Wailea Beach Resort - Marriott, Maui

Great location in Maui, no car needed if you don’t want to grab one at the airport you can always grab one onsite if you want. Pools are nice and oceanfront is beautiful. Hotel was clean and to a 4 star standard however more overpriced then it should have been (yes even for Maui) and the front desk staff at check in are horrible. Better options available through Airbnb if you want 5 star and don’t want to eat at the restaurants onsite every night (which you don’t want to do, there is WAY better food on other parts of the island and nearby).

The Marriot Wailea Beach Resort is a true beach resort. There are many pools including an adult only infinity pool overlooking the ocean which was my favorite. It does get crowded but there were always seats available. Our room was a Premium Ocean Sundeck room in Hale 2 which are the closest rooms you can get to the ocean (see photo). It was perfect for watching sunrise and sunset. The service was always friendly especially two of the front desk women, Melanie and Vatu. Wailea Beach is a short walk and you can get free chairs and an umbrella as long as they are not already taken. It’s best to get there around 8:00 am when they open. We ate at Humble Kitchen for Happy Hour and the food was delicious especially the Charred Brussels & Cauliflower. This is our second time at the Marriot Wailea Beach Resort and it won’t be our last.

Open-air lobby. Valet or self parking (garage spaces are very tight). Walking distance to area shopping. Large well-kept property. Check-in 4pm and not a minute before. Actually, our suite was not available until closer to 5pm! Although they provide a welcome area lounge to freshen up before the room is ready, it's still unsettling not to be settled in a room until so late in the day. Oceanview suite was nice and spacious one and a half bath. The shower was unusually small for a suite. The suite was clean, however SEVERAL of our bath towels were not only stained but literally contained large BLOOD areas - as in the towels didn't even appear to be washed, just folded nicely - GROSS!! Breakfast staff appeared to be completed overwhelmed one morning and were not attentive. Breakfast buffet items were quality. The made to order omelets were horrible and lacked any flavor despite all the ingredients added. Overall, its a family hotel.

A beautiful resort in a beautiful place, but a few peeves that could be so easily fixed. 1. Check in They contact you a week in advance of arrival and ask you when you’re checking in. We were getting there at 2pm. We get the obligatory “we only guarantee your room at 4” response but why ask if you’re not going to try to accommodate? When we arrive, we’re told the room isn’t ready but they will text us when it is. 4pm rolls around and no text. We go to the desk, the room is still unavailable. I say that’s not good enough and so they find us a different room. We get to our room about 4:30, late from the “guaranteed check in” time, not the same as the room we booked and no accommodation for what was not an unreasonable check in time, advised a week in advance. No real effort to apologise or make this up to us. 2. Car park The self parking was a nightmare because the swipe card for the car park never worked ever. It wouldn’t work going in to the car park, it wouldn’t work going out of the carpark. You’d go and get it reprogrammed and it would work once and then fail again. Every time you pressed the buzzer to contact them they were bemused that this could ever happen. They charge USD49 per night for the privilege of self-parking. At that price you deserve an access card that works. 3. Room keys They give you wrist bands for your room key. That’s great because you can use the pool and swim and not worry. But like the carpark access card, it’s one of those room keys that works on your actual room door about once in every 10 tries. It gets tiresome when you’re paying around USD1000 a night all up, to have to spend about a minute hoping that if you hold your wrist band a certain way your very expensive room might be available to you. Must do better here. 4. Housekeeping There’s no ability to signal with a sign or anything when you want your room made up so you are at the mercy of the attendant. Our attendant decided to come between 4pm and 6pm every day. That’s very late in the day and a long time to spend with old towels and bedding. You should be able to signal you want an early room refresh, or they should just come at a reasonable time. 5. Food For a resort this expensive you’d expect the food to be amazing. It was bland and often not that well prepared. The lobby bar is a mobile cart and only has cans of beer available, nothing on tap. The pizza truck serves pretty average pizza and the pool service food was cold when it arrived, bland and disappointing. Again, not what you expect for the price. These peeves aside, the pools are beautiful and the location is stunning. But these peeves shouldn’t exist in a place where you’re paying these kind of prices. We would be back, but I’d really hope not to have these experiences again. I’m pretty surprised I have to say that people who pay this kind of money put up with them.

The best experience ever. Pools, views service and easy walk to the shops. Couldn’t have been a better spot. The slides were also top notch. So much to do but if you need help setting stuff up like we did, Ed Fatula with concierge is a superstar! He helped set up different activities for us to do and when things got cancelled or changed, he was always there to help and keep things on track.