Moana Surfrider or Mandarin Oriental
 

We have one night to stay when we arrive in Honolulu before going to Maui...which hotel would be best for the first night of our honeymoon: Moana Surfrider or the Mandarin Oriental?? Any thoughts or opinions to help us?

You're kidding, right?<BR><BR>One of the top hotels in the world (Mandarin) versus a decent but hardly stellar Sheraton?<BR><BR>You're comparing a BMW to a Ford here.<BR>Honeymoon or not, the Mandarin is the place to stay. Upscale but not stuffy, in the Honolulu area but away from Waikiki. A great choice.

Moana will give you a spectacular panorama of hundreds of local folks skillfully surfing, boogie boarding, canoe surfing, etc if you want a taste of that before moving on to relatively staid tourist-only kind of resorts.

That's an odd comment from jt.<BR>Recommend staying at a very touristy hotel in the middle of the most touristy part of Hawaii because you can see 'genuine locals' surfing there?<BR>What? So the view of the non-touristy surfers completely overcomes the touristy impact of the hotel, beach, city and everything else around?<BR>Not very logical.

If you have only one night, thse hotels offer totally different experiences:<BR>kahala Mandarin is quiet and has small but beautiful grounds, a dolphin lagoon, excellent restaraunt, and nothing nearby. fo one night, you'll come here, have dinner, and sleep in a nice quiet room.<BR>the Moana is an historic and completely restored hotel on the beach right in the middle of Waikiki. You will probably havbe fun wanderein g aruound Waikiki that evening, and can eat in their lovely restaraunts or at any number of other places within a stones throw.

Not that the 2 insulting posts from Chris need to be answered, but maybe some clarification...<BR><BR>Mandarin would be fine for a long stay, but for one night on way to Maui, it may be too redundant with the typical quiet, remote, whitebread Maui resort experience. Especially when you're jetlagged and may want stimulation to keep the eyellids up, the view of water activities from Moana or nearby balcony rooms can be spellbinding and unique even for Hawaii, esp in summer surf conditions.