Pros: Beautiful environment within walking distance of the beach
Cons: None unless you are looking for something super fancy
The Bottom Line:
Nothing fancy here
But a great location and
It's comfortable
Kiahuna Plantation Resort: A Beautiful Place to Stay
In 2008, my parents took the entire family to Hawaii for a week. It was a first trip for all of us, and we had
a good time exploring the Island
of Kauai
Location and Setting
The Kiahuna Plantation Resort is a collection of
individually owned condos. It is managed
by two different companies. Some are
booked by Castle Resorts. We stayed in
one booked by Outrigger. To further
complicate matters, some of the owners book their own places, often for a
cheaper price than you can get from the companies. Honestly, I never did figure out where the
divisions were between the two companies.
The resort is located in Poipu on the south shore of Kauai
The resort is located directly on the beach. Granted, it's not a huge beach, but there is
enough sand to walk on if you want to go for a moonlit stroll. The beach is actually part of a bay, so if
you want decent sized waves, you will have to swim out a ways, but the water
was pleasant the one time we were down there.
The grounds themselves are beautiful. There are expansive lawns with trees, shrubs
and flowers all over the place. The
flowers were in full bloom when we were there, and it smelled wonderful. In addition, there's an orchid garden. I had fun one afternoon walking through there
and taking pictures of the various flowers.
The Rooms
Since I wasn't really involved in the booking, I'm not sure
what all the requirements were. I do
know that we wanted a place all five of us could stay without spending an arm
and a leg. We were all able to stay in a
two bedroom unit. Prices obvious vary by
season (and I'm sure increase every year), but current rates seem to be between
$259-$365 per night for a one bedroom unit and $385-$469 a night for a two
bedroom with discounts for multiple night stays. The price difference is based on
location. If you want a unit right on
the beach, you'll naturally pay more. We
had a "garden" room, which meant we had a ways to walk to the
beach. But we had a beautiful view of
the grounds.
Since we had a two bedroom unit, I can't speak to the layout
of the one bedrooms. In ours, you
entered on a landing. Down half a flight
of stairs was the bedrooms and two full bathrooms. The master opened onto a ground level
patio. They were a tad on the small
size, but there was room enough for the bed, closet, and two nightstands. Up half a flight of stairs was the full
kitchen and living room. The living room
was quite spacious and included several chairs and a couch. There was a large dining room table. The kitchen was a tad small if you expected
more than about three people to be in there, but it came equipped with enough
dishes to do some cooking and serve food for six people. There was a balcony off the living room with
a great view of the grounds. The couch
in our unit opened up to become a bed. I
slept on that, and it was quite comfortable.
We also had a TV with cable and DVD player with movies filmed on Kauai .
Keep in mind that each unit is furnished by the owner. While I'm sure there is some minimum standard
of furniture required, the quality, quantity, and locations will change from
unit to unit.
There are no air conditioners in the complex. Instead, the trade winds are your
coolers. Three of the four walls in our
unit (remember, we were on an end) had plantation shutters and screens. With those open, it let quite a bit of cool
air in, keeping things pleasant.
Additionally, there were ceiling fans in each room that helped move the
air. I require things to cool off before
I can sleep, and I never had a hard time sleeping. Keep in mind I was in the living room. I'm not sure how cool the bedrooms got, but
no one complained about it.
The downside of these shutters is that as soon as the sun
comes up, it starts getting light in your unit.
But not the worry. The roosters
that run free over the entire island make sure you are up and ready to go
before it gets too late. Since we heard
them wherever we went on the island, I'm not sure you could get away from that
noise anywhere.
Considering we always had the shutters open, the units were
pretty quite. There was another unit
above ours. Only rarely did we hear
them. Even when a group of school girls
took over most of the building, we didn't hear much from our neighbors.
We got standard maid service including making the beds (even
folding mine up if we left before I had a chance to do so), clean towels, and
vacuuming. We had to clean up after
ourselves in the kitchen.
Amenities
Even with one of the cheap rooms, we were a two minute walk
from the beach. Not that we spent much
time there. We were out and about
exploring the island most days.
The resort has towels and chairs you can check out for the
day. Actually, the towels can be checked
out to your room and taken wherever you go on the island. The towels are the standard, cheap, white
hotel towels, but for the price, I'm not complaining.
There are barbeque pits and picnic tables scattered
throughout the grounds. There is also a
coin laundry facility.
The resort has made a deal with a place across the street so
guests can use their pool and tennis courts.
The pool had really weird hours.
It looked like fun with a small slide.
But we were never around to use it.
Because you have a kitchen in your unit, there is no room service. (Or would it be unit service in this
case.) There is a small restaurant in
the complex, but we never did look into eating there.
You will not find a playground or anything like that for
your kids. Of course, there are large
expanses of lawn they can run on.
Also across the street from the complex is a small shopping
center. It includes a wide variety of
shops and restaurants that vary in price.
There's also a convenience store for emergency purchases. I regret never making it over there at meal
time to try one of the hot dogs with pineapple relish.
I'm not a drinker, so I can't speak to any alcohol
issues. In fact, we drank bottled water
the entire time we were in Hawaii . Boring people, aren't we? Anyway, I have heard they only sell fancier
alcohol when their restaurant is open although they do sell soft drinks and
beer down by the beach during the day.
Golfers will be interested in learning there are two courses
a short distance away. Since none of us
golf, I can't tell you any more than that.
Conclusion
While not a luxury resort by any stretch of the
imaginations, the Kiahuna Plantation Resort did provide us with comfortable
place to stay in a pleasant setting. And
it made a great base of operations for exploring the island. In fact, we spent more time out doing that
than we did in our unit.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by. In order to combat spam, I moderate most comments. I'll get to your comment as soon as I can.