Waikiki Beach Services @ Royal Hawaiian — Local services in Honolulu

I've been coming to the Royal Hawaiian Waikiki beach services location to get surf lessons and beach chairs for years. This trip alone we booked 4 straight surf lessons which equals $265 a day plus we got beach chairs for ~$100 a day for two days.

The Japanese lady, MAKI, who's been helping us for years WOULD NOT give us towels because we are not staying at the Royal Hawaiian. She seems like the “manager”. We stayed at the hotel many times but this time we decided to stay at next door at Halekulani.

We are spending over $1000 on surf lessons, over $450 on photos, and also paying money for beach chairs but we can't get a towel for the chair that's located in front of the hotel? The ridiculous part is we can get a beach towel after we surf. How does that make any sense? I could just take the towels given to me after surf to bring to the chairs. Do they think we want to steal a beach towel that thousands of people use? No. Please review how you treat PAYING customers. I repeat paying customers. If I’m spending money at your establishment, treat me with respect.

Also, they leave piles of towels at the pool desk for anyone to grab.

MAKI is fake nice and was super rude. This other person, Darron, never smiles and comes across extremely rude as well. He was the person that denied us towels first. I would arrive for my surf lessons and he just gives me the clip board to sign in without saying hello - not even a fake “good morning”. These two humans makes waking up in paradise not so pleasant. They literally ruin my mood because I have to feel their negative energy. I’ve never had one bad customer service experience in Hawaii the past 6 years since coming to the Royal Hawaiian. I had 4 days straight of being forced to interact with them just because I wanted to surf here. Everyone else on staff has been incredibly nice like always.

I got hit by a surfboard from one of their employees that were taking photos of us and Maki didn't even care. Too concerned with her clipboard.

The beach services at the Royal Hawaiian is only good for people staying at the hotel. Otherwise, you are treated like third class citizens. I only go back because of the surf instructors.

Waikiki has changed - last year the service...

Surf lessons with Don and...Lexi? Sorry, horrible with names, these two guys made surf lessons amazing. Our boys had an amazing morning surfing with these sweet, positive energy guys. Greatest guys. Appreciate that they support military families and we were able to book for good rate on base at mwr. One note- don't recommend paying for the photos. The young women who sold us photos gave them to us on a thumb drive instead of a link. Problem is- she transfered them with very low resolution so the photos are pretty worthless. I don't know if she was mad we didn't spend top dollar to include the videos also. Way too high priced for us. We got amazing turtle and dolphin snorkeling photos with Hawaii Dolphin at Waianae that were so much better at a much better deal. So, do the surf lessons for sure, those guys are wonderful- skip the photos unfortunately. That's a bit shady. I understand trying to make a buck. But if you are going to sell something it should be an honest transaction. People shouldn't find out later what you gave them isn't what you advertised. No one would buy low resolution photos for so much money if they knew. Very disappointed. Wish we knew just would have skipped the photos. Hope...

This would have been a 1* review if not for 1 employee. KAUI was amazing. She builds relationship with patrons and remembers you. We stayed at the Royal Hawaiian and used them for beach chairs and catamaran. She went above and beyond for us and made our trip much better. The only reason I cant give 5 Stars is because of PUNO!!

However, if you have to deal with an employee named PUNO (big tatted guy) or LOGAN ( young lady) they treat guests like Crap. Rude, unhelpful, and act like those crazy TSA agents, a tiny bit of authority and they use it to belittle and give you attitude. PUNO also leaned towards me and got in my face from behind the “Counter”. A pathetic excuse for hospitality.

Had this run in on our last day and nearly ruined our entire stay by having the rudest employee in hospitality get in my face all for asking them to honor what other employees promised. Hope they fire PUNO, if not only to safe the business from lawsuit!!!

THANK YOU KAUI, for resolving the issues and really saving the day. The Royal Hawaiian and WAIKĪKĪ BEACH SERVICES need more amazing and caring people like you.

KAUI, and people like her are the reason we come back to Hawaii annually. Mahalo...