I know we’ve got a lot of Hawaii travel coming up in this group - we are here now, so I thought I’d give my resort review (1st of 3 resorts we are staying at). Right now we are finishing up our stay at Wailea Beach Villas in Maui.
Pros - the rooms are GORGEOUS. We are in a 2 bedroom condo with a full living room, kitchen and washer/dryer. It’s seriously nicer than my house at home! Tip - it’s a Hyatt property and you can book through the Hyatt website, but you can’t pick your specific room. There are several other websites where you can see and book a specific room. We used Destination Hotels, but I also saw that Exotic Estates has them listed too. I’m sure there are others. We are in Penthouse 306, and the location is PERFECT. The first number is your floor number - I don’t think I’d want to be lower than 3. The Penthouse is the main building with the lobby, a fitness center (super nice equipment) and a game room with a pool table, ping pong table and shuffleboard. It’s the farthest building from the beach - maybe a 4-5 minute walk. There are “villas” closer to the beach. I think there are maybe 8 of those buildings, with maybe 4-6 units in each? I think the unit sizes vary from 2 bedrooms to 4 bedrooms.
Other pros - the location. Right on Wailea Beach next to Grand Wailea (which is insanely huge-looking - we haven’t explored there). And the main building is literally a one-minute walk to Shops at Wailea, which is a really nice outdoor shopping and dining complex. Everything from high-end stores like Prada, to Banana Republic, to an ABC convenience-like store. And tons of restaurants. In two days, I think we’ve walked over there at least 4 times to eat or grab things we needed. No place is closer than Wailea Beach Villas. We are also walking distance to Grand Wailea and Wailea Beach Resort (Marriott), so you’ve got easy access to their restaurants. There is also a stand at the Marriott to rent kayaks, boogie boards, and snorkel gear. I assume that’s open to everyone but I’m not positive. (A con for Marriott - it’s NOT on the beach. It overlooks rocks and is a bit of a walk to a sandy beach. Not a far walk, but it is NOT beachfront).
The beach isn’t huge (I’m used to North Carolina beaches!) but it is nice and not insanely crowded. They’ll set up umbrellas and chairs for you (free).
Cons - it’s not a true resort in that there are no restaurants or bars on-site. The restaurants aren’t a huge deal because Shops at Wailea is so close, but it would be nice to have a beach or pool bar to get drinks. There is a food truck at Grand Wailea that you can access, but it’s very limited in their drink selections -a handful of beers and maybe two cocktails.
There are two pools and they are really small - an adults only (18+) pool near the beach, and a family pool near the lobby (a decent uphill walk from the beach - maybe 4-5 minutes?). Both have hot tubs. No slides or anything like that. BUT, even though they are small, because the resort is so small, we’ve never seen them crowded at ALL. No problem getting chairs and umbrellas any time of day.
I think that’s it? Tomorrow we move to Hyatt Residence Club in Ka’anapali for 3 days, and then Hilton Hawaiian Village in Oahu for 4 days.
For excursions, we’ve done - Haleakala Bike Trip (not the sunrise one - that required a 1:30am departure from our hotel, but the morning one), through Bike Maui. Not for the faint of heart. As a nervous parent of fearless teen boys (15 and 17), it was pretty terrifying for me (I would have loved it if we were adults only - I was busy worrying about my kids the whole time!). I can’t imagine taking kids much younger than mine on that trip.
Molokini and Turtle Town snorkel trip on the Calypso -we did this this morning, and it was a blast. The boat is the biggest in Maui and has a jumping platform and two slides (my kids love that stuff, so that was why I picked this boat). The crew was phenomenal. The snorkeling at Molokini was pretty disappointing given the build up - we saw a lot of fish but not much variety. And we had to cancel Turtle Town because of swells and went to an alternate spot where we didn’t see much of anything. But even with that, I’d highly recommend Calypso - most of the boats go to the same spots, so you won’t get much variety there, and Calypso was a fun boat with a great crew.
Oh, and for anyone going to Hawaii anytime soon or even not soon - make excursion and restaurant reservations NOW. Everything is and has been booked up solid for weeks (thank goodness I’m a crazy Type A planner and booked everything 6 months ago)! Some restaurants are walk up only - expect 60-90 minute+ waits, even if you go early (5:30ish). Take out is your friend - even the really high end restaurants are doing take out, which saved us our first night here - another reason we love having the Villa with so much room and a full kitchen.
I’ll be back with more later! Happy to answer any questions.
So check both plates before you drive off the lot!
