AaronD23

Lol, the credit wouldn't cover coffee and a muffin delivered to the door.

HawkeyeFlyer

I have stayed at both properties. However, only one time at HHV as that property, and Honolulu, do not belong in the same sentence with Maui and GW if you are talking about luxury. Do you use EVERY benefit of your status level with hotels, every time? They are giving you a benefit, if you choose not to use it, that is your choice

HawkeyeFlyer

I have never had an experience with anyone at GW being rude, especially at the front desk. My guess is you got someone who could not believe you were as upset as you seem over $15

AaronD23

Your guess is wrong. Even upon arrival, before they explained the food credit, the front desk staff was definitely not friendly, they were barely polite. We arrived at 3.15 pm and were told we were 'extremely early' as our room wasn't ready yet. Got a phone call 10 minutes later that our room was in fact ready. They didn't bother explaining anything about the hotel (spa, pools, restaurants, concierge). Good thing the bellman was very knowledgeable and could answer all our questions.

Softwizard

The GW has been sold several times over it's history. Note that Hilton does not own this property - in fact, 99% of hotels are not owned by Hilton, Marriott/Starwood, Intercontinental, etc... The owners of the property - currently Blackstone Group - employ Waldorf Astoria (a brand of Hilton) to run the hotel.

Only once did it is change Management companies: from a Hyatt to the current Hilton management team. It is unlikely that Hilton would lose the contract, but if they did, your reservations would likely be honored or you could cancel. Considering that it is a flagship property for both Waldorf Astoria and Hilton, I doubt Hilton will lose the contract.

Softwizard

However: since they add on a 7$ delivery charge and a 20% service charge, that means you get roughly $ 19 net food credit per day.

Not to defend this change, but your math is off. If you are given $15x2 each day, the $7 delivery charge leaves $23. I would hope that you would have tipped 20% even on the free breakfast

frank808

We checked in at 11:30pm on Aug 30 Thursday with Aaron and another nice lady working front desk. Dennis was working at the valet and unloaded our vehicle and brought out luggage up. Great first impression for me as we have only stayed at the Westin kaanapali and Maui ocean club until this stay.

Had one other guest and she was a diamond member that took about 25 minutes asking for a specific few rooms. Just relaxed and waited for the front desk staff as it was originally just one lady working at that hour (she was a small petite Asian lady. Her name eludes me but it started with a v). I guess she called for backup as Aaron came out of the back and checked us in. He was super cordial and informed us he was new on the front desk and since we were diamond asked if we were willing to wait for his associate that was more seasoned in working the front desk. I said no problem and in no real rush as it was already midnight by now.

After "V" was finished with the other checkin she helped us. Thanked us for being diamond members and for waiting so patiently for the other guest. Then mentioned that we were upgraded to ocean view room instead of terrace view(booked using points and our two free weekend certificates). Asked her if there was any availability in Napua tower and what the cost would be. She said let me see. After a minute she said told me I had a choice of standard ocean view, junior suite or even higher suites were available. Told me the upgrade price of ocean view would be $100 nightly and junior suite at $550 nightly. Decided on the $100 upgrade to napua tower. The bottled waters, breakfast, heavy apps and happy hour was definitely worth $100 upgrade. My wife and I had apps that replaced dinner. Son used the room service credit for dinner and all was happy. The $30 credit didn't cover everything but a good portion of costs. Besides the $7 delivery fee and 20% surcharge there is the hawaii general excise tax.

it was a great stay and the pools were great. The lava tube slide is pretty fast and better than the aulani slide and way longer. But the best hotel water park we have been to is Atlantis in bahamas. Weather was great as it was nice and sunny the past 5 days. Staff was great from front desk, valet, housekeeping, room service, concierge, etc. This was one of the few times we have just hung out at resort and glad we chose grand wailea for this trip. Will be back here annually now with our 2 free weekend nights between my wife's and I aspire card. But first will be back to Westin Kaanpali for a week in March. Then will be back in Sept next year. Only one thing that would have made this stay better would be on site laundry facility. Had to use the laundry mat down the road in kihei.

HawkeyeFlyer

So on the VERY RARE occasion I have had a situation like this at a Hilton property, I have called them out on it immediately. Demanded to speak with a manager before I even went further in the check in process. Why do nothing about this type behavior

AaronD23

It does leave $23. So if you subtract the 20% service charge, that leaves $19 to order something from the menu.

iahphx

So I see that this property still generates, um, "mixed" reviews.

But it's crunch time for me to decide whether, as a Diamond, I should stay here with my free weekend certificates. I'm thinking "yes," if for no other reason than Maui hotel prices seem genuinely stratospheric. Since I already have an airplane ticket to Maui, I have to stay somewhere, so I might as way stay somewhere decent where lots of cash won't be leaving my pocket.

But a couple of quick questions.

First, am I understanding that the hotel's water features are heated? We're going in winter, so that would definitely be a plus. I've stayed at other resorts in Hawaii in winter where the pools were unheated and they were often bracingly cold.

Second, I understand that on an award stay I don't have to pay the resort fee (yay -- 40 bucks on a "free night stay" ain't free!) -- but I do have to pay the $30/day parking fee (which I assume they will add tax to)? I do have an Honors Aspire card: can I assume that this charge will be billed to my room and the Aspire credit would therefore work? Can I also assume that there is nowhere else I could possibly park for free if I was willing to walk, say, 15 minutes, to get my car?

Finally, it seems like the Gold/Diamond breakfast benefit is changing almost monthly. As of right now, is it 2 $15 room service only credits that can not be stacked over multiple days? Can I use them any time of the day, or just in the morning? That sounds like a pretty sucky benefit (especially since the mandatory delivery charges seem to reduce it to $19), but I guess it's better than no benefit. If we're not hungry, maybe a strategy would be to order one big room service breakfast, split it and then go out for lunch. I doubt there's much "value proposition" on their room service menu: can one order a normal breakfast for something like $30?

BlueZebra

I doubt they heat the pools, at least not much. The daytime temps will be in the high 70s or low 80s, and the night time lows will be in the mid 60s. Not much need to heat the pools, Mother Nature takes care of that. And given there are open air pools with water slides/features, any heating would likely just be lost.

Been there in November, and December (as well as other months), never felt they needed to heat the pools.

Eujeanie

I guess you could park at the Shops at Wailea - I have no idea if they allow overnight parking, or if it would be safe, just saying it's a close alternative.

Do you plan on using the car every day? We found we hung around the resort so much (we love it, despite its supposed flaws), that next time we'd take a shuttle from the airport and just rent a car for a day or two on the days we wanted to venture out.

I thought the water here was fine - not toasty warm, but I certainly spent a lot of time in it without getting cold.

BlueZebra

Shops at Wailea is gated parking. You will be paying to park.

We have also considered the shuttle and renting a car for a day or two. In fact we were going to do it for our stay next month...until I found I had a free Hertz rental coming, so using it then.

iahphx

Yeah, I wondered about not renting a car at the airport. But, since it's Maui, I assume the shuttle fee to the hotel is quite high. And I also assume that the daily rate for renting a car at the Grand Wailea (I think it's now an Enterprise location) is usurious. I know the car rental taxes at OGG are high (is there any expense on Maui that's not high?), but I'm sure I can use some sort of code to get my rate down to about 35 bucks/day (sad that the parking fee at the hotel is about the same as the car rental cost!). I don't think I would enjoy being a car-less "hostage" at the hotel. And after a few days at the Grand Wailea, we'll head elsewhere on Maui with our car for a different vacation experience.

Eujeanie

You don't have to wonder or assume about any of these things - car rental prices, shuttle prices, are all on-line - do the math and decide what's best for you.