All I want is a room somewhere...

I think part of the reason I absolutely LOVED our vacation to Hawaii was that we got to stay in the fanciest resorts I've ever set foot in...
for FREE.

FREE.

FREE.

FREE.


This was all a combination of kissing my husband goodbye early Monday morning and welcoming him home again on Friday night for approximately 6 months, and my husband learning how to play the hotel points game.

For instance, the Grand Wailea on Maui would cost about 100,000 points a night to stay there. Whoa.

So, my industrious husband used all the free nights he earned during one particular 3-month promotion, so we didn't have to use points; we used five free nights.

The Waikoloa Village on the Big Island was our "points" stay.

Free stay aside, I still think these are fabulous resorts and I highly recommend them to everyone.

At least, I recommend them to everyone who's rich...or spends half to 2/3 of their life living in a Hilton hotel.

In my humble opinion, taking into consideration I've never stayed anywhere close to this nice, the Grand Wailea (which is a Waldorf Astoria property) is a little snooty. I never felt dressed appropriately and I wonder how many of their other guests were stockpiling the fancy toiletry accoutrements like nobody's business.

However, the bathroom was awesome.

I could be tainted by the fact that our master bathroom at home is actually 15 square feet (if that), obviously housing only a shower stall...no tub. I suppose having a bathroom that only one of us can enter into at a time demonstrates our love of experiences (i.e. travel) over the creature comforts.

Anywho, the Grand Wailea also has an excellent water speed slide and a great restaurant, Humuhumunukunukuapua'a (that's Hawaii's state fish), with excellent views:

The Waikoloa Village is like Disney World: more families, a tram and a boat system to shuttle you around, a fun lagoon, and a dolphin experience. It also boasts some mighty fine views.

The only down sides were the standard hotel bathroom (which was just fine until we moved on to Maui and learned what fantastical bathrooms exist), and the amount of time it took to travel/ride/float/hike to our car in the parking lot. We figured out we needed to leave 15 minutes early just to get to the car every day.

We did stay for a couple nights in between at a bed and breakfast in Hilo on the Big Island. The owner joked that we would have to get accustomed to regular old lodgings after being at Waikoloa Village.

He was kind of right. But Hale Kai Hawaii was more the type of place we would stay if we had to pay for it ourselves, and it was actually really great. Great view, yummy breakfasts every morning on the deck overlooking the ocean, fun guests, and extremely kind owners. What more could you ask for?

(OK. I did whine a little that there was no air conditioning, but I like to sleep in arctic temperatures and it was pretty warm this time of year in Hawaii...at least pretty warm for not having air conditioning.)

Hawaii is spectacular, and if I could do it all over again I'd stay at the same accommodations. Two thumbs up!