Sands of Kahana — Hotel in Maui

As an owner of a cleaning and restoration firm I will be as subjective as possible. This was my very first time to Hawaii.Traveling with family and friends during spring break. Kids ages 6, 12, 18. After 12 hours of travel to get here, the hour long drive to the property was not the best especially in the dark. Arrived to the complex around 10:30pm (3:30am our time). The 1 person at the desk was so involved with helping this rude person trying to change her flight and the seats assignments for a flight in 3 days, we had to just kindly ask for the keys and the direction of the room. After all, we are all exhausted and carrying sleeping kids. We stayed in condo 474. The 4 is the building number, the 7 is the floor number and the 4 is the condo number. There was only 1 more floor above us called the penthouse. 2 units on that floor and 4 units on the other 7 floors. Parking......NON EXISTENT! I actually counted the spaces available for this particular building. 33 spaces under the condos including 2 handicap spots, 15 spaces outside by the garbage/utility area and 8 additional outside spots a little further back. 56 spots for 1, 30 unit building that I don't think was full seems like plenty! Even with the 13 spots taken for remodeling should still be plenty I would think, but nothing could be further from truth. Coupled with ignorant, selfish people parking like butt holes and employees and contractors using up the spots there were many times we had to park at another building. 1 star rip.

The unit: very spacious! There is a serious issue with the layout. The living room/dining room, master bedroom, kitchen and bedroom in the loft area are all wide open. The other bedroom with the 2 beds have a door and it's own bathroom. There is a partisan that you can pull and push open making the master bedroom somewhat private. Problem is in order to get to the balcony you must walk through the master bedroom. EVERY TIME someone opened that door it woke us up. Also, having whoever you are traveling with walk through and see you in bed is so weird. Someone gets up early and grabs something out of the fridge or turns on the sink the whole place is up! The unit is outdated and I wish I could spend a day maintaining it. Some paint, WD 40, a few screws, a handful of washers and screen door repair kits would make a HUGE difference. That along with a fabulous deep cleaning and steam cleaning of the carpet, furniture, tile and grout would make this place great. The condos do not have an HVAC system. No air, no air circulation so you can imagine what we walked in to. HOT HUMID STALE condo with all of us racing to open every door and window possible at now 4AM our time. There are ceiling fans in all the rooms, but the living room fan wobbles so much it looks like it about to fly off. No ac, needing lots of TLC and cleaning rip a star.

There is no vibe, excitement or fun people on this property. Very much the opposite of say Mexico where there is music playing and constant activities. This is an older crowd kind of place. 90% of the people staying here are couples in their 60's. Nothing wrong with that, but very different and sometimes challenging with children. The restaurant at the ocean side pool is nice and food is good. Wait staff is very respectful and accommodating. Again same stale vibe. Almost like have a good time, but keep it down. The elevator! Wow, what a complete mess! The staff uses the only one and act like it's a hassle to jam their cart into it while we are in bathing suits and flip flops. 10-15 minute wait times for an elevator and plan ahead if you have a whole family or a lot to carry because it may be a while. Just ridiculous! I know they have a job to do, but does it have to be 5 workers with 5 carts all on the same day they decide to have 6 guys changing out all of the mattresses and another contractor cleaning windows. Could you take the stairs? Sure, but I'm on vacation in maybe flip flops and not about to huff it 7 stories up or down! Mismanaged, fun police and the older crabby crowd gets another...

I have a lot to say for my stay at the Sands of Kahana, some good, some and a few horrible. I should begin by prefacing that before booking my reservation, I only looked at the overall review of this property (4.4 stars at the time of writing) and I incorrectly ascertained that this property would be a nice place to stay. After arriving to the property, I found that the same problems I faced were also mentioned by previous guests but despite the problems, their reviews were at a minimum of 3 stars. I read through so many reviews stating the same negatives I will mention below but the rating was 3 or 4 stars. Please read what I have to say and I hope to share everything as ubiasly as possible. First the good things:

The staff were amazing. Many guests were not happy with the property (I over heard several phone calls at the front desk and a few arguments), and despite everything the staff tried their best to offer the best resolution they could offer. The cleaning crew, maintainance, beach staff and many others were extremely nice and always said Aloha.

Maintaince issues were dealt with immediately. When I arrived in my room close to midnight, my refrigerator was not working and a maintenance personnel came in 10 minutes to my room to take a look at it.

The pool, beach, courts and campus in general was very nice and clean.

Concierge was very polite and set everything up for me and my family. I spoke to many people at the front desk and all were very nice and enthusiastic to help. All were knowledgeable in the activities on the island and which options would suite my family best.

The appliances worked good enough. We used all of them and they all had their little quirks (smells, stains, buttons that didn't work) but at the end of the day - they looked like they were given enough care and attention by management.

Now the things that were not good.

No where on the property did it say that there no air conditioning, but rather it states that ceiling fans are located in the rooms. This was the most disappointing part of our stay and caused our room to smell muggy all the time. With that said, we had 3 rooms booked at the property and all of them had different levels of humidity, temperature and smell. Rooms facing the ocean (or partial view) are going to be muggy but will have a nice breeze of the doors are left open. Rooms facing the other buildings were less humid and cooler. You will have to hope you don't get a room that is hot and muggy like mine.

Lastly, the absolute worst things about this property.

I booked my trip through Expedia and due my vacation's timing, the rooms were expensive. So expensive, that if I paid only a little extra (less than $50 per night), I would have stayed a much better hotel with air conditioning and I would have avoided the biggest headache I faced there (will go into detail below). I booked the Sands because this was my first time on Maui and I went with the cheapest resort option. The Sands positions itself as a 3 star resort but I would not place anywhere close to this. The resort charges for room cleaning, has an outrages NIGHTLY resort fee, and a SHORT STAY fee because I was staying for less than 7 days. I paid over $600 in fees once arriving to the property which the front desk told me was sent to my email - which it wasn't - and I could find this information on Expedia - which when I looked, it wasn't. I asked for the waive the fee because it was not communicated and the front desk told me no. Additionally, I booked my stay months in advanced and requested on multiple occasions that all rooms be near each other. I even called the morning of my reservation and asked for it for which I was told that it shouldn't be a problem and they would keep the rooms set aside. When I arrived to resort, not only were the rooms not close together but they were in buildings that were on the opposite sides of the resort.

The rooms were clean in the sense that there was no debris on the ground. Someone came in and vacuumed everywhere - but that was...

We visited Jan 2022. This place has some nice features but there are also some compromises & tradeoffs that you need to be aware of.

We stayed in a 2 bedroom & the overall size of the suites is great! Especially the living room & kitchen.... both VERY large with lots of room! If you plan to make meals while you are there there is TONS of kitchen counter & cupboard space. Fridge is a nice size with water & ice maker so you don't have to go out & search for a vending machine for ice.

The living room was large with a big L-shaped couch as well as a couple of chairs/seats. The TV was decent size & I believe they had Spectrum cable TV. They had the basic channels (no movie channels) & so you could end up scrolling alot to see all the çhannels subscribed.

The Master bedroom is decent size & is separated by an IMMEDIATELY ADJACENT sliding wall to the living/TV room. Keep that in mind in case you care about getting freaky with your wife and there will be other people in the next room with a thin wall!!

The grounds are nice & well kept. The BBQs are nice feature.. some heat/cook better than others though.

Now for a few cons:

The bed was a bit hard. Parts of the bathrooms are VERY DATED and a bit run down... particularly the shower/toilet rooms. They have very old "popcorn" wall stipple. The Master shower had black mold & rust stains on the grout in the tub/shower walls. The shower/tub wall slider was old & a bit difficult to open/close. Lighting was old style & dim. The bathroom for the 2nd bedroom was actually a dedicated shower stall (no tub) which actually seemed a better situation than the master?? They gave adequate space, they just need to UPDATE THE BATHROOM SHOWER/TUB rooms! They were older & worn. The dual sink vanities were fine.

THERE IS NO A/C!! To be fair the suites have good cross ventilation. How? They have louvered screen windows (no glass to fully close) that open into the center of the all-tile stair/elevator/entrance to the suites. It's a big common areas with LOTS of foot traffic. This is where EVERYONE WALKS/ENTERS/ROLLS LUGGAGE CARTS/& TALKS ON THE WAY TO THEIR ROOMS 24/7....& your windows ARE OPEN ALL THE TIME TO STAY COOL INCLUDING WHILE YOU ARE TRYING TO SLEEP!!!

The beach sand is brown/hot/will burn your feet. There aren't enough lounge chairs so people go early & get them. Resort Security will NOT let u move the chairs down on the beach so everyone is crowded on a small strip of sand if you are using lounge chairs. You can sit closer with a towel or your own rented chairs....just not resort chairs.

There are 2 fitness rooms. THERE ARE NO DUMBELLS OR FREE WEIGHTS!! Most of the cardio machines all had the electrical cords removed so no electricity. ALL the cords were gone in one room & only some cords still available/working in the other...cuz science no doubt(sarcasm). I presume so people could supposedly social distance with covid. Yet the weight machine stations were not 6 feet apart (follow the science;). 1 room had a/c & was closed (which of course would be bad for ventilation w Covid). We opened the door to get fresh air but security guard kept coming by & closing. Guess he wanted to make sure all the heavy-breathing airborne covid stayed trapped in the air in the room?? Bizarre! Like VENTILATION is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING & certainly alot more effective than masks they wanted people to WEAR WHILE EXERCISING!! But the rules were wear a mask & no ventilation in one fitness room. The other fitness room had all the windows cranked open & they couldn't be...