faithng

We were there last July for 9 days when we were still Gold. I had requested
Ocean Tower and got it but not the nice ocean view because they were fully booked. They did try twice while we were there, but once the view was a obstructed view, so no point there. Plus we were already settled in.
The serve yourself breakfast was in the Palace Tower. Easy walk from Ocean Tower. Ladies in there were very nice and helpful. We just had to sign in. We were happy with the breakfast - croissants, pastries, cereals, juice, fresh fruit.

yoimceo

My wife & 2 kids & myself stayed there last July for 4 nights. We used a buy 3 get 1 free award. My wife & I were celebrating our 25th anniversary and we were put in a 2 room suite in the Ocean Tower as Golds. We had breakfast everday in the Ocean Tower lounge and it worked very well. The room was the nicest room that we have ever stayed in anywhere. They did a wonderful job of taking care of us. E-mail the G.M. (Deiter Seeger) and put in a request.

vatali

I will be there next week, so I will let you know what a Gold gets then.

MBM3

I have been upgrade to an ocean tower room with an ocean view as a gold, but that was in "off" season at the end of October.

I faxed in a request for an upgrade about one week out.

Plats and Golds have lounges.

ejb

We're checking in at HWV this Sunday for 8 nights award stay. We have 3 adults and 1 child (2 yrs old) so roomsize is the most important factor.

A bay suite would be ideal but as HH Gold I am not sure that will be in the cards...I'll let you know how it turns out. Do you think I should send an email or call an assoc. mgr to try and secure an upgrade or would this be pushing our luck?

El Cochinito

Just returned from Kona where we spent 2 nights (award stay) at HWV. Have to concur with the above post. The property is certainly magnificent and worth a stay but expect nothing as a Silver and you won't be disappointed. The staff we interacted with were amicable, but just not as service oriented as one would expect at a resort of this caliber. For example it took three calls and a trip to the front desk before I finally got a cot delivered to our room. Ate lunch twice at the poolside restaurant and on both days we repeatedly had to ask for water refills and utensils to be delivered to the table. Food and beverage prices are high, I expected that given that this is a resort but $12 for a MaiTai in a 4 oz. plastic cup seemed a bit steep for a drink of mediocre quality.

My 10 y.o. son and his best friend did the Dolphin Quest experience. I think it came to around $250 each and you definitely need reservations in advance (they open reservations 60 days in advance). Was it worth the money? Well both kids really enjoyed it; his friend said it was the highlight of her trip. We sprang for a portrait with the dolphin ($14) plus a DVD of the kids during their experience (I think that was another sixty bucks IIRC).

We didn't go swimming in the lagoon but in crossing the bridge and watching the water we spotted turtles, all kinds of fish and a big eel (that sealed it for La Cochinita...no way was she going in the lagoon if it had "snakes"! ).

The swimming pools at the HWV are awesome. Lots of waterfalls, caves, grottos, hidden hot tubs and a cool water slide. That's the good news. The bad news is that they are not heated. The pool water during our visit was cold. Not enough to keep the kids and me out of the water, but I wasn't particularly comfortable. I'd guess the water temperature was in the mid to high 60s (F). There were not a lot of people in the swimming pool...

The hotel has high speed Internet at just under $15/day which I ended up using because my Sprint wireless card couldn't get a connection. I didn't have a problem getting Cingular service on my cell phone though.

A representative of the HWV was at the airport so I asked her about transportation (just out of curiosity - we had a rental car) and she said the HWV doesn't run a shuttle. Taxis, she said, would run about $50 one way. She did give me some HWV luggage tags to put on our bags to help speed up our check-in.

And for those of you going to Kona for the first time...be prepared to be surprised at the scenery when you land. A resident described it to me as being on the "inside of a barbecue pit". This part of the coast is basically a lava desert. There are lots of green places around the Big Island, but not between the KOA airport and the HWV.

Relative to the weather: The HWV lies in what my flight instructor at the KOA airport called "The Wind Tunnel". To the east of the HWV are the two volcanos between which the wind can easily blow. At the same time the narrowing of the valley between the peaks increases the wind velocity per Bernoulli's Principle. So while it can be relatively calm at the airport and in the town of Kona, it can be blowing pretty good out at the HWV. For us the weather was good at the HWV (except for the wind). Mornings were clear, but as the day wore on and the sun heated the exposed black lava in the region, the hot air would rise and meet the cooler moist air from the ocean. So afternoons were overcast with an occasional short-lived shower.

MBM3

Faxing a request has been successful to me. I always address it to the General Manager but it always gets forwarded to the front desk staff. Given that the assign rooms a couple days out, you might want to send your request ASAP.

Starprincess

I am there next month and am a gold.....staying on on Mon.-Wed. would like to get an ocean view on club level. Looking forward to seeing what people get.

InHoc

We recently stayed at HWV on our 4th visit, checking out on 4/15. As El Cochinito said, the pools were colder, it was windier and the afternoons were overcast, as compared to our other 3 visits.

We had 3 rooms (2 award and 1 paid) which were all together, but on the third floor in the back of the Ocean Tower complex. They were sold out one of the nights we were there, so we were thankful to have the rooms together, even though it was a ground floor golf course view. After two nights of our six night stay, we were offered ocean view rooms, adjacent to the Diamond Lounge on the 6th floor of the Ocean Tower.

I mentioned after my last stay at this property that the property had declined since our first visit in June of 2000. Following this visit, I'd say that they are holding the line, with little change since our last visit in 2004.

Changes that I noticed since our last visit:

As a final thought, we decided to purchase one of the rooms, and get the Perfect Paradise package which included 2 breakfasts at the Palm Terrace for each night. We did this based on our previous experience that the breakfast in the Diamond Lounge gets old after a couple of days. It turned out to be great since it drove the $26.50 breakfast down to about $13, and it covered our entire group for two brunches. With the current Triple Base Point bonus, I earned 60,000 HHonors points, rather than using 175,000.

EVA Air

Last December, my family and I were upgraded to a Palace Suite for our two-night stay. We paid almost $400 per night for our original room.

[email protected]

I am diamond and currently writting you from the property.
We were upgraded to a tremendous 2 room suite in the ocean tower.
Big bathroom / king bed room and a big seperate living room with a pull out sofa
fridge / 2 big flat screen tv's / etc. Ocean Diamond lounge is nice - great free water / drinks ( save a lot of money ). Food in the lounge is no big deal - good fruit in the morning.

This is our first visit to the big island and out first visit to HWV.
It's a beautiful property and between the trams and the boats you
never really have to wait long. Any questions just pm me !

The pools are great / the Lagoon is very clean

Aloha,

Scott

MarkMColo

Rubbing in it to us mere golds, eh?

jayb5

We were there in April 05 as Gold and requested a room in Ocean tower, but received no upgd, just a room in Palace tower (typically where most Gold's stay) and had access to the gold lounge in the same tower (free continental breakfast, drinks, & cookies in the afternoon).

[email protected]

Sorry - I was not trying to rub it in !

Scott

Tenacious