Gilligans Bar & Grill — Restaurant in Maui

EDIT: after posting my review they made things right. I appreciate that I was heard and that they value the feedback they receive. That was great customer service being that it was 5 months later. Mahalo!!

Original: First the following was an email I sent in October and never received a response from.

I wanted to give you full honest feedback about the luau we attended with our visiting Ohana on the 10th of October.

First the email with directions for arrival was far too wordy including different times for arrival depending on time of year and I quickly was lost in the email resulting in us arriving at 5:22 p.m. thinking we were early. Turns out we were late! Now thinking we’ll 22 minutes isn’t too bad I guess, however once seated we realized everyone had already seated with their food!

So now we head to the buffet and everything was running out. There wasn’t any Kalua pork left but we were asked where we were seated randomly that “they would bring us some as more was being prepared” None and no one ever showed up. This was a huge disappointment to our visitors of course they had looked forward to that in particular.

We paid for VIP to ensure our guests had the best experience. We were embarrassed to have told them how great it was going to be (although it was our first time to this luau) only to be disappointed time after time. Next they ran out of cutlery! How do you run out of cutlery when you pre sell tickets? Then we take our seats and our drinks arrive in paper cups for the soda and plastic for the alcoholic beverages, dessert also on paper plates, my husband was offered a plastic knife as the cutlery was empty.

The servers did the best they could with what they had. They were friendly, I don’t blame them for these mishaps except my husband had soda and wasn’t offered a refill.

Overall I don’t believe this was worth even the Kaamaaina VIP price...

This is really not what we were expecting. Had I known better I would have paid more for our resort’s luau. First off, the show was very entertaining, and I take nothing away from the performances. Unfortunately, the venue and food were definitely subpar. Folks, this is a small, golf course bar and grill overlooking some apartments and part of the golf course. This is where they hold the luau. So, don’t expect some beautiful ocean backdrop. You are cramped onto an open-air patio with too many tables, eating shoulder-to-shoulder with other attendees. And the stage is pretty small as well. Put it this way, when the fire thrower did his part, all the folks sitting at tables in the front had to get up and stand in the back. Hopefully, you don’t have a tall person sitting in front of you either, because you’ll miss a lot because the patio is flat. I suppose there were maybe 200 folks packed onto this patio area, and I do mean packed! Either way, it seemed way too small for all those people.

The food is served buffet style, so you line up to make your plate. It honestly tasted like cafeteria food and the chicken was not grilled, it was baked at best. I’ve had way tastier Hawaiian food at Ono Hawaiian in LA and Mo Bettah’s in OKC! It honestly felt a money grab; pile as many people onto this small patio, feed ‘em cafeteria food, and charge ‘em as much as we can. The desserts were store bought, I’m sure.

The servers were nice, but the term you get what you pay for definitely applies here. Spend the extra money at a resort luau if you want better food, space and a beautiful...

I was nervous after reading some of the negative reviews, but don't listen to them, we had fun! The food was good, the chicken and Mahi Mahi were cooked perfectly, the rice was dry, and there was only one type of salad dressing. Husband and kids loved the Kaluha pork. Waitress only came around a couple of times, but it was a full house and she was busy. The hula dancers were beautiful and talented! The live music was fantastic and the lady who ran the show was an incredible singer and kept the crowd laughing between sets. The men and the fire dancer were great too! I wish the fire dancer part lasted longer... This was a shorter luau at about an hour and a half. It seemed a little disorganized at first, as they could have explained how the process would go in the confirmation email. You check in outside the bar and receive a colored card and wait in the court yard. Your section will be called based upon your card color for seating. The stage is raised now, as I read in past reviews people couldn't see. We sat up front and had an unobstructed view, but I could see how in general seating, you wouldn't be able to see the bottom 1/2 of the performers, but you can still see! We had fun, laughed, ate good food, watched stories in dance, made friends with the people we were seated next to! It was...