The Rowe Family Blog

Maui was our final island to visit.  We stayed there for 6 nights.  We arrived for our first night after having spent most of the day hiking through volcano national park on the Big Island.  We arrived in Maui in the evening.

We drove for what felt like forever to get to our hotel.  It was dark and we didn’t have good directions and the hotel was across the island.  We ended up driving beyond the hotel.  When we found the hotel it was already 9pm.  The hotel itself seemed nice…at least in the dark.  The lobby was nice and they had someone take us to our “garden view cottage” via a golf cart.  They showed us around the room (to give me enough time to dig money out for a tip I’m sure) and then left.  Being exhausted we pomptly went to sleep.

At 2am we awoke to the LOUD sprinkler system right outside the bedroom “window.”  It wasn’t really a window as it was just slates of glass mounted on an angled sliding mechanism.  Most of the the window adjusters were broken.  Even if they were there is no way that those things could have kept the sound out.  In the morning we awoke and got ready for our day.  That was when we started to get very disappointed.  The bathroom was very dingy.  It was NOT what we were expecting as the hotel cost a fortune.  The shower didn’t drain well, nor did the sink.  The toilet was leaking.  The room smelled musty.  The closet in the bathroom was badly in need of a paint job (at least).  Even the carpet needed replacement.  The metal room key should have been our first warning sign.

We had a breakfast briefing to get to so we left.  This briefing wasn’t nearly as much of a high pressure sales pitch, which was a good thing because I don’t think I could have handled it with my mood at the time.  We ended up asking the sales guy at the breakfast where a good hotel would be.  He wasn’t surprised to hear that we were disappointed with the Royal Lahaina Resort.  In fact the waitor laughed audibly when we said how much we didn’t like the resort.  Some of the other people at the breakfast told us about their hotels.

We called our travel agency and informed them that we wanted to go to a different hotel.  We told them about some of the hotels mentioned and they said they’d look into it and call us back.  In the meantime they advised us to request a new room.  So we did.  The hostess at the desk informed us that there were no more rooms due to “the flood.”  I didn’t ask what the flood was but since there was major renovations in their tower I imagine that some plumbing broke and flooded out tower rooms.  We informed them of what was wrong with our room and they said they’d send maintenance out.

The maintenance man arrived promptly but mostly dismissed my complaints.  The only thing he did do was fix the leaky toilet.  Our travel agency called us back and said that for an additional $86 we could stay at the Mahana resort.  After a quick trip to the resort to see the room we could have we decided to switch.  When we left the Royal Lahaina Resort the hostess didn’t show any sign of displeasure or surprise.  I also overheard an employee saying that she got a phone call in the evening from a guest.  He asked only what he was paying per night.  When she told him she said he slammed the phone down.  I guess we weren’t the only ones displeased at the price we were paying for our stay.

In our excitement to be rid of the crappy hotel we completely forgot to take pictures of “the dump.”  Overall we only lost a couple of hours dealing with the mess and ended up in a beautiful ocean front condo complete with a kitchen, living room, patio, and floor-to-ceiling windows.  That was closer to what we were expecting for the price we were paying!

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