BEWARE!!! The ONLY thing this venue has going for it is the view: and if you are on the side with no ocean view be prepared for a significant "rip off" experience. I'm literally giving this place two stars instead of one because we had a beautiful view. Here's the details:
1. Paid extra for breakfast and it was a bad experience all the way around: 15-30 min wait EVERY DAY to get in. Inconsistent staff: from bossy and entitled to a helpful and kind. Food was awful - the very basics and this is from a "real Hilton"??!! It's supposed to be better than Embassy suites right? Bottom line: the breakfast venue is way too small for a hotel of this size. Food choices are very basic and too many nickel-and-dime corner-cutting management choices: very small coffee cups, you have to ask for a pitcher of coffee, bowls are very small, signs up that say if you take anything out you get charged $1.99 for their "Green fee"? GTFOH!!! I paid almost $12k to stay here! If I want to bring a few bagels for the road deal with it. We ended up bringing in our own coffee cups, and making up lies at the Starbucks counter to get a to-go cup... Can you believe that?
2. They had an arcade room full of scam claw machines! So awful... poor kids dumping $15-20 a day trying to grab a 10-cent stuffy - really? Is that Hilton's best option at providing wholesome entertainment for children? Every game should have been free play and zero claw games.
3. Towel machines everywhere with signs that say if you don't return your towels you'll be charged! More insulting ghetto verbiage that just points to ignorant clueless management. At these prices and resort expectations, I absolutely do not need to ever read that crap: staff should be waiting and serving - not barking rules and consequences.
4. Worthless concierge desk! I asked the concierge desk how to get to the Dole Pineapple Plantation and they had no idea what it was! That's like being at a five star hotel in Paris, being told they don't know how to get to the Eiffel Tower.
5. Everything requires a key card! It's a real pain in the a$$! They sure have plenty of hotel security: what the hell are they doing? Literally, you have to use a key card to go into the elevator, to get to the pool, to even open the lobby bathroom, to get towels for the pool! Honestly, I don't care if every resort is like this: it's just really poor customer service.
6. Every day there was a magician in the lobby pandering people to see a magic trick and then sell you on a $75 ticket to an hour magic show at the resort!! Again, REALLY?? Dumb nickel-and-dime cheap tricks to lure kids into over priced activities that should just be part of the "resort experience" - Hawaii already requires an expensive daily resort fee that every hotel charges... So what the hell are we getting for that fee!
7. Last note: there are TWO Hilton resorts both with very similar names, marketing images, and in close proximity to each other. This one: "Hilton Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa" and the other one: "Hilton Hawaii Village Beach Resort". I spent about 5 hours searching resorts and I thought I was picking the other one - I'm no idiot, but after so long comparing, it was too easy of a mistake. I think the Hawaiian village, might've been a better choice for smaller kids... But ultimately I'm guessing most of the complaints would've been the same. I'll never stay here again.
