Aston Kaanapali Shores — Hotel in Maui

I'll start with the negatives: The prices vs amenities ratio is poor. I have stayed at hundreds of hotels and dozens of resorts. This one is mediocre overall. The rooms are dated, circa 1990s, with only one outlet near the bed on either side. The shower is substandard. It's a basic shower you'd find in an older home. It's functional, but nothing special.

I understand there has been understaffing due to Covid, but the fitness center is largely useless if you're not a morning person or have any morning plans as it closes at 3pm and is closed on Sundays.

There is a resort free of $20/day includes almost nothing we've used. We certainly don't need a PlayStation. Most kids these days have their own devices and the wifi is spotty. This includes DVD rental which few people ever use since you can download movies on your device, and "toll free local calls" when everyone owns a cell phone. Also, no one needs to print their boarding pass. You merely click on your confirmation email and have an electronic one - no wasted paper. The daily news paper is a nice thought, for the 1990s and early 2000s, but now anyone can read the news from their device. The supplied coffee for the room was awful, but I'll admit, it is rare to find decent hotel room coffee. Finally, the in room safe is common in most hotel rooms across the country and world.

The hotel also choose whale watching season in February to perform interior window cleaning and bug spraying and wanted us out of our rooms with all our valuables by 9am when we check out at 11am. Luckily, we were able to negotiate a delay in this.

The positives: Overall, the hotel staff is extremely friendly. The two pools are helpful as one seems more suited to families with kids and the other nearer the shore and bar are better for adults. The restaurant on the premises serves good, but overpriced drinks, BUT the meals at the restaurant are good and very reasonably priced.

The coffee bar in the lobby is also reasonably priced and far superior to the in room coffee, though it closes it little too early.

For the most part, the hotel is quiet, a little way north of a main drag of likely more expensive and noisy hotels and resorts. Most of those guest don't walk this far up the path to get here and at night you feel almost as if you have the courtyard areas to yourself.

There is a nice strip mall with a supermarket across the street and with full kitchens available, this helps defer some of the costs.

Takeaways: If you want a calmer resort scene without any sleek amenities this is a...

Extremely disappointed!! The room was very dated and dark. The furniture inside and out looks like it's been there since the 70's. The bedroom felt like what I would imagine a prison cell would be like. There was a long narrow horizontal window, that had old style glass, that you could not see through (had a pattern on it), therefore did not let in any natural light and was much too high to even look out of. The mattresses (both bedroom and sofa bed) were terrible. They are both very worn out and we all had trouble sleeping, because of neck and back discomfort. The pillows were rock hard, I didn't even know you could buy pillows that hard. There are no soundproof walls and we had to share a hallway (picture an alley way) with another family that would come to their room at midnight every night and hide and jump out to make their little girl scream as loud as possible before entering their room (EVERY SINGLE NIGHT), as well as had to listen to their baby cry for over 10 mins, early each morning. The room was very clean, however there were a bunch of tiny bugs scurrying around on one of the nightstands and on the bed when we first arrived. They were not bedbugs thankfully and I was able to get rid of them, but certainly not what we had in mind for a 5 night stay that we paid over $3k for. There was no housekeeping offered nor did we have any interactions with staff aside from the front desk at check-in/out and the parking staff (who were VERY friendly). We were really disappointed with the beach and the lack of walking trails along the beach and the room, there were dead ends on either side of the property so you could not walk more than 1/4 mile without having to turn around. It all put a damper on the entire trip. The parking ticket situation was very strange, you had to display a ticket (normal) in your dash that has the dates of your stay on it, but had to grab a new ticket to enter each day that they said you just hold onto. Upon our departure back home, we asked what do we do with these and they said, oh they aren't used for anything, just toss them, and then took our main ticket at the exit. In summary, this stay was the worst we've had in the last 13 years of visiting Maui. We realize it's a 3-star hotel, but this was more of a motel, 2-stars max! We didn't take any photos of the room, which I regret now as I post...

Right off the bat, booking a Garden View room does NOT put you facing the main garden in the center of the hotel. We were placed on the opposite side despite paying for the Garden View. The front desk said, "There's still a garden on that side," but there was not. It was facing another hotel, with a few palm trees, a parking lot, and a spillway in between. However, there was a very partial ocean view.

The rooms are huge. It's like an apartment. Large living room, separate dining space, full kitchen, bedroom, stackable washer/dryer, and a nice bathroom. The shower head came to my chin, and I'm just over 6' tall, but that was not a problem. The problem was the ongoing construction. We were there from Sunday to Friday, and every day, there was noise.

I get it. Paradise needs upkeep, but man, that put a damper on some relaxing time. One real frustration I had was with their coffee bar downstairs. We went down there twice, and both times, the curly haired guy that was working there completely ignored us. On the first occasion, he was making acia bowls (for what we assume to be a previous order). He did not make eye contact, say "I'll be right with you", nothing. No acknowledgment whatsoever. We waited for 2 minutes while he was preparing the bowls, and then he disappeared. 4 minutes after his disappearance, we left. The second time was similar, but he was making coffees and still failed to engage.

There is a restaurant there, called The Beach Club. Having lunch, dinner, or drinks here will provide you with a GORGEOUS view. The breeze that comes through feels great. There was always available seating when we went. The food is okay. It's more convenient than anything. The drinks are small and a little overpriced for their quality, in my opinion.

The location was good! You can walk across the street to a handful of restaurants, a grocery store, and a souvenir shop. There are also food trucks parked within a stones throw of the entrance.

Overall, it was a nice place. We had a couple of frustrations and bad experiences, but sometimes things just happen that way. I didn't like being deceived about paying for the Garden View and being given a room on the opposite side. That's my...