Bugs in Hawaii
 

This is probably a silly question, but my fiance and I are thinking of going to Hawaii for our honeymoon next July and staying in a timeshare for part of the trip. I know everyone says Hawaii is paradise, and it certainly sounds like it. However, we've read a bunch of reviews on Timeshare Users Group, and in several of them, people mentioned finding COCKROACHES in their condos! These are RCI Gold Crown (5 star) resorts! I realize it's a tropical place, but I can imagine few things more disgusting than cockroaches in the hotel on a honeymoon. Is this common? Are there ways we can avoid it (e.g. newer resort, upper floors, places that are more like a hotel than a condo, etc.)? Thanks!!

It's not silly at all. We had a problem with cockroaches while in Kauai. They are huge over there. I think the answer to your question might depend on when these property's spray for these critters. Another time we were in Maui and the Westin sprayed for them while we were there. We were in the beach tower on the 8th floor above the roof area. We looked down and there must have been hundreds of dead roaches on the roof above the outdoor restaurant. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. Ask them how often they sray and when they will be spraying before your trip. I know the better hotels spray often.

Sue they are not cockroaches they are water bugs, two separate creatures.<BR><BR>Never had a cock roach problem in one rental or hotel room in over a decade of yearly travel and 3 years of living in Hawaii. Have had plenty of experiences bringing people in and setting them up with lodging also.<BR><BR>Timeshares are often hotels that are past their glory days. If you are renting from an individual owner you are running the risk of subjecting yourself to standards that may fall short. Again never happened to us but I could see it happening with a small business owner that lives year round in California.<BR><BR>As for RCI Gold Crown 5 star status what does that mean? It has been my experience that time share owners steal appliances, and loose items in condo. That is what Timeshare manager told friend on Maui who owned a time share there. Judging by the timeshare owners we met. They were typically traveling on a shoe string, bringing meats and items from the mainland not exactly what you expect from patrons of an establishment that calls itself 5-star. So it would not surprise me to see water bugs or other problems in a large complex as you may be suggesting.

Roaches are really pretty harmless. If you're going to a warm climate, you just have to sort of deal with them.<BR>They can be startling though in the way that a rat is because you'll turn on a light and &lt;&lt;presto&gt;&gt; there they are. And they're big too. Some of them even fly. But remember they want to get away from you as much as you want them to go away.

bug hater ask management how frequent and thorough exterminators frequent the building.<BR><BR>We surmised with that management at the time-share on Maui that frequently time share-owners are sucked into the dream of a condo on the islands without carefully considering what they can afford and how good of an investment an aging hotel is. Think after time passes SOME timeshare owners become resentful, steal, and perhaps write articles you saw. I don’t even like to stay near time share people. I am sorry they are frequently tattooed, loud, publicly guzzling beer. Ok big generalization :):) but you see one or two families of swearing pierced little boys with a tattooed mommy and the images are fixed with you. In princeville I hate the public display of budweisser, You will see. I think if you find a private home you don’t have to deal with this.<BR>

I'd be alot more worried about the rat problems they're having!

Rats can fly?!.........I had no idea.

What's the difference between cockroaches and water bugs? They're both disgusting!

We were told by the staff of both places we stayed that they were cockroaches. Thats' like saying that the stinging centipedes they have over there are just caterpillars! How silly!

I understand many of the islands are having a population explosion of mice. It seems there is not as much grass to eat in hills due to the drought causing them to come into the cities. YUK!! Only one island is uneffected. I read this on the weather channel home page.

Bugs in Hawaii? I would have never thought there were bugs in Hawaii.

THE ROACHES IN HAWAII ARE SO BIG YOU CAN HEAR THEM BURP!!!!!!!!!

I just went to maui on my honeymoon in June. We stayed at the Embassy Vacation resort. There were no cockroaches, bugs or mice. Don't know if that helps but that was my experience. It was great.

Tracey: Was it the Embassy Resort that's an RCI property? Were you on an upper floor? Or does that not make much of a difference?

cochroaches are smaller and are not half as miserable as seeing a water bug.<BR><BR>Water bugs are huge, miserable looking creatures.

Tracy, I am interested in hearing more about your experience with Embassy Suites, we are staying there the first week in November! You can e-mail me directly at [email protected]. Thanks!

Hi Bug Hater,<BR><BR>There are a lot of bugs in Hawaii, as you've heard from the posts above. Mainly, it is just because it is so tropcial and I think it is hard to completely avoid. However, I don't think I've ever seen a cockroach in any room I've stayed in. I *have* seen cain spiders though, on more than one occassion. That is the biggest spider I have ever seen that was not in a cage. I highly reccommend that you take some Raid with you, just in case. I will be returning in September and plan to do the same thing.

wow daria they don't sell raid in Hawaii? Think you should think about the type of places you can afford if you would lug over a can of raid to save 50 cents if anything at all.<BR><BR>How stupid this thread is I have been going for 20 years. Look in any echo study guide any tourist guide. Hawaii is known for a lower rate of vermin. THAT IS PART OF THE MEANING OF PARADISE. Well I will exit at this and I can’t imagine I am speaking to group here that actually goes to Hawaii. ALOHA!!!<BR>

Geckos eat any bugs you would have in your space anyone who has been would know that.

Lets get this straight...We have cockroaches in Hawaii- little German ones, big 747s (they are big and fly) and various other types. We do NOT have "water bugs" or Palmettos, although someone trying to make you feel better may have called them that. You may or may not see one in Hawaii, as I live here and haven't seen one in months. If you do get one in your 5 star room, it probably just followed you in. Just call the front desk and ask them to come get it. If you have more than one, your hotel is dirty and you should get another room or another hotel!

Just returned from Kauai, Maui and B.I. We stayed at upscale lodgings on all islands, including a couple 5 stars. I will tell you we saw roaches in our room at 3 of the four places we stayed. We even had saw two live roaches (large waterbugs) in our room at one location. Surprisingly complaints to management illicit little response. I don't want to name where we stayed because I'm not trashing the places, it just seems that large roaches are a fact of life. I will say that after encountering the first live roach and having to use "deep woods off" to kill it,(It did work) I carried a can of raid with me. I was really paranoid about carrying roaches in my luggage so I sprayed the exterior of my bags with raid.<BR><BR>People may call me paranoid, but I really just didn't want to find an unpleasant surprise. Plus it is awful to find roaches in your room in the middle of the night and have nothing to kill them with! You see their antenna peaking but you have no way of getting to them! YIKES. <BR><BR>Trust me the can of raid is nice.<BR>

If you rent a car - don't be suprised if you have lots of little bugs. We did. We didn't alert the rental agency until after we were home. We should of the first day. It would of made the drive in the car much better.

jc: Your warning about bugs and renting a car brought a laugh about our cockroach story when visiting Kauii a number of years ago. My husband and I were on our honeymoon and Kawaii was our 5th island to visit. Since we had been spending more than our budget, we decided to rent a car from one of those "rent a dent" places. We drove to our hotel, checked in, stayed in the room awhile (it was our honeymoon after all) and then went out to the car to explore the island. The car had been closed up, very warm, and when we started to get in, we saw hundreds (but it seemed more like zillions!) of cockroaches scurrying all over the place. We got some kind of a bug bomb and let two of them off and the next day used the car, but I never sat back into the seat and was looking around the whole time! Not very comfortable!!

We got back from Maui and Oahu a week ago and we only saw one huge roach in our condo the first night in Maui. It was so big that I saw it before I turned the light on in the bathroom. lol. If we had seen more than one, I would have complained to the management.

Oh, come on, Tracy, tell us the names of the hotels. People with this problem frequently do on the "hotel review" cite of this website!!

The bugs in Hawaii are fricking huge, and tend to have an aggressive character. They have antenna that you could use as a toothpick.<BR><BR>You can hear them at night, while you are trying to go to sleep, crunching noises in the rafters above you. You can hear them scamper under your bed. Keep an eye on your food, because if you are not careful, they might very well walk away with a cookie or your leftover fish. Human toenails are a delicacy to them, and they prefer nibbling them off of the foot rather than scavenge for clippings. They also like to hang out on sleeping people's faces, right under your nose, to bathe in the warm moist air that is exhaled. They are wonderful little friends once you get used to them, kind of like free pets.

To tell the truth I'm more worried about the brown tree snakes or whatever those things are that have entered HA from Guam. What islands are they on? It's bad enough having geckos. They always make me jump about a yard in the air. Do you suppose those noises at night which I attributed to geckos were actually cockroaches?

Where the hell are you people staying, in tents? I didn't see ONE nasty bug when I was in Hawaii, and please learn the difference: a cockroach is brown, a palmetto bug is a polite name for cockroach, and a waterbug is something else entirely.

Ah, that explains why I woke up to the terrible sensation of a beetle trying to spoon with me last time I was in Maui...

"spoon with me" ?????????

We may have run across the last living human being to use 'spoon' in a sentence. No wonder he's the gas king - that colon must be at least 104 years old.

I read in Maui Revealed that those are cockroaches in Maui. We stayed at The Kaanapali Ali on the 9th floor.

Sue, what's the password so we can all read too?

B-b-b-but please, I want to know about the brown tree snakes.

The few times I have been to Hawaii I don't remember bugs being an issue. <BR><BR>For those of people with a can of RAID by their side - remember RAID is a poison and is probably far more harmful than a little bug (and no matter how big they are they are still smaller than me!)<BR><BR>

Hmmmm, I notice nobody is talking about the tree snakes.

So...what about the tree snakes?

There are no tree snakes in Hawaii..yet. The military and airlines are doing their best to keep the snakes from hitchhiking in on planes from Guam though.

I was told when I inquired about a place at the Volcano, that cockroaches aren't a problem on Hilo near the volcano because of the Altitude! Anyone ever hear of that? They can live thru nuclear wars and in our freezers but not at high altitudes? Any bug experts out there?

I stayed at Carsons Volcano Cottage and was told by the owners about the altitude. We had a room there with windows open and no screens. We inquired about bugs. They were right. We did not see any bugs.