Great bargain for budget-minded beachgoers.
Written: May 24 '08
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Product Rating:
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Pros: close to shopping, decent price for so close to the beach, friendly staff, maintained grounds
Cons: old building, slow elevators, expensive convenience store, restaurant closed
The Bottom Line: A great deal if you aren't able to splurge and want to be very close to the beach, restaurants and shopping.
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| razberryswirl's Full Review: Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel |
2007 was in my first year at a new job and only had one week of vacation, so I saved it and we used it all for a much-needed trip to the beach in November 2007. We thought about where to go, and we've always wanted to visit Hawaii. We could have chosen some sort of all-inclusive resort in Jamaica or the Dominican Republic at less the price, but opted to stay in the States and visit some of our country's historic spots in Hawaii.
We chose to stay in Honolulu just because we only had five days and we were spending most of the first and final days just flying 8-9 hours, so we didn't want to spend any more time in a plane than we had to.
When choosing the hotel, we wanted to be budget minded of course, but we really wanted a hotel that was actually on a beach - meaning, we could walk out of the hotel and be on a beach. That would be worth the extra cost as we were not going to rent a car and knew we'd spend a lot of time at the beach and we didn't want transportation to be an issue. Just being on a beach jacks the price up greatly for the hotels! You'd be looking at a minimum of $200 no matter what. Many of the newer hotels were so expensive and the Ilikai looked nice, so we chose it since we were able to get it in an Expedia vacation package at about $150 per night. Searching the same time period on the Ilikai website, our same room would have been $200 per night.
First Impressions
Just being in Hawaii for the first time, walking out of the airport in Honolulu was exciting enough, so getting out of the cab and walking into the lobby, we were just generally happy. The exterior of the hotel is obviously outdated compared to the newer high-rise hotels around it. To make matters worse, it stands out because the balconies are all painted a slightly obnoxious shade of light turquoise. But the grounds and lobby were pretty nice. The lobby is large and airy and there are plenty of places to sit and chat and enjoy the perpetual breeze. The outside grounds are large and elevated with pretty foliage and places to walk and sit. There are also several shops in the hotel - a business center, a small convenience store, bridal shops and other clothing shops, a florist and a pharmacy so that was nice. But the convenience store was CRAZY expensive. Wait and buy your items someplace else!
Checking In
Front Desk staff was nice. We were not offered an upgrade but decided to upgrade for an additional fee of $50 per night because while our room had a view of the ocean, we wanted a kitchen so we could save money and have some groceries around - this still saved us money based on the Ilikai website rates. There were four elevators which were really slow, but we read a review here at Epinions before we left tipping us on the hidden "service" elevator which we used often during our stay.
As we walked to our room, it is very obvious that some of the rooms at the Ilikai are rented hotel rooms; some of them are actual condominium residences. Several rooms on our floor were and I would feel strange if I lived in a building where my neighbors were simply renting for a few days. I would have thought there would be certain residential floors and some hotel floors. It didn't bother us but you can definitely tell which residents actually live there from the visitors.
The Room with a View
The rooms are nice. Nothing fancy, but roomy enough for a couple on a week-long vacation. The kitchen was a decent size as was the bathroom. The shower was a nice walk-in and you could tell the overall design of the room was meant to accommodate people who would walk in half covered in sand - you could slide off your flip flops once you walk in the door and to the bathroom and rinse off in the stall, then come back out and step on the carpeting.
And of course - the view was beautiful. While we did have an "ocean" view, our immediate view was of the harbor below (otherwise seen in the show "Gilligan's Isle"). Not the prettiest harbor, but interesting to watch people tending to their boats. But beyond that harbor was the endless ocean and Waikiki beach, and to the right you could see many miles of beach, parks and hotels of Ala Moana Blvd. It was worth the $200 per night, still a great bargain for a beachfront hotel.
More Details of the Stay
Unfortunately, we had no idea that the casual restaurant in the hotel that handles room service, Canoes, was closed for renovation. That was a disappointment because we like to have breakfast delivered our first and last days of our vacations. That's okay because we found a fabulous little spot called the Wailana Coffee house a block away, open 24 hours and a fantastic variety on the menu.
The restaurant on the top floor of the Ilikai was open - Sarento's Top of the I. We were informed at check-in that they were serving a 3 course Thanksgiving dinner so we had them make some reservations. The dinner was fabulous - fancified turkey and all the trimmings, the staff was great and they gave us a fantastic private table that overlooked the city.
There is an Expedia concierge desk in the lobby of the hotel and we had a very friendly guide who helped us book a few touristy things to do like dinner cruise and Pearl Harbor tour, and also let us know of a few local places we might enjoy. On Friday nights, the hotel puts on a little show with Hawaiian folk singers and a shirtless kid runs around and lights all the gas lamps so it's actually very romantic and charming to sit on the balcony and listen.
If you walk outside of the hotel and down the stairs of the outside deck, you have to walk on about 100 meters of a parking lot to get to sand. There is a small private nook of beach surrounded by a few trees that is nice, but if you walk along that, you get to the big part of Waikiki beach that is swamped with tourists at the right time of day - but a lovely beach nonetheless. This takes you to the grounds of the neighbor hotel, the Hilton Hawaiian Gardens which has a huge mall and plenty of shops and an outdoor bar area. Other than the touristy things that we booked (all of which included transportation), we didn't stray very far from the hotel, just walked along the beach and checked out all the shopping at the Hawaiian Hilton Gardens mall.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
razberryswirl
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Member: Naomi
Location: Central Illinois
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Oh my goodness - I'm almost 30!
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