Kaunaʻoa (Mauna Kea) Beach — Attraction in Hawaii

Beach was amazing! However, it is extremely tricky to get to the beach because of terrible Mauna Kea resort security guards. When we arrived, we were rudely told there are " no public parking spots left, make a u-turn just ahead and you can check back later". In short, we were denied access and not offered valet parking or other options. We had driven over 45 mins to get there and really wanted to see this beach because we had heard so many great things about it. We decided to keep going because we wanted to check if any public spots were available in hopes someone was leaving. We noticed that there was valet parking at the resort and decided to pay if there were no public parking spots. There were no spots, so we drove to the valet front entrance. We were stopped by a security guard named Emmett because we did not make a uturn and leave the resort. We pushed back and let him know we wanted to have lunch at the hotel and valet the car. He told us that we were allowed to do that but we still should have listened to the front gate guard and left when we were told. He continued to scold us for making his job difficult but eventually let us proceed to valet. Valet is 40 dollars but if you show a receipt from the restaurant, it is 20 dollars.

The security of the resort does not want to accomodate public access and will try their hardest to keep non-hotel guests out. However, all beaches are public to anyone but the hotel wants to make sure its hard to access this beach because they are charging over 700 dollars a night and pretending it's their private beach. Poor customer service. If I was local, I would be 10...

It's a public beach with restrict access of some vigilant with a close gate because the resorts wants to have control of it like a private beach for their guest, we get there and the guy on the gate ask where are we going we say to the beach and he say that there is not more parking so he didn't open the gate we turn around but we were like a wait a minute.. he is letting people in after us maybe because we have the hotel tag hanging on the window so we take it off and try again but there was other different guy attending and without question open the gate for us, we had a rental car of course but l can't imagine how they do with local people because let me tell you that l don't see any if they act like that with us maybe they don't let locals go thru that is really really bad, apart that the one of the hotels there get almost the whole beach with their orange lounge chairs for their guest, the beach it's beautiful great place for snorkeling, l wish the authorities can make more restrictions to this hoteliers because it's ridículos how small the parking for the beach is but huge parking marks with hotel names, small little path to go thru but every where you turn around are signs with paths access only...

This is a beautiful beach, one of our favorites on the Big Island. Getting there is a bit of a chore if you're not staying at Mauna Kea. They do have limited parking and you have to arrive very early to get a spot. We tried twice just after 8am and we were turned away. However, you can park at Hapuna beach and walk over using the Ala Kahakai trail. It takes about 25 minutes from the parking lot and is right at a mile. The trail is a bit rough but we walked it fine in sandals. The walk itself is beautiful. When we walked over today, there was hardly anyone there which makes me suspect of there not being any parking available but that's another topic. There is nothing wrong with Hapuna except that it has limited snorkeling opportunity. Kauna'oa has decent snorkeling on the sides and very calm swimming water in the middle. Overall, just a bit nicer than Hapuna for our family. There is also a beach side bar and grill, Hau Tree. It has good drinks and food although at resort prices. This beach is worth getting to even if you...