Hilton Waikoloa Village

First and foremost this property is very large. There is even a tram and a boat that takes guests around. I'm rating it three stars because for a property on the beach there is no place to layout and enjoy the ocean view. The pool area was also not the greatest. There was very few staff and you had to chase someone down to get any drinks or food. When they did bring us food it was in a paper bag. The property also has mosquitos so if you leave your patio or front door open for even a second mosquito's will fly into your room. I will say the restaurant and front desk staff were friendly and they did give us a nice upgrade for being a Hilton Diamond. I simply probably will not stay here again because of the not so great beach and the lackluster staff at the pool. Read less

I cannot for the life of me understand why, but the staff was so cranky. Attitudes from everyone from the front desk to the restaurant waitress. This was not a cheap vacation. We should have gone to another hotel like our friends did. I have stayed at various Hilton hotels in the past and never ever have had such terrible service experience, not just me, but to my kids (7,4,2). Also it's a dated hotel. I think there are much nicer hotels out there and we stayed in the $700 a night ocean view suite. Save your money. Support a better hotel Read less

We stayed here for two weeks in January, and we stayed in two rooms: A regular hotel room, and a deluxe suite clear up on the top floor of the Palace Tower. Overall, the resort is AWESOME. There is plenty to do (pools, beaches, boats, sea turtles to see, sunsets, rainbows), and the location makes it perfect for families and those who don't necessarily want to rent a car. We will definitely return. There are some aspects that we wish would improve, but we will hope for the best next time we return; which we will. Here's how it broke down for us. Pros: - The hotel rooms--particularly the regular room--were very sensibly laid out. We got great sleep the whole time we were there. - It's a gorgeous resort with a lot of attention paid to art, landscaping, and cultural sensitivity. I could wish for better art interpretation, but then I wish for a lot of things. - Some good food on the resort property (particularly Nui) - Trolley shuttle to nearby shops and restaurants ($2 per ride per adult, runs every 20 minutes out of the lobby lower level) was extremely convenient, though I wish we would have found out about it sooner. - Location on the leeward side of the island made for excellent weather. Lovely sunsets and rainbow views. - Great swimming, boating, snorkeling, and turtle watching in the lagoon. - Two locations (a pool and the lagoon) for kiddos to play with sand for hours - Nice layout of pools (one area bigger and louder, one more spread out and tranquil) - The canal boats and the tram--while not necessary--were a whole lot of fun for the kids - The resort is a perfect size. Big enough not to feel claustrophobic, but not so big that you abandoned hope of ever seeing your family again if you got separated during the day. - THE SEA TURTLES! They're everywhere, and it's so cool to see them. - The wildlife: We saw whales from the pool deck almost every day. Lots of cool birds, too, even if most of them are invasives. AND WE SAW NENE. JUST WALKING AROUND. - You can exchange texts with housekeeping. This was awesome. - Excellent wifi signal throughout the resort. CONS: - The Big Island Breakfast is convenient and tasty, though overpriced for the food. - DolphinQuest is on site. They claim the founder dolphins were wild caught in Hawaiian waters in the 1970s (when that was legal) and that all others were human-bred (so theoretically not Taiji dolphins, though I did not get accession numbers, so they could be bred from Taiji dolphins, and I did not get a good read on whether DolphinQuest works with the AZA or any similar organization. I hung out in the education center for a while, but remained uneducated on these topics). However, the dolphins do not have an option not to participate in expensive swim-with-the dolphin programs, and there seem to be quite a few of them packed into relatively small, shallow pools. - The laundrette. I have done laundry at laundrettes at a wide range of hotels in the US and in Europe, and this one was one of the least impressive. We did laundry halfway through our two-week stay, and the washer was so filthy it ruined some of our clothes, leaving series of dots all over them as if the machine drum was full of mildew. I followed directions, and rewashed twice, and the dots remained. Housekeeping attempted to rectify the situation by having the hotel laundry take a stab, but most of the shirts were irretrievably stained. They did give us $200 to make up for it, but some of the shirts ruined were among the boys' favorites, and I would rather have had the shirts than the money. - The water in the pools was pretty cold, even for my little guys. That's probably more the time of year. - It would have been nice to have a general store/convenience shop on property for things like pull-ups if you didn't want to run to the ABC store on the trolley - It would also have been AWESOME to have a quick-service counter restaurant that was open reliably all day long. Orchid Market had odd hours and we could never catch it open when we needed it. - There was no service where you could borrow sand toys free of charge, like we've encountered at other resorts. We ended up buying some and then passing them on when we left. - There were no microwaves in the rooms to reheat leftovers, even in the big fancy suites. (at least in the Palace Tower, where we stayed.) A word of advice: On the website, they recommend you use their valet parking service if you have a car to avoid a "long, uphill" walk to the hotel. I don't know what kind of metric they're using to judge "long" and "uphill" but it's maybe a five minute walk and a slight gradient. We loved the parking lot, and we had waiting for a valet to bring the car around. Read less

We upgraded the room by two ranks (price) but did not have a sleeper sofa bed listed on their homepage. They put in an extra bed. However, the room was small and there was no space to walk. Shelf everywhere was covered with dust. The Chinese in the next room were noisy from 5 in the morning and couldn't sleep.Room is far from reception.Shampoo, rinse and coffee are not enough. Three people cannot shampoo with one small shampoo. Of course, I contacted room service but didn't bring it. There is only one boat and one monorail in the building, so you have to wait a long time to get on. We stayed in January so the pools and lagoons were too cold to swim. There was no explanation at the reception about the nearby shuttle bus and we could not use it. Not very kind about the monorail driver and reception in the hall. To the total amount of the payment, the room charge and the tax + the resort fee and the tax + the parking lot $ 33 are added. I lived on this island and stayed at this facility for the first time, but it was expensive. Read less