Aqua Palms Waikiki — Hotel in Honolulu

We had a room at Aqua Palms for 20 days. My friend miss placed his wallet but they allowed us to use the card on file that we used to pay for the previous days to renew, because my friend did not have access to the physical card. Him not having the wallet made us late to renew but the hotel was informed of the loss and were willing to work with us. At that time he paid fort an extra day as well because he was going to turn off credit cards and was not sure the outcome of the loss wallet. We got a call at 10:30 p.m. from the front desk. I answered the phone. The lady at the front desk asked to speak to my friend he was in the shower so I told her he will speak to her soon. A couple hours later he went down stairs and retrieved a wallet he had misplaced. At 11:30 the next day a worker knocked on the door and said check out is at 12. We told. the person we renewed and they said the room was checked out already and we had to be out by 12 so maids can clean. I was confused so I called the front desk and the guy who answered said we did not renew. He asked who did we speak to , I said some lady I don't know her name. He said a woman did not work last night we couldn't have. then the manager came on line and said no woman worked we couldn't have. my friend was confused and upset because we was sure they charged him. Even charged him 176 a night instead of the usual rate of 109 per night he paid the other 20 days and just charged it with out the heads up that the rate changed. well we asked can we get another room since our room is checked out. they said no the hotel is full. we had no time to figure out were to stay next or time to pack it was almost 12. I was a little upset because we renew and a lady did work that where we picked up his wallet. I called the front desk to see if there was a miss communication. My voice got a little loud over the phone because it seemed as if they were bullying, not being reasonable making stuff up with no explanation and we are stuck out no place to go and rushed. trying to explain we paid and renewed the manager said I did not and she will call the police because my voice got a little high. I apologized and hung up. then I tried to call right back because I did not do anything worth calling the police my voice only raised because the conversation was on sided and I wanted to be heard. the line did not go thru. I have never had that happed and I've stayed at over 30 hotels. about 5 min later calls finally could go thru. I ask the front desk why did my calls not goo thru they said a lot incoming calls. I said was it just my room or the entire hotel that could not reach front. They said just us. It was past 12 and we were rushing. They did not want us there. I tried to use key card to open the room, it still worked after 12 and also the personal wifi code that needs room number and last name of person the room is charged to worked. Working past supposed check out. We called another hotel to make reservations. They said they were all book but gave us a list of other hotels with available rooms and Aqua Palms was one she referred us to that had rooms. We went online to see if we could book a room thru aqua palms...not that we wanted to stay again... just to see how many times aqua Palms feels the need to lie after spending close to 3000 with them, and rooms online were available. At 12:00 a guy came and knock and said ok you have to leave now. We were almost packed but still looking for a hotel to stay so we informed him that we were almost ready if we could have a little more time. He just got his walk talky and said ok they are refusing to leave go ahead and call the police. IM NOT KIDDING, this really happened. I'm still in disbelief and shocked and disgusted. We quickly left leaving behind things. I went to go meet the police to explain this injustice and the police sided with the hotel right in front making me look like some criminal in front of strangers. The cop said we had to leave because there is only surpose to be 1 person in the room and I was not on the agreement...

My review is for military under the TLA program.

PRO's: Military rate ($168/night for reg room. We got a partial ocean view & king size bed. You have to request it otherwise you get a queen Taxes are waived Flexible check in/out without charging extra for short notice in case you're PCSing in/out earlier than anticipated Free wifi No parking charge for the first car ($25/ night for each car after that) Loaner beach chairs & beach towels On site "gym" (2 treadmills and 1 bike in tiny room) Pool (up to 4 ft deep) Walking distance to beach and restaurants Room key is supposed to get you a 10% discount to Wailana Coffee House & 15% at IHop but the staff at those restaurants never bother to take it to off the tab 10% off Macy's with room key (didn't try it though) Shuttle to and from the Ala Moana Shopping Center Microwave Mini fridge (although it hardly cools) I wouldn't keep food in it. Our fridge barely kept our water cold. It also leaks. The freezer compartment melts every so often so a small puddle forms. Staff is very friendly 4 washers and dryers on site (Debit/credit card only. Quarters only work for soap dispenser) However 2 of the dryers don't work Both of the dryers on the ends leave your clothes damp. But the 2 in the middle work fine. No resort fee (but there is a $100 incidental returned at check out) PS3 in room

Cons Waikiki is expensive!!! Traffic! Noisy If you're PCSing and have lots of stuff like we did (8 suitcases), theres not much space to store it. There's only one chest and a small closet Not clean. We had dirty mugs (with hair and stains in them) Never switched out, even after I requested new mugs. Coffee pot and microwave (don't appear to ever be cleaned) Sheets were changed maybe 3 times in the month we stayed there Roaches!!! Bathtub was so disgusting I had to go buy cleaning supplies and clean it myself. -Our tub wouldn't drain so I pulled out the plug, and it was covered in long hair The shower curtain had stains on it and was changed upon request -The toilet in our room didn't work Horrible garage! SUPER tight parking. We have a Ford F150 and you have to get to the hotel early to get an oversize vehicle spot because theres only about ten spaces. It was VERY ANNOYING to see regular size cars take those limited marked parking spaces and hotel staff never did or said anything. You won't be able to park on any other floor let alone get up there if you have a truck so good luck. Parking lot fills fast in general. There's only one space off the curb to pull up and unload luggage and you wouldn't know it's there No restaurant or room service No street parking if the $25 per night is too expensive for you The pillows feel like rocks Our TV didn't work. It flickered every time we turned it on. There was no solution to that Furniture is old and has a lot of wear. It's also very dusty. I gave up on housekeeping. Floor is filthy! Neverrr swept or mopped or vacuumed during daily room service. Our garbage can was the only thing the housekeeper would even check in our room. It was annoying that she wouldn't switch our trash bag out because food would spill into the garbage can and our room would smell like our dinner.

Other info: Check in is at 3pm I believe and check out is at noon. There's a couch I assume is a pull out bed. Your room key opens the parking lot gate Hallways always smelled like weed They have a DVD rental machine Some of these ammenities are NOT free to non-military TLA guests BiteSquad is the food delivery app for this location.

Overall it's decent enough for a very short term stay. I do not reccomend this place for any long term stays. And you can definitely find a better place to stay under TLA. This place needs new housekeepers and some serious deep cleaning. I would probably not come back. I do however recommend the Double Tree down the block. They have great offers for military, its way way nicer and cleaner too for...

EDITED To add that when we got to the lobby, a lot of guests from the 4th floor said the fire alarm did NOT go off in their room, they only knew to evacuate because a guest from a different floor notified them on their way down to the lobby. Faulty fire alarms are concerning. Traumatizing experience handled poorly. On our last night, we were relaxing after a day of exploring and at around 10pm the fire alarm went off. I thought it was weird because I didn't smell anything but to be safe we evacuated via stairs from the 9th floor. When we got to the bottom floor there was a security guard there staring at us and said "what are you guys doing?" We were confused and when we responded saying the fire alarm went off he shrugged his shoulders and said "oh that's just a false alarm someone pulled it, you can go back" We proceeded to the Lobby desk to make sure it was safe to go back to our room and the lady at the front desk was on the phone with someone. She was trying to whisper to them because we were standing there and she said "the man in 817 is supposed to be in jail already" then hung up and called the cops. When she spoke to the cops she said "can you please send the police, they already know why" As she was talking to the cops this man COVERED in blood from head to toe barges into the lobby (where there is about 30 to 40 guests INCLUDING children because everyone evacuated) and starts YELLING about how you can't trust anyone in Hawaii and being completely baligerant. At this point, I was terrified because nobody knew if he was armed or ill intentioned. He continued to yell a bunch of non sense and started to get frighteningly aggressive. The security guard tried to calm him but the man yelled in his face and was confronting him. Finally a GUEST held down the man until the police FINALLY got there (about 15 minutes later) After an hour and a half of chaos we were let back into the room but i just didn't feel safe. I spoke to the front desk about accommodations and even thought they were granted, i could not believe how incredibly RUDE the manager was about it. She dismissed the incident as if it were MY problem for being upset. I even spoke calmly because I didn't want to make matters worse for anyone. She didn't witness the traumatizing fear of not knowing what this man was going to do and she felt absolutely no sympathy for HER GUESTS that did. We ended up checking out 30 minutes later to pay for a room we would spend 12 hours in, for our peace of mind. We came to this hotel with the intention of saving money, we just needed a place to leave our stuff while we explored the beautiful island. I try to be a very understanding customer, you get what you pay for kind of deal. I didn't mind the simplicity of the hotel, the lack of comfort or lack of anemities. It's not a place you stay to relax and it's definitely not a place I would EVER take my kids to for lack of safety environment. This was not a shrug your shoulders incidient, a turn the other cheek and move on kind of thing. It was traumatizing and the lack of support from the manager was enough for me to feel the need to share...