Big Island honeymoon advice
 

We are trying to make a final decision on 5 nights accomodations on the Big Island. This is the last part of our 16 night honeymoon (4 nights at Renaissance Wailea, 7 nights in a condo on Kauai) and we want to finish up in style. The Four Seasons is at the top of our list but it's so hard to justify that much money on a hotel, especially when we'd need to add spending money on top of it. I'd love to hear feedback from others on The Fairmont Orchid, Hapuna Prince and Mauna Lani, as we are considering all of them. Thanks!

I was just looking at options last night with my sister, the Mauna Lani has a romance package that looked very good. If you break out all the added activities, its a good price for that resort, they had a helicopter ride, snorkle or sunset cruise, and spa treatment along with breakfast included in the price. Check their website for packages. End with a sunset dinner at Canoe House.

Things she was taking into consideration was fitness center, beach, and view and eating options. They have stayed at Mauna Kea before and the best beach on BI is at MK, the Hapuna Price is closest, but you need to end with total 5* experience and I just don't think HP is there.

How many honeymoons are your going to have??

We had the same dilemma with our honeymoon--I really wanted the Four Seasons Hualalai, but just couldn't justify the cost! We ended up booking the Mauna Lani (which is still pretty expensive, but not QUITE as much so) on the recommendation of my parents, who had stayed there and thought it was wonderful.

We were absolutely delighted with our experience! The hotel is first-class--we were treated like VIPs the entire time (they called us by name throughout our stay, jumped to every request, etc.). The resort itself is lovely. Beautiful grounds, rooms, views. Great restaurants (try both the Canoe House and the Gallery). We loved the spa. The staff was extremely accomodating. It's a very restive, peaceful, romantic and upscale place to stay.

We drove next door to look at the Orchid and thought it looked lovely as well. Both hotels are in the Mauna Lani region, which is spectacular. (Sorry for all the superlatives! But we were honestly 100% pleased!)

The Hapuna looked nice when we drove by, but I am not as enamored of the area it's in. The whole Kohala coast is VERY nice, though, so I really don't think you can go very wrong with any of these choices.

Thank you both! What category of room did you stay in at the Mauna Lani? Did they upgrade either of you?

We stayed in an ocean view room and were upgraded to a deluxe ocean view with a complimentary bottle of champagne.

Thanks again. They are having a romance package special right now that is a great deal. Waterfall helicopter tour for two, champagne on arrival, daily breakfast for 2, snorkel or sunset cruise for 2, 2 50 minute spa treatments and comlimentary use of the fitness club...all this for $2,595 for 5 nights (oceanview). It's very tempting.

The Mauna Lani is fabulous and I think you'll be very pleased. The hotel rooms at the Mauna Lani are almost all the same size, with the only difference being view. Almost all the rooms have some ocean view, the difference in price reflects how sweeping or head-on the view is. We stayed in one of the regular ocean view rooms (i.e. one of the cheaper room categories) and were satisfied. At some hotels, "ocean view" means a sliver of ocean is visible if you crane your neck, but that was not at all the case for us at this hotel. We had quite a nice view. Other things we loved about the hotel were its casual, serene elegance, the sunsets, the fish ponds, the beaches, and the wonderful breakfast buffet.

We visited the Orchid next door a couple of times for meals and were very happy with the food there. But I can't really comment on the rest of that hotel as we did not stay there.

It's true, the ocean views at Mauna Lani are quite nice--nothing "partial" about them!

If you can get an upgrade to deluxe ocean view--grab it. THe deluxe rooms are the corner units on the upper floors, and they are slightly bigger and laid out a bit differently than the regular rooms.

The specials they run are really good! I booked our 2003 honeymoon before the end of 2002, and they gave me an "early bird" package which included breakfast, spa treatments, and $50 credit per day to charge whatever we wanted at the resort (food, drinks, movies, gift shop, etc.).

We stayed last summer at the Orchid and
were completely happy with our choice.
It is a really relaxing place. Very calm and peaceful with a lovely pool
and a nice beach/lagoon. Loved Brown's
Beach house for dinner! The Spa with
no walls was terrific - a message by
the water or by a waterfall -so good!
We walked around and dined at the ML
next door. I would also say you would
be extremely happy there as well. I
loved their beach and grounds. Both
are good choices.

Both times my husband and I were on the BI, we stayed at the Hapuna and absolutely loved it. We also recommended it to my brother and my neighbor. They both loved it and can't wait to go back. The neighbor was going to stay at the Orchid and said she was really glad she did not because when she went there to check it out, the beach was really small. The Hapuna has large rooms, accommodating staff, gorgeous pool and beach. Again, loved it and will stay there again when I go back to the BI.

My wife and I just returned (yesterday) from the Hapuna Prince for our honeymoon. We were blown away with how awesome everything was. To top things off, we paid around $250 for an ocean view room and were upgraded to the top of the line ocean front, ocean view SUITE that runs for $1,250 a night! We just walked in, and they handed us the room since we were on our honeymoon. Everything - the room, the service, the awesome pool and beach, I could go on and on - made me a Hapuna believer for life. Best week I ever experienced. I even brought back Hotel menus, activity info, etc. to help people with information about Hapuna. It was so awesome. Let me know if you have questions!

Hi efalk1111:
Are you going to be posting a trip report, I hope? My fiance and I are honeymooning in Hawaii this summer, and staying 4 nights at the Hapuna as part of our trip. I would love to hear more about the hotel and the island -- how did you get such an awesome upgrade??!!

beachgirl: It's pretty much luck of the draw when it comes to hotel upgrades. If the hotel isn't near capacity and you run into a manager who's having a good day, you can probably count on some kind of upgrade (although not all or even many guests will be offered a $1200 suite gratis). Being a return/repeat guest helps a lot. Also, a week or so before you go, call the hotel, ask for the manager and let him/her know you'll be on your honeymoon.

One last suggestion. For a more intimate/quiet/hawaiian-like experience I recommend the Mauna Kea Beach Resort over the Hapuna Beach Prince. Although both are wonderful, the Mauna Kea has a less crowded and more romantic feel to it. The same is true for the Mauna Lani, although the beach is better at the MKBR.

sorry to hijack your thread, but i have a question for efalk - how much were the breakfast options and how was the buffet? i have reservations for august and am trying to figure out if i should do a package including breakfast. thanks.

Beachgirl86 - I have no idea about how we got the upgrade except that we were on our honeymoon and asked nicely about it! I agree with fdecarlo by saying that it depends on the capacity - however, we were there with 400 Central Insurance Agents and still got the upgrade! Also, we did go to visit Mauna Kea, and thought Hapuna was nicer. I guess it depends on your tastes! We thought the pool and beach setting were better at Hapuna. In response to vacationdreamer, the buffet was awesome! We didn't go with it being a part of our package because were were not sure we would use it everyday (we used it 3 times). It costs $22 a person and was loaded with everything: breakfast meats, omelets made to order, juices, milks, eggs, hashbrowns, smoked salmon, a complete fruit bar, fruit juices, cereals, breads, muffins - it was breakfast heaven. But, we found out the breakfast included option on the room was about the same increase as if you just bought it separately! Email me with any questions: [email protected]

efalk - Thanks for the response. It seems that the package deal isn't much of a deal, so I think we'll stick with the room-only rate. We're actually going on to the FS Maui after, so we can gorge ourselves on the buffet there - I'm sort of afraid how I would look after 10 days of buffets!!!

It's a bummer 4S prices have been increasing steadily since the big drop off after terrible Sept 11. If you may never be back to Hawaii 4S is deffinitely the best, depending when you are going, pleasantholidays.com offers either the 5th or 7th night free. Have stayes aththe Orchid and Hapuna and prefer the Orchid because it has much more of a warm, homey feeling. There are currently 5 night auction packages at luxurylink.com worth checking out for both the Hapuna and Orchid.

Message: My husband and I spent our honeymoon at the Fairmont Orchid on the Big Island in June. When we began planning our trip, I had a difficult time researching the Fairmont online and was really struggling between the Fairmont, the Mauna Lani, and the Four Seasons. In retrospect, we made a great decision. We LOVED the Fairmont!

HOTEL: First, the grounds of the hotel are spectacular. They're very well maintained and were the best grounds that we saw. We did visit the 4S and the Mauna Lani and we were so happy we chose the Fairmont. The hotel has a very luxurious feel and the grounds are so lush in comparison to other hotels that we visited. We had a standard room with breakfast included and the room was very large. We had a partial ocean view room - you could see the ocean from the lanai - but the best part was being situated above the spa / garden area where we could sleep to the sound of the waterfalls.

MEALS: The breakfast buffet at the hotel was great. It's normally $26 per person, so we were happy that we got it included in our package. There is a large selection of hot and cold foods, as well as breakfast and lunch items. The outside dining area is beautiful as well. The beach bar (and Brown's Beach House) is a great place to eat as well. It is expensive - we spent $80 our first night for a light meal - sandwich, fish, and drinks, but you have to expect that. The guava smoothies are great!
OTHER MEALS: We ate at the Beach Tree Bar and Grill at the 4S and had a great sunset meal. The Canoe House at the Mauna Lani was fantastic as well. Our favorite place was Merriman's Cafe at the King's Shops in Waikaloa - it's a casual Mediterranean cafe with great food at a reasonable price. We went 4 times! Try the mango sodas - they're great.

BEACH: This was the one area that concerned me about the Fairmont in reading past reviews. We ended up loving it. It's a small, enclosed lagoon, so it's very protected from the waves. We experienced great snorkeling in the mouth of the lagoon and just outside of it. We saw numerous sea turtles every day (along with some eels!) and really enjoyed the lagoon. We did visit other beaches in the area and enjoyed them as well. It was just nice to use the activity card and snorkel right at the hotel. The beach didn't get overly crowded.

OTHER BEACHES: A-Bay (just south of Waikaloa) was a great beach - there are plenty of water activities for everyone - it's very picturesque. Kiholo Bay was a long hike, but great for snorkeling. Hapuna was a nice beach, and so was Beach 69, but Beach 69 was kind of rough when we were there.

Feel free to ask any questions you might have!