Travel Review: Kiahuna Plantation Resort

Stars: 5 out of 5
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.  Our base of operations was the Kiahuna Plantation Resort.  I'd certainly stay there again.

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.  While Poipu is not exactly the big city, nothing is far away on the island.  You're less than 20 minutes from a couple of different grocery stores.  Really, you can be in one of the cities pretty quickly.  The island itself is fairly small.  We were able to get anywhere we wanted to go (and we went all over the island) in just about an hour from leaving our room.

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.