In the world of travel, its hard to get the truth. The major travel pubs deemphasize the negative sides of destinations and hotel/resort properties out of fear of ticking off potential advertisers. Clueless posters on Trip Advisor and Hawaii.com throw up stuff that is just plain wrong and inaccurate. Expedia, Travelocity and the like are really in the biz of selling vacations, not rating destinations. Which is why I LOVE Travel-Hawaii.com. This is the Website for a Hawaii-based travel agency. There is a definite advantage to going local with travel agents as the folks based here really know what's going on and aren't basing their impressions on a freebie trip to Hawaii paid for by the resorts and airlines. Travel-Hawaii takes the "truth in travel" riff to a new and most excellent extreme. They clearly are not afraid of retribution from resorts which could limit room allocations or stick them with higher prices. Witness this scathing comment about a truly awful resort, the Aston Maui Lu (which has been, btw, in heavy rotation on TravelZoo and other discounters). Agent Phyllis, from Travel-Hawaii, says:

As the Customer Service Representative for Travel Hawaii, I've had to repeatedly relocate people who were unhappy with this property. The hotel is located on a bluff with the oceanview and oceanfront units located across the street from the main property. The beach fronting the oceanview and oceanfront units tends to be windy and is sometimes sludgy and silty. You may want to consider staying at the Outrigger Napili Shores if a good swimming beach is important to you or the Lahaina Shores if a good oceanview is important to you.

Whoa! Now that's the kinda travel tip I wish I could get more often from the big mags! For its part, some reviews at TripAdvisor also hated the Maui Lu but plenty liked it, too. Check out the Travel-Hawaii.com site for more truly honest assessments on Hawaii hotels. It's quite eye-opening.

Related Links: Travel-Hawaii.com

—Alex, 11/10/06