The Kauai Inn — Hotel in Kauai

I'm so glad that I decided to stay at The Kauai Inn.

As a beleaguered and demoralized grad student, I desperately needed to take a vacation to a place where I could not think. Kauai, a long-time favorite of mine, was at the top of my list. The one issue? Living accommodations. To resort or to not resort. That was the big question.

While I have stayed at resorts before, including the boisterous Royal Sonesta which is about a mile and a half away from The Kauai Inn, I knew that for this vacation I wanted something more intimate, something more relaxed. The plan was to surf and hike most days and to come back to a quiet and peaceful hotel at night, where I would sleep blissfully for many hours.

After scrolling through countless reviews, I finally decided on The Kauai Inn.

I was first warmly greeted by Amy, the proprietor. She was very sweet and spoke to me in the same way that my Tias do back home. I instantly felt more comfortable. Amy spent some time explaining the backstory of the Inn to me. It had a long history and was one of 3 original Hawaiian Inns established, I believe, in the 1880's. Quite extraordinary. Amy motioned to this big history scrapbook that was laying on a podium in the corner and explained that I could learn more about the Inn by reading it. It was fascinating. Amy then handed me my keys, informed me about the continental breakfast and the live music that would take place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. "Bring your friends," she exclaimed merrily. I smiled a wide toothy grin, thinking to myself, "Yes... friends..." And then I went up to my room.

Now, I had read a lot of reviews detailing the room. Almost all of the reviews talked about how cozy, spacious, and clean they were. And yes, they were exactly that. These are 100% my favorite rooms of any hotel that I have been in. I've stayed at 5 star resorts that couldn't hold a candle to the cozy vibes that these rooms presented. Big windows, lots of mirrors, nice interior decor, comfortable seats, and I loved the layout of the bathroom. The bathroom windows were also this sort of stained glass, churchy typed windows that allowed faint light to leak in during the evenings which provided me with enough cozy ambience to take some amazingly comfortable naps. S-tier rooms.

The room overlooks a sort of courtyard with a small pool. There were various tables laid out under the shade of trees, and because this is Kauai, the weather (most of the time for me beyond the first day) was nice and sunny. I would typically eat my lunches out in the courtyard, in the nice humid air with the breeze. I was accompanied by cute adorable cats would would climb on me and try to get at my food, or a hen with her entourage of chicks. It was charming. I loved eating lunch out there.

As I said earlier, the Inn itself is about 1.5 miles away from the Royal Sonesta Kauai. There are a lot of fun things around that resort, including some decent restaurants (Dukes - where I would grab a cocktail in the evening), a small mall, ABC stores (where you can buy some gifts for loved ones or "friends" back home), and Kalapaki beach, which borders the resorts. It's walkable from the Kauai Inn and It's about 3 miles round trip, so you burn 300 calories if you make the walk every evening ;). I highly suggest it.

A few miles in the other direction (and you should use a car for this) is the safeway, target, costco, starbucks, and all the other good stuff in this big ol' shopping plaza. Point is, the Inn is pretty conveniently located.

One thing that totally surprised me - the quality of the live music! I saw 2 performers and honestly... it was pretty solid live music. The first guy on Monday - I think named Sheldon, destroyed. I loved his version of Black Magic Woman, very cool and atmospheric. The second performance was performed by a woman and her daughter. She would sing and her daughter would dance. They were fantastic! I was very impressed by how high quality these performances were.

Mahalo to...

As with most of the other reviewers I have a lot of good stuff to share. Many already talked about the breakfast, staff, and even Phil, the owner. I will add in that Felisitee at the front desk was a real treat as well. She made the stay that much more fun with personality and the enjoyable kind of attitude I love!

Between the two of them and Sheldon playing live music and taking requests we wrapped our first week with fun, tunes, and shared stories. Two more nights before we head to the north end of Kauai.

On first arrival it was odd to see chickens, roosters, peacocks(!), and cats around, but they blend into the background quickly. And with the AC on at night and doors closed even the morning crowing of roosters I was able to sleep with no issues.

Checkin experience: Simple. Showed up, free parking, key from the front and into the room. Spent the day exploring a bit then back and asleep by 8pm local time. Long trip to get here.

Room: Ours was a decent size for 2 adults. Super comfy bed. I asked for (and got) extra pillows. Clean towels, lots of hot water, mini fridge. Ice maker and a vending machine for pop/soda, and we used the laundry while here. Dark at night and even morning light took time to come in. Dark curtains did the trick.

First Day: Early start, free local coffee. Then at 7am croissant, jam, cheese, juice, and yogurt. All included. And a great staff each morning setting up breakfast too! Ample friendly "good mornings" from all. Genuine smiles.

Amenities we used: BBQ, Pool, Wash and Dry, Ice Machine, Live Music A decent sized BBQ. It was really low on gas, and the staff jumped to help solve the challenge. A new tank attached and I fired up the grill and made some steaks and veggies. A small 3 foot (1 meter) deep pool is fine to just cool off which we did a few times as it was 80 (27c) a couple of December days! Not bad when it is snowing and icy at home. Don't dive in and do laps, but to cool down? Yes please. And live music a couple of nights each week. Tonight Sheldon played some 80s and 90s and took requests.

Overall impression is solid. Yeah, it's not the Ritz or some other $400+ property in December in Hawaii. It's affordable and what we expected. And then some. Having stayed at hundreds of hotels over the years I can say that it is charming, scenic, quaint, friendly, personable, and that the staff care. They interact (as do guests from around the world) with you. It is like being together with the fun side of an extended family. When asked, the team gave great suggestions. Out trips, beaches, tours, restaurants, etc.

Final words: Definitely would return. Reading a few negative reviews reminds me that it takes all types. Some people raise legit points and Phil and his team listen and adapt. We had a great stay, and any little point we made was clarified or addressed. Book it if you like to support smaller and local businesses, want to talk to some real people, and are looking to explore the west, south, and east side of the island. A lot of fun with great atmosphere. I have stayed in some fancier castles in Europe, and some dives of a hostel in the USA, Canada, and many times in Europe, but for value and enjoyment of a property and staff this was all that we hoped! Thanks for having us! 5 for 5 when you...

We stayed at the Kaua’I Inn for 5 nights. It is a charming little plantation style place with an interesting history – the first hotel on Kaua’I over 100 years old! It has lovely views, and the grounds are well cared for. Nice landscaping with pretty trees and flowers. Peacocks and cats wander about the property. It is in a quiet, residential area – not near any other hotels. There is a dark road leading down to the hotel (but all the roads are dark there – not many have streetlamps at night). There aren’t any shops around the hotel.||Ofa and all the other office staff were very friendly and helpful. We had a very nice stay here!||It is not luxury, but we were looking for a reasonably priced hotel - we really don’t spend a lot of time in our hotel on vacation as we are out and about a lot. We paid about $200 per night (I think we had a coupon, booked through a third party). The room we had was 403 – it had a king-sized bed, lots of closet space, bureau with drawers, mini fridge, microwave, TV, and spacious bathroom. Good level of cleanliness.||Extra bath towels were quickly delivered when we requested them.|There is a small pool with a chest of pool toys – good if you have kids. Lounge chairs around the pool for sitting outside.||There is music 3x a week in the evenings, but we were never back for it. Movie shown on a large screen outdoors on the property on Saturday nights.||Breakfast is included – simple, but all we needed to get going for the day – croissants, bagels, muffins, cereals, yogurt, string cheese and Babybel cheese, pineapple and watermelon. Coffee, tea, and water is available 24 hours. Tables and chairs and lounge chairs are all over the property to sit and eat and relax.||The office has some basic things to purchase that you might need like snacks and toiletries. There were and some games and puzzles to use. ||Available to borrow free of charge – beach chairs, beach umbrellas, coolers, snorkel gear, beach towels.||Laundry available on site and the office has quarters available to use it. You can buy detergent pods too.||Wifi...