pokee

WOW! Mosquitoes?! Who knew!? When we were there, we were commenting on how this was one of our few vacations where we didn't have mosquitoes - and figured none existed that close to the beach! Are they seasonal, or just plentiful when it rains a lot? We had a day of rain when we were there in July and didn't see one mosquito!

YariGuy

+1, when was this? One of the reasons we love Hawaii is the lack of mosquitos (and snakes).

Kacee

Sunday night. I was in Waikiki three nights; no issue anywhere except on my balcony third floor over Ft. DeRussy. I've also run into some pretty heavy mosquitoes in Hanalei. It very much depends on season and location. Some heavy rain and the lack of trades right now probably didn't help.

kenbo

If I had been given a 7th floor room on the park side, I probably would have enjoyed it. But we were below the tree line so whatever ocean we could see between the trees was our "partial ocean view." Being on the 3rd floor, we were so close to the people bbq'ing in the park, they could have tossed us a plate of food.

It's probably just the 3rd floor to avoid.

Kacee

But would you rather have been on the 3rd floor with the the Tapa Tower bar view?

anabolism

I can't think of a visit to Hawaii, any season, any island, where I haven't been under attack by mosquitos near the beach. January, April, July, September, November, December, Honolulu, Maui, Hawaii, Kauai.

kenbo

I think so. I could enjoy the live entertainment from my lanai versus hanging out with the folks in the park.

thnarf

I recently stayed at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu Hawaii for 5 nights and did a video review of the grounds and a room in the Tapa Tower. I broke the review up in to 5 videos, depending upon what you're interested in:

Resort Overview: Hotel grounds, beach, and pools
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iNR6NX3cTo

On Property Shopping and Dining:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT9_IXyj0vw

Tapa Tower Room on the 31st Floor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb0La52EgUs

Highlights from Friday Evening's Rainbow Revue (A hula inspired show):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry66hfVVee0

Friday Fireworks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abWWD6zUO4I


The Hilton Hawaiian Village is truly a mega-hotel -- it's the largest hotel in the Hilton Chain and the 18th largest hotel in the world with over 3,300 rooms. The hotel is located on the North-Western edge of Waikiki, close to the Ala Moana Shopping Center. To walk from the hotel to the "center" of Waikiki takes about 15-20 minutes.

The hotel has six tower buildings, six pools, 90 shops, 20 restaurants, a lagoon, and a beach. So as you can tell -- there's a ton of stuff to see and do on this property. They also feature a nightly Luau Sun-Thurs, and fireworks shows on Friday nights at 7:45 pm. For the best view of the fireworks show, pay $20 to watch the "Rockin' Rainbow Revue" at the Super Pool at 7pm on Friday. You'll have a seat by the pool, and the fireworks start immediately after the show.

There's a big parking garage in the middle of the property, so self parking is pretty easy. They advertise a rate of $27/night for self parking, but I was only charged $18/night for parking. Valet is of course also available.

The lobby is this not-really-indoor / not-really-outdoor space. It's basically a covered area with a roof but no walls. Check-in for the most of the resort occurs at this central lobby, but some of the towers have their own check-in desks.

A a Hilton HHonors Gold+ member you have the option of of 1,000 points (one time) or a $10 food credit per day per person. The food credit is really the way to go. You don't have to spend the food credit all in one day as it is a cumulative credit.

We got a room on the 31st floor of the Tapa Tower. The views were really awesome from that level, but the wait for elevators was a huge time-sink. Going up to our room we regularly had to wait "in-line" for multiple elevators before we could get in one to go up. Going up to the room to get something we forgot and coming back down to ground level could be 15-minutes of time wasted.

The room itself was a typical Hilton room, nothing particularly noteworthy or outstanding about it.

SquarePeg

Thanks for sharing the videos. Planning a 2016 trip to Oahu and Big Island and this was helpful.

Jailer

Today's useless factoid: apparently mosquitoes aren't indigenous to Hawaii, but were brought over by whaling ships, perhaps on the underside of water barrels and/or bilge water. What a nirvana the Islands would be mosquito-less!

hailstorm

Nothing is "indigenous" to the land of Hawaii. It burst from the ocean millions of years ago, and every few millennia some life form accidentally survived the journey and took up root there.

Man just sped up the process of what would have eventually happened anyway.

Kacee

Under that logic, nothing is indigenous to any spot on earth, which "burst" from galactic matter some four billion years ago (or so).

The fact is there were no mosquitoes in Hawaii before the white man came.

It's kind of biblical. Paradise lost.

Andriyko

Thanks for the review thnarf! Excellent^

pokee

I love your room review thnarf - it included some really cool mundane details that people like me crave to research prior to leaving for a trip.

One thing you did point out was that your elevator wait was super long for the Tapa Tower. Your view was decent up there on the 31st floor, but I don't think it justifies that elevator wait. I still think I did the right thing by booking a Ali'i Tower room. We had great views of diamond head and the beach from the park side, but rarely had waits for the elevator. Forget something in the room - up to the 12th floor and back down in less than 5 mins!

nk15

Hi all, what is the situation with the late checkout at HHV, as you know most flights depart after 9pm, and it seems that the hotel offers a 6pm checkout for $125, if available. Are there any other options for Golds? And when do you request the late check out (during check-in?), and would this matter for room selection? That is, do you need to tell them at check-in, so they give you a room that would be available until 6pm at the day of your departure?