Grand Wailea, A Waldorf Astoria Resort

Amazing place. Not just parts of it.... all of it. The service, the restaurants, the room, the pools, the grounds...every inch. Cannot recommend it enough.

We had a great experience staying at your hotel for the 10 days. Adult pool was fabulous. Special mention to Aki who served us by the pool. She is a great asset to your hotel. We also really enjoyed Nobo restaurant. Our room had a wonderful view across the lush gardens from which we were able to enjoy the stunning sunsets. We look forward to returning some day.

This hotel absolutely does not live up to the Waldorf name. This is an old and dated Hilton at best. Everything about this hotel feels so cold and like you are just a number. They don’t give you any special welcome drink or amenity. They tell you absolutely nothing about your stay and check in and just hand you a room card. They also don’t tell you that parking is EIGHTY dollars a day and there is no where else to park so you are forced to do it. This is HIGHLY predatory. The property itself is a mess. They don’t have enough space for as many guests as they have so people are fighting each other at 7am for pool towels. You have to pay $100 to rent a chair for the beach which is absolutely audacious for the price they are charging. Everything about this hotel is a nickel and dime situation. It’s also just unfortunately not clean. We found numerous stains throughout the room and the property is so worn down. Dead bugs everywhere, cracking ceilings and paint. I’m not sure how in the world they justify charging $800 plus for this hotel when there are so many better ones near by.

The hotel is beautiful, but meal prices are absurd. Most irritating? If you book with a 3rd party (I used Priceline) the hotel still charged us nearly $800 in resort fees, and NONE of your extra spend goes toward Hilton rewards. We spent $4,000 on dinners, drinks, fees and spa services directly with Hilton - above the $4k we spent on room via Priceline. None of it qualified and they were unwilling to revisit. There are many other nearby resorts that looked like better bang for the buck. We stayed atvthe Ka La'i on Oahu for 4 days prior - same cost concerns. We'll be looking at other brands going forward.

We found the overall level of service to be excellent. Our housekeeping team did an outstanding job keeping our room in perfect condition throughout our stay. The restaurant and bar staff everywhere were friendly, fun and welcoming. A few people deserve to be mentioned by name. Keoni and Nadine at Botero Lounge helped cap off several of our evenings with a smile and great service. Wayne at the Grotto Bar was also outstanding. The valet team was consistently friendly and responsive, even when they were being absolutely overrun during peak periods. And the property itself is simply stunning. The grounds, pools, landscaping and oceanfront setting are spectacular. It is difficult not to feel good walking around this resort. A few observations for those planning a stay: Be prepared to walk. This is a very large property, and if anyone in your party has limited mobility, the location of your room relative to the elevators can make a significant difference. We were also somewhat surprised by the number and ages of the children during our September stay. We have no issue whatsoever with children and fully expected families at a resort with pools like these. Just don’t assume traveling during the school year means significantly fewer children. In our experience, it simply meant fewer school-age children and many more infants, toddlers and preschool-age children. The pool-chair game is also very real—particularly if you want shade. There were generally chairs available somewhere, but chairs under an umbrella were a completely different story. Even with the resort appearing to be well below full occupancy during our stay, by mid-morning virtually every shaded chair was taken and they generally didn’t begin opening up again until late afternoon. The resort has a stated policy regarding chairs being held with towels or belongings while guests are away for extended periods, but during our 10 days we never saw that policy actively enforced. There were definitely occasions where prime shaded chairs appeared to be “occupied” by towels and belongings for long stretches of time with nobody actually using them. If having shade is important to you, plan on getting to the pool early. The beach is another thing worth mentioning. Wailea Beach in front of the resort had clearly taken a hit from recent weather and sand erosion during our visit, so there was noticeably less beach than we expected. That’s obviously not something I would blame on the resort. We visited nearby beaches farther south around Makena, however, and found those beaches to still be in great shape. Now for the negatives. Some of the hotel’s policies left a bad taste in our mouths. First, be aware of the resort and parking fees when comparing the advertised room rate with other properties. Together they can add approximately $135 per night to your bill if you have a car. In our particular case, the resort fee was waived as part of the arrangement we ultimately made for our paid room upgrade, so we did not actually pay the full $135 per night. But for anyone budgeting a stay, these charges are something to factor into the true nightly cost. And, of course, you’ll likely also want to tip the valet attendants who are actually doing the work. The bigger disappointment, however, was the hotel’s approach to upgrades and how it treated our Hilton Diamond and American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts benefits. When researching and booking the Grand Wailea, I was very careful to review the published upgrade terms because they influenced which room category we chose to purchase. Hilton Honors’ published Diamond benefits for Waldorf Astoria properties provide for space-available upgrades up to a one-bedroom suite. The terms also specifically identify a Grand Wailea exception excluding Napua Tower accommodations from complimentary upgrades. We therefore booked a Deluxe Ocean View room, believing that would position us well for a possible suite upgrade. We also booked through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, which provides its own space-available upgrade benefit. What we didn’t know was that Grand Wailea apparently has an additional, unpublished policy—at least as it was explained to us at check-in and subsequently by a manager—that complimentary upgrades through both programs are capped at the Deluxe Ocean View category. So, because we had already paid for a Deluxe Ocean View room, we were told there was no complimentary upgrade path available to us through either program. Had this simply been an availability issue, I would have had absolutely no complaint. Space-available means exactly that, and an upgrade is never guaranteed. But availability was not the issue. There were multiple one-bedroom suites available during our stay, including Aliʻi Suites, and the hotel was quite willing to offer those rooms to us—as long as we paid an additional nightly charge. We ultimately did reluctantly pay to upgrade. This is where the experience became particularly disappointing. I subsequently spoke with the manager on duty because I wanted to understand how this policy reconciled with Hilton’s published Diamond benefits and the specific Grand Wailea exception contained in those terms. Unfortunately, this was the only interaction we had during our entire 10-night stay where I felt the level of customer service fell well below what I would expect from a Waldorf Astoria property. Rather than acknowledging why the situation might be confusing or frustrating, the response came across as curt and dismissive—essentially that this was the hotel’s policy regardless of the published Hilton terms. Most surprising was being told that if I did not want to pay for the suite, she could move us out of it. It was an unnecessarily confrontational response to what I felt was a legitimate question about a loyalty program benefit. I have subsequently raised the issue directly with Hilton so they can clarify whether the policy described to us by the hotel is consistent with the Hilton Honors program terms. Part of our decision to choose Grand Wailea over other Maui resorts at a similar price point was my Hilton Diamond status combined with booking through American Express FHR. We expected that combination to provide some meaningful additional recognition or benefit beyond what we might receive simply booking another FHR property. That’s probably the biggest takeaway for us going forward. If our Hilton Diamond status provides no meaningful additional benefit at Grand Wailea beyond what we would receive at another Amex FHR resort, then being a Hilton Diamond no longer gives us a compelling reason to choose Grand Wailea over the other excellent FHR properties on Maui. For a future trip, we would simply compare the resorts on their own merits, rates and FHR benefits rather than giving Grand Wailea an advantage because of our Hilton loyalty. That’s unfortunate, because you would think recognizing and rewarding your most loyal customers would be one of the things that encourages them to return. Despite all of that, we genuinely had a great vacation and greatly enjoyed the Grand Wailea. The overwhelming majority of the employees we encountered were wonderful, the resort is beautiful, and there is a lot to love about the property. I would simply encourage Hilton Diamond members and Amex FHR guests to understand the hotel’s upgrade policy before deciding which room category to book. Had we known in advance that Deluxe Ocean View was effectively the ceiling for complimentary upgrades, we likely would have booked a lower category and potentially received Deluxe Ocean View as our upgrade rather than paying for that category upfront. Our memories of the trip are overwhelmingly positive. I just wish the hotel’s management policies—and particularly the way this issue was handled—matched the exceptional level of hospitality we experienced from nearly everyone else working at the resort.