui than the big island.

The rooms themselves are quite nice at either one. The Maui one is more a traditional hotel style place, the big island one is more ummm ... bungalowish if that's a word.

continuing with zippyh's thoughts... The Maui hotel is within a very pleasant walk of the Outrigger and the Grand Wailea. The Outrigger has a delightful poolside restaurant for dinner, with live Hawaiian music. There's also a small shopping center within walking distance, with a few more dining options.

On the Big Island, however, you're about a 15-20 minute drive from anything else.