Moana Surfrider, A Westin Resort & Spa, Waikiki Beach

“Historic”

LOCATION: A great location, right on the doorstep of Waikiki Beach and the famous Kalakaua Avenue, with its high end shops and fine dining. Perfect if you want to be in the heart of the main tourist area. It is also good as a base for tours visiting other parts of Oahu. We visited in January, es… more

LOCATION: A great location, right on the doorstep of Waikiki Beach and the famous Kalakaua Avenue, with its high end shops and fine dining. Perfect if you want to be in the heart of the main tourist area. It is also good as a base for tours visiting other parts of Oahu. We visited in January, essentially the middle of winter but the weather was lovely, although a storm was due to arrive the day after we left the island. ROOM: We stayed in one of the Historic Banyan ocean view rooms and whilst it was a lovely room with windows on 2 sides, one overlooking the beach and the other the hotel pool, we found the room to be on the small side, however it was adequate for our 4 night stay. HOTEL: A beautiful building with its old world elegance fused with modern facilities, it has to be one of the prettiest hotels on the island. The public areas are spacious with plenty of seats both inside, along the veranda and around the pool bar, where you can sit and relax or enjoy the scheduled live entertainment or take a wander around the hotel to admire the historical artefacts. Bare in mind, we found it to be spacious when we visited, I feel it might be a lot more crowded during high season. FACILITIES: Due to our schedule we did not get to enjoy the hotel facilities, such as the spa or one of the cultural activities on offer. DINING/DRINKS: We did not have breakfast at the hotel, we used to get an early morning coffee and pastry from Honolulu Coffee directly outside the hotel, which was very nice, hence our daily visits. We did manage to have one evening meal at the Beachhouse Restaurant which was fine, I wouldn't say it was amazing, you must eat here and oddly the drinks came in plastic cups. STAFF: For the most part, pleasant, only one person (restaurant staff) looked like he couldn't wait for his shift to be over to get away from the inconvenience of customers. The rest of the hotel staff were fine, did the job they were paid to do, no more no less. Overall an enjoyable stay, I would stay here again.

less

“Fantastic Stay”

I was a little nervous about staying at this hotel after reading some of the recent reviews but we were pleasantly surprised on arrival. We had a Diamond ocean view room and it was just beautiful. The bathroom wasn't huge but the view from the balcony was breathtaking. The staff were friendly an… more

I was a little nervous about staying at this hotel after reading some of the recent reviews but we were pleasantly surprised on arrival. We had a Diamond ocean view room and it was just beautiful. The bathroom wasn't huge but the view from the balcony was breathtaking. The staff were friendly and pointed us in the right direction to hire a car. Food at the pool bar was great. They are starting to fix the balconies in the tower wing now so it was quite noisy around the pool area but to be honest, with so much to do on the island, we only had one day round the pool anyway. Our room was cleaned and the towels changed daily and the hotels is in the perfect location on Waikiki beach. The only downside I would mention is that the pool area is extremely busy and I was up at 6am to secure a sun lounger. There is a sign up to say that if you leave your towels on the lounger and don't return within 60 minutes, then your sunbed will be allocated to someone else. This does not happen. After sitting from 6am until 4pm around the pool, there were beds that were left unattended for hours on end and the pool, staff did not do anything about it. The staff around the pool don't do much at all to be honest! The only other thing to mention is that the walls are paper thin! I could literally hear the conversations that next door were having word for word and the guy's snoring woke me up a couple of nights!! Overall, a fantastic stay at the Moana Surfrider and Waikiki. Would I return? YES!!

less