Good for you! May we all be as lucky!

Odd that they would have one queen bed in the more prestigious tower, though, rather than a king. I could live with it.

Oh I meant two queens. Which I was a little surprised by since I had mentioned we are on our honeymoon. My wife is thrilled, free breakfast and canap�s and ocean view and she gets her own bed.

Because I got it for 380k points for 5 nights, and could upgrade to Dlx Ocean View for $88/nt, or hope for Napua upgrade from Terrace.

Wow, maybe I will cancel my standby upgrade requests @ $88/night.

I am here now, Diamond member, was offered the free plated continental breakfast (yogurt, muffin, pastry, fruit) or upgrade to full buffet for $19 each. Not $27 each.

I guess they keep tinkering with the breakfast benefit.

I guess you needed a break from breakfast in the Napua Lounge? What is the breakfast like in there?

It's not great. Continental, nothing hot except oatmeal. You do get an OK choice of bread, English muffins, pastries, melon, cold meats, and lox compared to the dining room plated continental breakfast for Gold and Diamond members which has no meats and a few pastries and pieces of fruit of the restaurant's choice.

The atmosphere dining in the restaurant is much better, they have nice outside seating and cloth napkins and waiters bringing you drinks. The downside though is that between 8 a.m. and 9:30 a.m there may be a long line to get a table and the restaurant may be overrun with children.

We had the full buffet breakfast downstairs yesterday and today we had the continental breakfast downstairs at 7:30 a.m., took a walk on the beachfront, then came back and ate again in the Napua lounge, as my wife likes the lox and wanted more fruit.

The Napua canapes selection also hasn't impressed me, the first night there was no meat at all (pumpkin gnocchi and bean dip) but second night was chicken with rice (and more bean dip).

The atmosphere in the Napua "club lounge" is not every exclusive or upscale. Children, people in beachwear, people stuffing bottles of water in plastic bags, etc. If you want the booze (served on the 6th floor), you're sitting more or less in a hallway/foyer where they have set up a bar close to a designated children's play area.

Also, the Napua Tower room I got is on the sunny side rendering the balcony kind of useless between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. and no ocean view unless standing on my balcony looking off to the right. The Napua tower's rooms are on the 6th - 9th floors encircling an atrium with the Botero Lounge on the 4th floor, so it can be a bit loud from 6-9pm when the band is playing.

My poor room may be my own fault though, they initially had upgraded me from terrace room to a two queens Ocean View Napua room and when I arrived I asked if it had a connecting door. They said it did, and I said I'd prefer a King room in the Napua Tower without a connecting door if available. They first tried to charge me an extra $150 per night for that, but then gave me the King room without extra charge, but like I said, no real ocean view. Not sure if my originally upgrade dtwo queens room had a much better ocean view or not, or maybe they consider seeing the ocean when standing on balcony to be "ocean view."

I also don't see how my room here in the Napua tower is "updated" but I haven't seen any other rooms.

My overall point is that I don't think just being in the Napua Tower adds a lot of value for Gold and Diamond members, given the limited evening food on offer, the availability of free continental breakfast in the restaurant, the unappealing ambiance in the lounge, and the crapshoot of getting a good Napua room/bad room/ocean view/loud room/connecting door room.

I'd certainly rather have a good quiet ocean view room outside the Napua Tower with a shaded balcony than the room I'm in now, even if it meant no Napua lounge access. But I generally don't drink alcohol in hotel executive lounges and my wife doesn't really drink at all.

Keeping my fingers crossed NOT to get upgraded, lol.

Actually, every single thing you've said I've read elsewhere about the Napua Tower. We'll be traveling with kids/grandkids who are picky eaters so I'd rather not have to pass on nightly bean dip so they can get their pizza and burgers! And I can't abide a noisy room since we are early to bed/early to rise (and healthy, wealthy and wise to boot!)

What we WOULD love, however, is to be upgraded to the Ho whatever condos across the street for more breathing room, living area, etc. Since that's not gonna happen in this lifetime I think we'll be content with our terrace view.

So it sounds like you contacted someone before your trip to ask about upgrades and mention it was your honeymoon? (congrats btw)

You are also lucky to have gotten the Napua Lounge thrown in...back upstream in this thread someone was "upgraded" and got the room but not the lounge access. The worst of all possible worlds.

The email a couple weeks ahead of time to "welcome" you and ask if you ned anything. I subtly mentioned it was our honeymoon and said I would just like a high floor room with no connecting door and ocean view if possible. They responded back "We'll make a note of this and see what can be done at check in."

I then checked the reservation periodically and it still showed King terrace until about 24 hours before check in when it changed to Napua Ocean View Two Queens.

I arrived and went to regular check in desk even though I think check in on 8th floor is a Napua Club benefit. This could be important because I hear sometimes the check in lines are quite long. The Napua club elevators are directly across from the check in desk but if you went straight from the front door up to the 8th floor with your luggage there's a key card restricted door before you get to the staff in the Napua Club so I'm not sure how they actually do the Napua club check in, you'd probably have to have staff walk you up, which seems rather pointless.

Anyway, the check in experience was a bit odd because she didn't say "We're happy to upgrade you to the Napua club here are the benefits" Instead she talked about my terrace room on points and then said "I see you check in online to a Napua club room" almost suggesting I did something wrong or pulled a fast one on them.

And then when I asked if they could move me to another Napua club room with King bed and no connecting door, she said that's usually a $250 per night upgrade but she could do it for $150 per night. To which I responded "but you've already upgraded me to a Napua club two queens room, and you sell the Napua two queens rooms for as much or more than the Napua King rooms, so why would there be an upgrade charge?"

Maybe the notion is that that upgrade receiving beggars can't be choosers, you have to take the exact free upgraded room or you pay for the upgrade.

She says she'll have to talk to her boss, she comes back and gives me the King room, and then I have to ask, aren't there some benefits to the Napua Club and she reluctantly gives me the card listing the Napua benefits.

As far as Napua room choice goes, see this map:



The ocean is at the top. The Napua tower rooms are on the 6th -9th floors in a horseshoe like formation, with the "U" part of the horseshoe facing the ocean and the two "sticks" of the horseshoe along the sides. I've marked the location of certain rooms showing the last two numbers of the rooms.

So on the sixth floor, the Napua rooms start at 6038 (which would be a particularly bad room as it is right outside the children's play area on this floor only). The rooms continue toward the ocean numbering into the low 40's along the shaded side of the building, and then the rooms ending in high 40's or in the low 50's turn into the "U" and will be close to the ocean and facing the ocean with the best views. Then the rooms continue away from the ocean on the sunny side into the high 50's and sixties. The rooms on the 7th-9th floors have the same formation.

So ideally, what you want, is a Napua room on the 8th or 9th floor in the low 50's, facing the ocean. Failing that, high 40s, followed by low 40s (shaded side)

The low 40s and 60s rooms are closest to the bar.

The worst Napua rooms would be in the 60s on the lowest (sixth) floor.

Of course you might also factor in connecting doors, as there are a bunch of kids here, and if your room connects to a suite, you might have partiers or loud kids next door.

I hope this is helpful to someone. If I had been better informed, I would have asked her the room number of the two queens ocean view room with connecting door they assigned to me, and the room number of the available King room without connecting door, so I could have made an informed decision of pros and cons before choosing.

Thanks to all for the super useful info.

Has anyone tried bringing a panini maker or something like that, to grill some burgers on the lanai? Seems like it would be pretty sweet to watch the sunset w/ beverage in hand while burgers fry and money is saved.

You could probably buy a panini maker at Costco or Foodland - they have loads of outlets for people to charge their phones. So I’m sure it’s fine to use the outlet for your appliance :-)
mega fun!!!!

i love the GW and must book our rooms (we don’t have enough points and just pay cash)

Haha - i think we'd just bring it in the carry on or our luggage. .. But I'm thinking of joining Costco just for the Hawaii trip. We were members here a few years ago and hated it, way too crowded and silly hours

I wouldn�t bother. How much are you really going to buy for a hotel room?

Can anyone confirm what the breakfast benefit is and cost for Honors Diamond or Gold? It seems to change every time I�ve been to this hotel.

I arrived today. As diamond, was told $19 to upgrade to full breakfast, otherwise, some "continental stuff" for 2 is part of the benefit.