Hilton Waikoloa Village — Hotel in Hawaii

My wife and I are in the top tier of Hilton's rewards program and had plenty of points burning a hole in our pockets, so we booked a last minute family vacation with our two young daughters to Hawaii, staying our last 5 nights at the Hilton Waikoloa in the Makai tower. Below is our initial read 3 nights into our 5 night stay. The hotel is in a beautiful location with friendly staff, and could be dramatically improved with a few simple changes. Below are the highlights, with a deeper discussion of some frustrations:

The location is stunning The staff (too few of them) are incredibly helpful Rooms are comfortable and clean and housekeeping is great, as is expected for a standard Hilton property. The notes and flowers are appreciated by our daughters. Understaffed Hard to get food Unclear value on points, definitely wouldn’t be happy paying full price given the current experience

I think the biggest problem we’ve observed is understaffing. We see this in a few ways:

We were excited by all the activities included in our stay, but the reality has been underwhelming, and I’m unclear on what the resort fee covers. For instance, my daughters and my wife wanted to do paddle board yoga and showed up 10 minutes before the class, but 17 of 18 spots were taken. There were another 15 paddle boards, but apparently their anchors had gone missing. Then they tried to attend the Ukulele jam session (another activity covered by resort fees). That was cancelled. We’ll keep trying, but it is hard to get the girls out of the ocean to do something else, and then deal with tears when they can’t. A quick shuttle ride to the shopping center 5 minutes away or the nearby beach is ~$52 round trip for a family of four. It doesn’t impact us (we rented a car), but I call it out for others.

Getting food and drinks takes real effort. During the day, we’ve observed one person walking around once taking orders (maybe drinks?) by one of the big pools, but they never came by us or over to the lagoon. Most people seem to bring in their own food/drinks because this is likely easier. They don’t have enough restaurants open after 5pm, and those which are are understaffed, showing fully booked online by ~half full in person. We asked for help getting a reservation from the hotel, and only got support after being unequivocally clear with our frustration.

There is a dedicated line in the lobby for Diamond/Gold members and people staying in the Makai tower. We stopped waiting in it because we got funny looks from the staff wondering what we were doing and now stand in the normal line for the other tower. It moves faster. We only stood in that line because that's where we thought we should be.

Management should evaluate some of their business decisions. Below is what stands out to me so far:

75% of the pool side seats and all of the ocean view seats around the lagoon require renting and advanced reservations. They are almost entirely vacant. Around the lagoon there's not enough space for everyone who wants to be there (taken up instead by the vacation, reservation only seats) approximately 50% of guests are making their own seats on the grass. I don’t know what the cost is, but I’d likely lower the price until they’re at least 70% occupied, and drop the canopies which obscure the other chairs' view of the pool.

There is inconsistent pricing for the onsite experiences. They are most expensive through the Hilton Honors website. This is surprising, considering Hilton's focus on booking directly with them. It also creates a negative customer experience. We recommend not booking in advance, and instead booking directly. At least when we visited, we saved $100 by booking the dolphin encounter and $40 booking the luau onsite.

The resort fee doesn’t cover any pool/swim toys of any sort (for adults or kids). They are less expensive to buy 5 minutes down the street than they are to rent for an hour at the resort. We recommend picking up snorkel kits on the way in.

We'll update as we go and with some...

As a Hilton diamond member for few years I typically love Hilton properties. This particular property however is grossly mismanaged in so many ways. First, credit where is due, the property is gorgeous, it's huge composed of 5 plus buildings and really nicely laid out. The problem is it is not designed to be convenient for people.

I do believe the experience of this property will be very different based on where you are located within the property. If you are located in makai building which is the leftmost building of the property, then you probably enjoy your visit very much because everything you want and need is close by with huge pool, beach access, main market restaurants, and you can simply walk to the lobby and parking lot as needed.

The story changes greatly if you are located in Palace or Ocean Tower. Ocean Tower is huge, probably have maybe 300 plus rooms but it's located at the edge, the other side of the property. Now the property has gondola boats and tram to accommodate customers to go back and forth between the lobby and Ocean Tower for example. However gondola was not working during my 6-day stay and I was told that it has not been working for a while due to shortage or something....

That leaves tram. They have couple trams that go back and forth and these are extremely slow. You can literally walk faster than their speed and they're either have AC broken or extremely cold inside nothing in between. For example I was coming back to the room from makai building which where all the restaurants are, and because we dinner with a few drinks, I wanted to ride a tram instead of walking back almost a mile back to hotel room. Tram was so cold, it felt like maybe 50° inside, I wish I had a winter jacket, we had to get off at Palace station and walk to our hotel building, just could not stay in there any longer. Even though usually I like cold weather....

I can go on and on and on about tram, but it's just too slow, I'm not sure if he can go faster but they also stay between the building at each station too long (three or four minutes at a time) so between lobby and Ocean Tower, it takes about 30+ minutes to get there which is crazy. You're just spending all the time in the stupid tram.....

for those who are thinking why not just park by the ocean tower, well there's no way to get into Ocean Tower without going through the lobby which is four tram stops away... Yep, all five buildings share one parking lot by the lobby which is on the left side of the property.

If you want to look at the silver lining, this property forces you to exercise a lot because you Will be walking a lot. When I did not have luggage to carry around, I actually did not mind walking too much since it was nice weather and walking is good for you....

But the other disappointment came from the selection of food, restaurants and markets. When I went to other Hilton properties in Hawaii, they usually have fresh fruit and other healthy snacks available. This property have none of those. Stocked with gift items instead and chips and typical drinks you find. They do have a coconut water in the market but that's about it. This forces you to go out to local market to get everything you need. Which I guess I'm saving some money but big inconvenience...

They also do not have proper room service, just one Italian restaurant that will deliver during limited dinner hours... ocean tower has a coffee shop but zero restaurant so everybody has to go to the main lobby area and makai building which has two restaurants. Thankfully there is shopping's area nearby with restaurants so you are able to go and find place to eat but if you wanted to stay the property and enjoy the ocean and be lazy, that really is not a good option here...

Overall, feels like this property can be so much better with better management and better selection of offerings... Oh, instead of having fresh fruit and restaurants on each building, they do have a concierge table that is always staffed to sell you tour packages and vacation...

Where do I begin? I'll try to make this short and sweet. When you drive up, the property grounds appear to be beautiful. The landscaping is beautiful.

I arrived early. I decided to inquire about the luau per a sign in the lobby. I approached the desk on 8/7. Two gentlemen working. One with a client, the other no client. The lack of acknowledgment of me standing there. Others walked up and were acknowledged.

I stayed in Ocean Tower. I took the tram, which seems to be convenient. It's not convenient, walking would be faster. The tram also has roaches.

I was assigned room 4051, which looks like a cheap motel with a dirty wooden headboard, assigned room 6076 which was a step up but with cloth dirty headboard and the handle broke off the inside of the

I utilized the shuttles offered by the hotel. One of the shuttles is free and the other requires a $5 one-way fee, paid via cash or credit card. Each time I tired to access the free shuttled, the driver prompted me to pay or utilize the other bus. My European and Asian counterparts weren't prompted to pay. This occurred on many occasions prompting my guest to inquire why are we being asked to pay or being told the shuttle doesn't go to the main hotel.

-On day three we decided to have breakfast on the resort grounds. We didn't know the breakfast facility didn't have air condition. There were three or four box fans visible. We also didn't know breakfast would be $55 per person and without air. To eat breakfast in 80+ degrees without air for $55 is crazy.

The 3rd day we decided to rent a cabana. I called several times to reach a human to pay for the cabana. The cabana has a sign and two numbers for rental. I left a voice message and even now on day five I have yet to receive a call back. We walked to the hut to pay for the cabana. I'm a seasoned traveler. I've never rented a cabana and didn't have beach or pool service. The cabana was $175 for 5 hours. It came with a bagged cooler with two waters, two towels, and hydrating mist. I decided to go to thr Cafe near the cabana. They weren't open, I stood outside with two other African American women who were Southwest flight attendants. They inquired about my stay. I told them it's been interesting. We chatted about their experience and the fact they've experienced some form of racism (I concurred). As a fair skin black women I have never been on a vacation and experienced this. Again, I'm a season traveler that used to love Hilton. The Cafe opens and the lady saw the three of us waiting on one side of the restaurant. She decides to open the other side first leaving us outside. We enter the Cafe. She didn't greet us with Aloha. She said, are you old enough to sit at the bar. One of the young ladies said, I'm 26. I'm 42 and I was ordering fries to go. I know I look youthful because I'm always carded. It's the manner of how she said it and her unfriendly approach. I went to the Cafe the first day I arrived and the gentleman that assisted me didn't treat me on this manner. He just asked to see my ID and took my order. That day I had an alcoholic beverage.

-I've been on 100s if vacations and this is by far the worst of them all. I've never experienced anything like Hawaii. The racism, the poor quality of rooms, and service.

This was my first time on an offer through Hilton Grand. My advice if you're trying to use this place as a selling point. Book the attendees in newly renovated or your best rooms, have someone greet them, check in to see how things are going, and if you don't have renovated rooms have them book when you have availability to accommodate them. I'll never return to this ISLAND AGAIN. I'll have to re-evaluate utilizing Hilton. I didn't enjoy my vacation. I spent days requesting comfortable accommodations and going back and forth to the front desk. Hawaii, isn't the place for me as a black women. I didn't feel welcome at all and I don't spend money where I'm not welcome. The food is horrible and overpriced at the resort and...