Koloa Landing Resort at Poipu, Autograph Collection Review: May 14-19, 2018

Why Here?

Having visited the Big Island last year, my wife and I decided this year to go back to Kauai for the first time in 33 years. On our previous trip to Kauai, we had stayed in a condo rental up in the Princeville/Hanalei area. For this trip, we looked at different hotels and properties around the island. Leveraging my Marriott Rewards points as well as room availability for reasonable point redemptions during May 2018, we narrowed the selection down to Koloa Landing and the Marriott Kauai Beach Club.  In the end, we used points to stay at both properties during our trip.

The Reservation

As a MR Category 8 property, the basic room available is a 1 King+Sofa Bed Studio most with Resort View, some with Partial Ocean as well as others with Ocean View for 40,000 points per day. Additionally, depending on which days and when you search, availability of the 1 Bedroom and 2 Bedroom Villas for an additional $150 plus the 40,000 points per day up to $250 plus the 40,000 points per day might also be options to book. Rather than pay a whole lot more and because it was only the two of us and because it was the only point booking option without additional cost, we booked the 1 King+Sofa Bed Studio with Resort View at the 40,000/night rate for 5 nights in order to take advantage of Marriott's 5 nights for 4 point stay benefit.

Also note that the hotel charges a resort fee of $32/night. There's also a "GE Tax 4.166%" charged as well - but that's not disclosed when booking. Moreover, what the resort fee covers is not detailed either on the hotel's Marriott web page nor their own property's web page. Oh, and on-site parking is "Complimentary"!

Here's a crop of my booking confirmation e-mail:

The Property

From the Marriott website, the claim is that this is the "Newest product on Kauai - opened in 2010 and expanded in 2013 and 2016".

Layout

Hotel's website claims that there are over 300 "all-deluxe studio and villa accommodations" that size from 475 square foot studios to 3,600 ft^2 4-bedroom penthouses.  The property is divided up into a number of separate buildings - see below:

Note that this property does not have direct beach/ocean access - you have to walk across Poipu Beach Road/Hoonani Road and then climb down to just access the shore which is really only lava rocks.  If you want a beach, you'll have to go drive east or west to one of the public beaches.

This is a Poipu-area hotel. Quick checks on Google Maps show 14 miles/~30 minutes from LIH, 5 miles/11 minutes from your turnoff from Kaumualii Highway (Highway 50), 2 miles/6 minutes from Old Koloa Town and the local Big Save Market and 0.5 miles/3 minutes to either the Kukuiula Village Shopping Center (Northwest) or the Poipu Shopping Village (East). Here's crops out of Google Maps as well as Bing:

Note that the Google Maps data doesn't show the property at its current configuration - there's no building even for the Holoholo Grill - I give kudos to Bing for getting that part right.

Got to the hotel around 8 PM so things were a bit dark by then.  Were informed that, because of my Platinum Premier status, we'd been upgraded. Were given our room keys and a ticket for two mai tais as well as were lei'd - my wife the orchids, me the kukui nuts.

Other things to note about the lobby include infusions/water dispensers (during the day/evening - or Starbucks coffee / hot water in the morning) as well as an Enterprise Rent-A-Car desk.  The "Gourmet Marketplace", an enlarged lobby shop, is located immediately adjacent to the lobby as is the Spa and the Fitness Center.

Drove our rental car down to the lower eastern parking area and took our things up to our room - 10-407:

The room numerology seems to be: first digit(s) is the building number, floor and then the room number on that floor. Here's the room's door and adjacent hallway:

Part of our arrival gift was a bottle of water, chocolate covered macadamias and a small banana nut bread loaf:

10-407 is a 1 bedroom villa type room with full kitchen, dining area, sitting area.  Let's start with the bedroom in the evening (and properly lit):

Here's the same bedroom in the daytime (with the throw pillows relocated to the living room):

The room has a full bathroom - which is adjacent to the entrance to the room:

Toiletries:

Extremely large walk in shower that had a shower head suitably placed for a 7 foot person:

You also get a full bath with its own sink. This room with a bath is the passthrough from the bedroom to the bathroom.  Also, this is where the room's closet (and two robes and slippers) and safe are located:

Here's the path from the room's door: service closet and kitchen to your right, washer/dryer pair to your left and then the dining+sitting area:

No photo but there's a flat panel TV in the sitting area as well as a similar TV in the bedroom.

Important stuff from behind the front door:

From this floor map, I'd assume that the 8 rooms sandwiched between the two corner rooms and the middle room are the studios and that the corner rooms, at least in this building are also 1 bedroom villas.

Also, there were two packets of detergent in the bathroom which is adjacent to the washer/dryer:

For those debating the type of view your room may have, here's what it looked like outside ours (in a stitched perspective):

The foreground shows a lava rock/garden. Further out is the roof of the Holoholo Grill, the Main Pool, Building 9, Building 8 and then the Pacific Ocean in the far distance.

Here's sunset:

If you want a better view, go back out to the elevator side of the 4th floor of Building 10:

If interested I also have photos of the flooring and some of the cooler art in the room but I'll leave them out of the review.

Here's a view of the room from the ground floor looking up - ours was the one on the top floor with the yellow siding and adjacent lanai (to the right):

There are 3 distinct pools at this property.  We had time to take in only two of them: the Main Pool and the Lagoon Pool.  Even in the Main Pool, I wasn't able to go into the infinity pool part.

Here's a composite of the Fitness Center - note water dispenser and fruit:

We had breakfast our first morning at the Holoholo Grill.  Most of the dining tables are located outside.  Food, while decent, isn't cheap.

If desired, a guest can pre-order items from the "Gourmet Marketcenter" to be stocked in the kitchen prior to arrival.  Another option is to shop locally and prepare food (or purchase prepared food) and have items stored for a repast.

As others already noted, the property does not sit at the water's edge - it has direct walking access to the coast but there's no beach. Here's the path/driveway looking back toward the property:

Here's the shore:

Having also tried the Marriott Kauai Beach Club as well on this trip (also on points), we both much prefer Koloa Landing.  While the Koloa Landing Hotel isn't in the Lihue area nor is it at either end of the Kauai highway system like either Waimea or Princeville/Hanalei, the development of services, nearby shopping areas and access to beaches and other attractions make it quite appealing to a visiting family or couple to the island of Kauai.

In brief, I'd say that this property is accessible - you can park nearby your building, you can hang out at the place if that's your speed, there's not hundreds of people overrunning this location and there's plenty to do and see nearby.

I'd be an even bigger fan if they'd simply drop the Resort Fee since there's no value added.

David