Sheraton Kauai??
 

We have booked 5 days at the Sheraton Kauai in late December for part of our honeymoon. We booked for garden rooms and will hopefully be upgraded to lagoon view. I was wondering if you think it is important to upgrade further to get across the street. I have read some bad reviews about the rooms on the far side from the ocean (i.e. they were dingy and the "garden" wasn't kept at all). All we are looking for is a decent room that is clean and comfortable and landscaping that we can appreciate. We hope to be on the beach the majority of the time. Your input is appreciated.

Dear Brandysw:
We stayed there in May 2000, in a lagoon view room on the beach side of the street. I have never seen the rooms on the other side of the street, but have read complaining reviews about how 70's-ish the rooms were. Since it's your honeymoon, I would go ahead and make sure you are upgraded across the street. You may want to join the Starwood Preferred Guest program (no cost and probably can be done through the Starwood Resorts website) and you should be able to get a good rate by reserving yourselves a lagoon view room at the other side of the street. Then talk to them, mention it's your honeymoon, and who knows, maybe they'll upgrade you even further to an ocean view or something like that. The room was great for us, balcony looked out onto the garden, and in Kauai, we were rarely in our room anyway. But then again, we had already been married for 4 years ;)

Sheraton Kaua`i just got sold last month, so you can expect some renovations to start soon (yay!).

We stayed there on our HM in May 2001 In the garden rooms. We hoped to be upgraded to Lagoon but were only upgraded to Partial ocean on the garden view side The room was not horrible but not worth the $- more Holiday Inn quality and the bathroom was really bad - one sink, flourescent lighting- cramped- not what I expected. We peeked in to the rooms on the other side of the street - Lagoon and Ocean and they were Great! Totally different- very nice decor, etc. THe garden rooms had totally different color schemes and outdated furniture. If you have an Excellent rate I would say go for it but for over $200 it's not that nice but is clean and comfortable on the garden side.

Make sure that the beach is swimmable--I do not think it is but I could be wrong.

Just at that beach in January--very swimmable. Fantastic beach!!

Brandy,
We stayed at the Sheraton summer 2000 and had a great time. We had an ocean view room and this was truly one case where you are right on the ocean. Our hotel lanai hung just steps from the ocean surf, which is lava at that point. The beach is just out the other side of the hotel through the lobby. The hotel put on entertainment each happy hour with free (albeit weak) mai tais. The entertainment at that time was very good. I will say that the restaurant was nothing special and the pool is very small but the beach was quite nice. If you want to see and hear the ocean, you might try for an upgrade. The section across the road is certainly not far but somewhat disconnected from the ocean side. Hope you have a great honeymoon.

The ocean side of the hotel was renovated within the past few years. The rooms are quite nice with beautiful ocean views. The rooms across the street (garden side) have not been renovated. For your honeymoon, stay on the ocean side and enjoy the view and the sound of the waves. You might be lucky enough to see whales in December...