Review of Royal Kona Resort 3*

The view was incredible. Because we paid a premium for it. The staff were extraordinary. They had to be to keep smiling while apologizing for virtually everything. A large black stain on the worn-out carpeting greeted us outside the door of our fifth-floor corner luxury upgrade, supposedly the second-best room in the hotel. It went downhill from there. The Royal Kona may have been a fine hotel when it was built, but it is now a run-down has-been. Let me reiterate that the staff were all wonderful: friendly, welcoming and helpful. And extremely good at apologizing. What was wrong? Where to begin? The place is old and shabby throughout. The sliding doors to our balcony were so corroded that my wife couldn't budge them, and I was barely able to open them (I'm 6'5" tall and pretty strong). An electrical outlet had exposed wires, with just a single layer of unraveling electrical tape to keep you from getting killed. The carpeting was old and worn. The shower was impossible to adjust to a comfortable temperature and would go from cold to scalding to cold with no warning or reason. The porcelain in the bathtub was cracked and so old the maids couldn't make it brighter than a dull grey. The room needed repainting. The little refrigerator froze our Cokes. The bed was just OK. The sheets were old and threadbare. They only gave us two towels; we had to ask for more. DO NOT get a room on the north side. There's a bar with LOUD music; the first two nights they were so loud that even with the balcony doors closed and the air conditioner on, the bass thumped through the walls and we could hear every word and they played until 2 AM. (It might have been OK if they'd been decent, but they were awful. ) The bar had other bands (equally bad) the rest of the week that quit before midnight so we were at least able to get some sleep. The other towers have to suffer the Luau show, which was quite loud even from our room two buildings away, but at least that show is finished by 10 PM. Parking is a nightmare. They charge you $10 per night, but there are literally no parking places because they allow the Luau guests to use the lot too. If you get home from a day's adventures between 6 PM and 11 PM, plan on parking in a red zone or blocking one of the lanes. When we complained and said we were worried about being towed because we parked in a red zone, they said, "Oh, don't worry, people do that all the time, we don't tow cars. " In other words, they know their Luau seriously inconveniences the hotel guests, but don't care. This hotel feels like it's being slowly milked to death by greedy management, who are trying to suck the maximum amount of profit out of it while investing the absolute minimum in repairs and maintenance.