Royal Sonesta Kauai

My fiancée and I decided to do a trip to celebrate our engagement and my 35th birthday on Kauai at the royal sonesta. I let the hotel know this multiple times before arrival hoping we would at least get a congratulations on check in and maybe something special. Upon arrival the front desk agent was very cold and not friendly. I then let her know we were celebrating two big occasions and she immediately responded with “we are completely sold out and cannot upgrade your room” which we both though was weird considering we didn’t ask for an upgrade. We then had to bring our bags back up the bell man to have them hold onto them until our room was ready. Which was weirdly a pretty far walk and up an escalator with a sign that said “no luggage”. The front desk could have easily taken our bags and done this for us. We go to the pool and it was very hard to find shaded lounge chairs because people put their towel down to claim the chairs even though hardly anyone was actually sitting in them. The shaded chairs next to the ones we finally found had towels on them for 2 hrs with no one sitting there. We waited for a pool server to come by and no one was around so I went to the bar to get a lilikoi margarita. The bartender just made it in the cup and didn’t even shake it…… this was a $15 cocktail that tasted like one made at a frat party. Once able to check into our room the room was barely cleaned and had hairs on the sink and in the shower. (See pictures). Also the ocean view rooms are basically pool view. You have to basically lean over the railing to see the ocean which was not very secure. We were upgraded to a premium ocean view which was nice but clearly the front desk agent lied about being 100% occupied which we later found out is their default excuse for everything. The dinner at Kukui’s was mediocre at best. The server kept rushing us to order and again did not congregate us on anything we were celebrating. They serve drinks without trays and held the wine glasses by the bowl leaving their fingerprints all over the glass. This was a $100+ per person dinner. The host at the restaurant was the only staff that showed any genuine hospitality all trip. On checkout day we asked for a late checkout as our flight wouldn’t be taking off till later and we wanted to hang by the pool for our last day. They said again that they were operating at full capacity and couldn’t not give us an extra hour or two in the room. I then called on my cellphone to ask about availability that night and they said I could book no problem. Clearly they were not at 100% if I could book a room for that night. This was supposed to be a special trip to celebrate a huge event in our lives but absolutely nothing was done to make our trip special. I guess even for $500/night there is no hospitality anymore. Very disappointing.

Overall, my experience was OK. I am deducting one star due to a few issues with the front desk, as they were forgetful and did not follow up as promised regarding room concerns. The hostess at the sushi bar was also not very helpful. However, I would like to give a special shout-out to the housekeeping team 🎉they consistently went above and beyond and provided excellent service. Richard, the bartender at the pool bar, was very helpful, as was the other bald gentleman with the great smile (I believe his name may be William).

Beautiful location, amazing location and beach. Amenities were fantastic. My only complaint was the food and more specifically the drink prices, which were crazy.

Extremely average hotel. Pro’s : beautiful pool and close to airport. More con’s : Very strange, outdated hotel. When looking at it from the pool, I felt like I was in a hotel from 25 years ago. Strange Italian-ish gaudy decor throughout. Food very average and extremely over priced. Rooms were just OK. Hard to get service at pool , every other day housekeeping. Also, needed to have nice benches around the beach area in the grass. There were beat up lawn chairs that looked awful

Beautiful property with great dining options. We loved Portofinos! Staff was very attentive with waitresses walking around poolside to take drink and lunch orders. The cove on which property is situated is picturesque. Pricey but well worth it.