Maui Hotels: Kapalua Villas -- Memo to Diane at Ridge Realty
Where: Maui || Grouped in: Maui Hotels || Tagged:
Dear Diane at Ridge Realty: I am not sure if you are aware of this yet but you are definitely costing your company, Ridge Realty, significant chunks of cashola. Let me introduce you to TripAdvisor.com. I have a love/hate relationship with Trip Advisor as it tends to have reviews from clueless visitors to Hawaii. But it also has really solid information from smart travelers and it is by the far the most trafficked site for user-generated travel reviews. Diane, in the first five reviews two of the posters cited you as telling them that they would receive a super-upgraded room in the Kapalua Villas. Upon arrival, they found dillapidated units in dire need of repair. Which is sad because the Villas are lovely, if for no other reason, than the serene local and the relatively spacious accomodations as compared to the nearby Ritz-Carlton. So memo to Diane -- speak truth to power or else your TripAdvisor rating will plummets, as has happened at the Kahala Hotel on Oahu.
All of this said, the Villas remain a highly reccomendable property for the reasons above -- the spaciousness -- but also because they have one of the most jaw-dropping views on Maui, with the gentle slopes of Molokai across the channel jutting from a perfectly blue, whitecap-whipped cream sea. Kapalua has three dynamite beaches including Kapalua Bay, D.T. Fleming Beach Park, and Napili Bay. All are equally stunning although Kapalua and Napili are better for swimmnig. The nearby Ritz has fab dining (the Banyan Tree Restaurant is quite good) and Oahu sushi maven D.K. Kodama runs Vino (an Italian wine bar wit good food) and Sansei (a Pacific fusion small plates and sushi place) next to the bit hotel. The beaches in Kapalua are markedly less crowded than those of Lahaina, Wailea, or Kihei. The upshot? Stay at the Villas. But check TripAdvisor.com and ask Diane at Ridge Realty to send you images of the very room you will be inhabiting. Bring those with you when you get to Maui and if she demures and sticks you in a cruddy room, then demand a reduced rate. She'll get the message.
Related Posts: Travel Tips #3 -- Don't Stay at Big Name Resort
Image via Orbitz
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