Read lots of bad reports - is this true?

[Kwdsue]

We'll be staying at Aulani for the first time in Jan '23, and I was really excited until I read a TON of negative trip reviews on a a travel site. Many of these reports were from this June and July.

One of the repeating complaints is that rooms are dirty when you arrive. Bathrooms not clean, not vacuumed, ovens still have old food on them, etc. As a DVC member, I know housekeeping only come in to replenish items and towels, but I expect a clean room when we arrive. Has anyone recently experienced rooms not cleaned?

Also, many people said there are no blankets or comforters on the beds, just sheets, and there weren't extra sheets, pillows or covers for pull-out sofas.

I'd appreciate if anyone can confirm these problems, or put my mind at ease that these things simply aren't true!

 

[Delilah Bleu]

I just returned from a stay August 1-5 in a one bedroom. The room was clean when we arrived, no leftover food of any kind, kitchen stocked with dishes. There were sheets and a blanket for the fold out couch in what looks like a table in the living room. The king bed in the bedroom had sheets and a light weight comforter on it. There were also 6 pillows on the bed. I am sure if you need more blankets you could ask.

 

[Van@Disney]

Been twice, housekeeping has been great. They have gone above and beyond on a couple of occasions. Room has always been clean.

 

[corgi_monster]

I've stayed many times since Aulani reopened after covid (I'm local) and have always found the rooms to be clean and housekeeping to be on par with other Disney deluxe resorts in America. You might have different creepy crawlies if you leave your screen door open, but that's just part of Hawaiian-style indoor/outdoor living and not a knock on housekeeping.

What you read about the beds are true, though. You can find a set of blankets in the closet. The ottoman in front of the couch can be opened and you'll find the extra bedding for the pullout.

I love Aulani. However, I can understand why people who aren't familiar with Disney pricing and (arguably) Hawaii pricing may complain about the resort. When you pay $700-$800+/night you expect Four Seasons/Ritz quality accommodations, amenities, and service. Aulani, with its dated rooms and lack of dining options, is not on the same level. When reality doesn't meet expectations, people complain.

 

[WillGan]

We'll be staying at Aulani for the first time in Jan '23, and I was really excited until I read a TON of negative trip reviews on a a travel site. Many of these reports were from this June and July.

One of the repeating complaints is that rooms are dirty when you arrive. Bathrooms not clean, not vacuumed, ovens still have old food on them, etc. As a DVC member, I know housekeeping only come in to replenish items and towels, but I expect a clean room when we arrive. Has anyone recently experienced rooms not cleaned?

Also, many people said there are no blankets or comforters on the beds, just sheets, and there weren't extra sheets, pillows or covers for pull-out sofas.

I'd appreciate if anyone can confirm these problems, or put my mind at ease that these things simply aren't true!

Hmmm. Curious. What is the “travel site”?

 

[corgi_monster]

Hmmm. Curious. What is the “travel site”?

I'm not sure which site the OP saw but the reviews on TripAdvisor make Aulani sounds like a slum.

 

[WillGan]

No to all of those complaints and last we stayed was July 3-5 in a 1BR. Will look to share some pictures shortly as we try to find them as this sounds nothing like what we experienced both times we’ve stayed Dec. 2021 and then again this past July. It was such a great experience we’ll be back in Oct. and then for NYE and have already booked for next July. Screenshots of the video we took upon arrival. Don’t let those reviews ruin your excitement! It is and will be all that you’d hope it to be. Judge for yourself.

 

[WillGan]

I'm not sure which site the OP saw but the reviews on TripAdvisor make Aulani sounds like a slum.

Comforter, I’ve always slept on that dang pull out bed with my son and the blanket provided in the footbed (pillow also) was warm enough. Hawaii does not get cold enough to have a comforter. But other than that…..

 

[DreamIsaWish]

We were there just over a month ago. No problems at all. Room was clean and the layout was exactly as I would expect from DVC studio. Blanket wasn't my favorite, but I also love thick comforters and no hotels provide what I'd like. I asked at the front desk for more blankets at pillows (one for me, and one for the pullout so each kid could have one and not argue). They were "hotel spare blankets" as expected, but were delivered to the room promptly and no problems at all. I think we got 2 or 3 extra pillows and 2 blankets brought to the room.

I see some reviews on "a travel site" are complaining about the pool being unusable (due to the hunt for pool chairs). Not true. We went to the pool in late afternoon and I found two chairs next to each other pretty easily. Not instantly, but not a big deal. And if no chairs are open, just use the cubbies for a while. Saw other reviews mention that it's not up to other Disney hotels. I felt it was at least as good as if not better than other WDW hotels (we've done Poly, Boardwalk, Copper Creek, Animal Kingdom, Saratoga, OKW, and Beach Club). Lush greenery and pool facilities are the best (but I can't compare to Beach Club as their pool was closed during our stay there). Our view was amazing.

We never intended to stay at the resort 100% of the time, but we also never spend 100% of the time at a WDW hotel. We ate almost nothing at the resort, so the high food prices didn't factor in. We preferred to eat at local food trucks, shave ice stands, etc.

Looks like a good chunk of the reviews paid cash. We stayed on points. I wouldn't spend $600, $800, $1500 on any hotel room (as reviews are specifically quoting), but I'm sure if somehow I had spent that I'd have awfully high expectations. Perhaps that is part of the cause of the reviews..???

But to your original question, no cleanliness issues. Not even sand in the rooms/hallways/etc., as is normally quite common in any beachside hotel.

 

[rosegold:)]

I am going to Aulani for the first time too this September, and I was reading Trip Advisor and was getting nervous from all the negative comments. We are staying in a 2 bedroom villa, ocean view, so we are definitely dishing out the cash. I hope that it is worth it, these comments are more assuring!

 

[Kwdsue]

I appreciate all the positive feedback! The reviews I read were from Trip Advisor. Good reviews were few and far between! I always like to read reviews from other sites to get the non-Disney perspective. I'm really excited and can't wait to experience this beautiful resort!

 

[alohamom]

I find the bedding covers very thin so I always ask for two extra blankets as soon as we check in.

 

[Brett Wyman]

The thing about review sites is its mostly the upset people that go there to post. So you get a very skewed view.

 

[DreamIsaWish]

I find the bedding covers very thin so I always ask for two extra blankets as soon as we check in.

Agreed. I don’t like it either, but certainly not a dealbreaker like some reviews make it out to be. I’m with you… easy solution and enjoy the trip!

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The thing about review sites is its mostly the upset people that go there to post. So you get a very skewed view.

I always look at the low star reviews to see if there's just uber pickiness or legit information. It really helps me figure out if any place I stay is something NBD to me or "oh no yeah that's not good"

Maybe somewhat of a skewed view but if you're reading enough complaints that have the same thing over and over it's probably pretty darn accurate.

We tend to view it the same on the DIS, no? Like complaining about certain restaurants or experiences. Right now I've been reading quite a lot of disappointing stuff about Enchante on the Wish and have watched several review videos, even the DIS has reviewed it IIRC.

It's a bit of a weird thing to encounter food gunk in the oven when it's multiple reviews mentioning that. That to me means they may be missing that when cleaning the rooms perhaps in the interest of room turn over.

If I'm reading it multiple times that's telling me something is up. Same goes for other things like a switchout of bedding.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm sure if somehow I had spent that I'd have awfully high expectations. Perhaps that is part of the cause of the reviews..???

I would agree to a point. However, I think anyone no matter the money, points, etc expect the place to be clean when they start their visit. I've stayed in 5 star hotels for fairly low price (Vegas for one is highly volatile on hotel pricing) but just because I stayed one trip on a comp, another trip $120 and another trip $600 (which no haven't stayed for that price but it can get up that high) doesn't mean I don't expect each of those stays to have the room to be clean.

I do think the comforter/blanket is more and more common at hotels. In the interest of less waste, more easy cleaning (often why you see white bedding too), etc many have gone away from having additional things on the bed. Last December when we stayed at The Encore we still had a comforter but when we stayed at The Bellagio that same trip we only had a sheet.

I'm not sure bedding is necessarily an awfully high expectation but perhaps it's more about getting used to how the industry is changing. High end does not mean a bunch of bedding nor does low end mean lack of a bunch of bedding these days at least. On the other hand an extra blanket would be nice to have in the room to begin with regardless.

 

[J-Dog]

I'm not sure which site the OP saw but the reviews on TripAdvisor make Aulani sounds like a slum.

How so? I see some poor reviews on there, but the overall rating is 4.5/Excellent.

I always look at the low star reviews to see if there's just uber pickiness or legit information. It really helps me figure out if any place I stay is something NBD to me or "oh no yeah that's not good"

Maybe somewhat of a skewed view but if you're reading enough complaints that have the same thing over and over it's probably pretty darn accurate.

We tend to view it the same on the DIS, no? Like complaining about certain restaurants or experiences. Right now I've been reading quite a lot of disappointing stuff about Enchante on the Wish and have watched several review videos, even the DIS has reviewed it IIRC.

It's a bit of a weird thing to encounter food gunk in the oven when it's multiple reviews mentioning that. That to me means they may be missing that when cleaning the rooms perhaps in the interest of room turn over.

If I'm reading it multiple times that's telling me something is up. Same goes for other things like a switchout of bedding.

I admit that I also tend to read the poor reviews more than the 5-star reviews, but I try hard to ignore both the terrible reviews and the absolutely glowing reviews, because many of those tend to have an agenda (i.e. one little bad thing happened, so that person got mad and it skewed their attitude and suddenly, in their mind, everything about their vacation totally sucked). I try to take the 2, 3, and 4-star reviews the most seriously.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

How so? I see some poor reviews on there, but the overall rating is 4.5/Excellent.


I admit that I also tend to read the poor reviews more than the 5-star reviews, but I try hard to ignore both the terrible reviews and the absolutely glowing reviews, because many of those tend to have an agenda (i.e. one little bad thing happened, so that person got mad and it skewed their attitude and suddenly, in their mind, everything about their vacation totally sucked). I try to take the 2, 3, and 4-star reviews the most seriously.

I see it differently and I don't think majority have some sort of agenda although I share your viewpoint on be careful about what's in them. What I do do is read carefully to know if it's legit or just pickiness. Same goes for product reviews. Sometimes things really are awful and other times it's user error. I think it's just about reading the reviews not just taking a star review and going for it either uber positive or uber negative. Sometimes people rate something 5 star but then give details that to them didn't warrant knocking stars off but were worth mentioning.

I guess I could have worded it differently before but I look at all the reviews but I go first to the low star ones as that tends to help me out the most when it comes to what I'm looking at and I can more easily knock something off the list if enough reviews contain the same or similar thing and if something has a disproportionate amount of low stars something tells me there's an issue. If something doesn't have low stars then I start to scrutinize all the high stars because that could mean it's legit or there's some paid reviews, friends of the place reviews and so on.

One of the things we paid attention to when we searched hundreds (and I do mean that) of resorts in the Riviera Maya for our trip next year is things like "timeshare presentation", "couldn't get dining reservations" "sargassum really bad", "theft", etc. We just didn't want to stay at a place with a timeshare presentation (and there's a LOT of those in Mexico sooooo many all-inclusive are like that), because of our traveling party dining reservations were going to make for a stressful time so knowing if a place had one if it was relatively easy or just impossible to get them was very important (we ended up with a place that is first come first serve which is better for us for this trip), theft was big because someone leaving their high end watch out on their suitcase is not playing it smart (so user error), on the other hand a watch in the locked safe in the room and getting stolen? That's a problem. Sargassum is a very big issue there so knowing does a resort really try hard to deal with it or do they just not care and not only that is there a pattern of which beaches (and therefore which resorts) are getting it the worst, and so on. All of these were contained in 5 star, 1 star and in between. But you're right people can be overly dramatic on their reviews that's for sure!

I just think it's something that when people review travel sites they have to spend the time to look at the comments which it seems the OP has done.

 

[J-Dog]

I see it differently and I don't think majority have some sort of agenda although I share your viewpoint on be careful about what's in them. What I do do is read carefully to know if it's legit or just pickiness. Same goes for product reviews. Sometimes things really are awful and other times it's user error. I think it's just about reading the reviews not just taking a star review and going for it either uber positive or uber negative. Sometimes people rate something 5 star but then give details that to them didn't warrant knocking stars off but were worth mentioning.

I guess I could have worded it differently before but I look at all the reviews but I go first to the low star ones as that tends to help me out the most when it comes to what I'm looking at and I can more easily knock something off the list if enough reviews contain the same or similar thing and if something has a disproportionate amount of low stars something tells me there's an issue. If something doesn't have low stars then I start to scrutinize all the high stars because that could mean it's legit or there's some paid reviews, friends of the place reviews and so on.

One of the things we paid attention to when we searched hundreds (and I do mean that) of resorts in the Riviera Maya for our trip next year is things like "timeshare presentation", "couldn't get dining reservations" "sargassum really bad", "theft", etc. We just didn't want to stay at a place with a timeshare presentation (and there's a LOT of those in Mexico sooooo many all-inclusive are like that), because of our traveling party dining reservations were going to make for a stressful time so knowing if a place had one if it was relatively easy or just impossible to get them was very important (we ended up with a place that is first come first serve which is better for us for this trip), theft was big because someone leaving their high end watch out on their suitcase is not playing it smart (so user error), on the other hand a watch in the locked safe in the room and getting stolen? That's a problem. Sargassum is a very big issue there so knowing does a resort really try hard to deal with it or do they just not care and not only that is there a pattern of which beaches (and therefore which resorts) are getting it the worst, and so on. All of these were contained in 5 star, 1 star and in between. But you're right people can be overly dramatic on their reviews that's for sure!

I just think it's something that when people review travel sites they have to spend the time to look at the comments which it seems the OP has done.

I completely agree with you.

It's just that a lot (i.e. most) of the 1-star reviews on the internet - whether product reviews, hotel reviews, etc. - seem to indicate that everything was bad and NOTHING whatsoever was good about that particular product, which I usually find hard to believe. Maybe those people "forget" the good stuff in their effort to complain, or maybe they do have an agenda, but those are the reviews that I tend to disregard right away.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I completely agree with you.

It's just that a lot (i.e. most) of the 1-star reviews on the internet - whether product reviews, hotel reviews, etc. - seem to indicate that everything was bad and NOTHING whatsoever was good about that particular product, which I usually find hard to believe. Maybe those people "forget" the good stuff in their effort to complain, or maybe they do have an agenda, but those are the reviews that I tend to disregard right away.

True true don't disagree there