Waikiki Starlight Luau — Restaurant in Honolulu

I went here tonight with my wife and two year old twins. Walked in everything was going ok.. got sat down at the end of a table when there was plenty of other tables free with babies and kids around the same age, but quickly directed to this one. This table had half disabled people which I helped care for a few times by picking up dropped items and we all had a great time meeting each other, it was lovely. The other half was able-bodied like my family and myself. Everything was going lovely. Then the presenter states it’s time for food and each table will be directed to go one at a time, not a problem. My wife and I turn and are tending to our twins and turn back to see our entire table getting up and lining up for food(our table was closest to the buffet so we could only assume yeah that kind of makes sense). My wife and I grab our twins and get in the back of our tables line. This is when it gets bad. A man storms over to us in front of everyone and shouts at us and our kids, “everyone here was able to get up and get food because they are disabled. You aren’t able to get food yet! Return to your seats or go to the children’s buffet and get the kids food but you can’t eat here yet! “Ah Sorry, our mistake”. We go to the kids buffet and get the twins food and sit down. This man then goes on and lets every. Single. Table and Person at the venue get up and get food. Then at long last he finally makes his way to just us.. the rest of our table both able-bodied and disabled had finished eating. Our kids had also finished eating. He states “oh you are free to eat now”, he then turns and looks at the line and states, “oh but the line is large at the moment it might be best to wait”. Then he walks off.

Paid all that money to be singled out as a young family of 4 and targeted for reasons unknown to us. Even people on our table stopped and asked this man by watching what happened, “um excuse me when can that couple on our table eat”, his response was “oh they can now it’s just that the line is to large and they are waiting”… just don’t go to this and trust me, the views awful, the foods cold but ok. And the performances were pretty good. But there is much better. We will not return. Oh and we live on the Island and were doing research for our visitors on where to take them. Not the Hilton Luau!! Learn from our mistake. Even the dancers at the end commented on how cute our twins were dancing and getting involved. Sorry. They won’t be seen again here with extended family and visitors....

We attended this on Christmas day in 2014. The Luau was held in the grassy area in front of the lagoon in place of the normal location on top of the garage. The attendant told us they hold it in this location twice each year: Christmas Day and New Years Day. I can't imagine a luau being held on a the roof of a parking garage. Patrons with blue tickets were greeted with a shell lei necklace. VIP ticket holders (yellow tickets) were greeted with authentic flower lei necklaces. This was our first sign that this was going to be a cheesy HIlton experience.

We had the good fortunate to have attended the Old Lahaina Luau the week before on Maui. I'll contrast the two for future visitors. Each Hilton admission ticket comes with 2 drink tickets, good for any beverage. In contrast, the Old Lahaina pass includes unlimited drinks of any variety. The Hilton food was just ok - typical very large crowd buffet food. Not bad, not great...just ok. The different food options were not labeled, so with minimal lighting, we were not sure what we were putting on our plates. In contrast, the Lahaina luau food menu was introduced by our Hawaiian host. The history and preparation of each food item was provided by our host. In addition, each item was clearly labeled. The Lahaina luau was much closer to an authentic luau, with a whole pig roasted underground in a sand pit, and a ceremonial revealing.

By the way, the Hilton luau had not table host or server. They had a bunch of people running from table-to-table trying to sell you pictures and trying to get you to take watered down pre-made drinks. In contrast, the Lahaina luau had a host for every 2-3 tables. A guide/server of sorts that provided history of everything going on, provide freshly made drinks, and was very entertaining. I suppose I should be glad they were not trying to sell time shares during the luau. But they were trying to sell hawaiian wraps. The entertainers spent a full 15 minutes on the make-shift stage trying to sell Hawaiian wraps.

The "entertainment" was not very good. Again, I am contrasting with our other luau, so in contrast, the Old Lahaina luau was fantastic. We actually left early during the Hilton luau...it just was not that good.

Bottom line...look for better options. This probably is a good luau for the resort crowd that just purchased their $60k time shares and don't...

On our first full day on Oahu my husband and I had tickets to go to the luau. We thought it was quite expensive, but never having been there before, thought what the heck. The line to get in was very long. When you finally make it to the front, they give you the opportunity to have your picture taken with a Maui looking man or a beautiful Hawaiian princess. Then they take your picture that you can buy later. Also they give you a free drink (either alcohol or non-alcohol) and they put a lei around your neck. In order to get you all wound up they ask everybody to stand up and they teach you how to do the Hukilau. So everything was going well and it was our turn to get in line for the food. Unfortunately it started to rain. I mean it started to pour and everybody was getting soaking wet. Somebody started passing out ponchos. But with several hundred people trying to get to the one person who had the ponchos it was a bit difficult. My biggest pet peeve was that all the buffett food was getting drenched. I have no idea why they did not have procedures in place that if it started to rain they could cover the food. Have you ever had a soaking wet roll before? Disgusting. All the plates were full of water the food was full of water the table and chairs were extremely wet. Why on earth did they not have a tent at least over the food? If I was in charge I would make sure that they had some sort of a back up plan for rain. They needed a tent above our heads and covers over the food. Needless to say they canceled the show before it even officially began. Now to their credit they did offer refunds. Which of course we took advantage of. But I was not happy with the fact that anybody could watch the show for free and we had to spend so much money. Of course those people could not eat. They should have it enclosed or at least have some sort of a privacy wall so that everybody can’t watch it if they didn’t pay. Somebody needs to rethink this. I understand they wanted it to be outside and under the stars and all that great stuff—- it was a great idea initially. But the rain! Where’s the back up plan? Poor management!!! By the way. This...