• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 30 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 30th anniversary: Happy 30th Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $21,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $21 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    60,000+ subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

The Modern Honolulu, follow-up

baf99

TUG Member
Joined
Apr 11, 2014
Messages
171
Reaction score
102
Points
153
Location
Indiana
Resorts Owned
Carlsbad Inn Beach Resort
Blue Whale
Kind of a long one, but here goes...

There is no place to do a review on tug2.com at this time, and since there is a large remodel in process it probably wouldn’t do to mix this review with those after the remodel when this property becomes a full timeshare, so I decided to put it here.

The Modern is actually still a hotel that was acquired by Diamond resorts in 2018. It is being converted into a timeshare with full kitchens, but at this time most of the rooms are still in the hotel configuration. The Modern is located next to the Ilikai, so it is fairly close to the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the western end of Waikiki Beach. I reserved a one-bedroom unit via Grand Pacific Exchange (GPX) for two adjacent weeks: arrival 15 Feb 2019, checkout 1 Mar 2019, a nice break from a cold northern Indiana winter. My paperwork from GPX showed it to be a one bedroom suite with a 4 person occupancy. The only fee shown on the GPX site at the time I made my reservations was a $35 per day fee for valet parking. I actually called GPX to verify this and they reassured me that there were no other fees. Of course, I knew about taxes in Hawaii so I expected those.

I arrived around 6PM on Friday 2/15. The first thing I noticed was that there is no ramp to haul up luggage. There is a small elevator to the right of the stairs that the attendants use for luggage and for those who can’t do stairs. Maybe a ramp was hidden somewhere but I didn’t see it. I just lugged my suitcase up the stairs—thunk, thunk, thunk. Check-in was easy. I was reassured that I wouldn’t have to change rooms between my two one week stays. I was also charged for taxes for the first week (about $74). The desk attendant was very helpful when I asked for a restaurant recommendation. In fact, I want to emphasize that for my entire two week stay everyone I encountered from lobby staff, to housekeeping, pool attendants, room service and restaurant staff were extremely friendly. Everyone wanted to make sure I had a good stay, meal, pool experience, whatever, without any problems. I don’t know if this is a Diamond, local resort, or Hawaii thing, but it made for a very pleasant stay.

After check-in, there was a stop at the concierge desk. I actually had to grin. There were portable folding room dividers put up between the elevators and a post. These, combined with a convenient placement of furniture, made it so you had to walk past the concierge desk to get to the elevators. Most timeshare visitors know what this means. We also know that it wasn’t an accident. Still, I stopped off to talk about possible tours. I mainly intended to be on my own, but I was interested in a whale watching boat tour. While I didn’t intend to go to a timeshare meeting, I ended up agreeing for $125 in “Mahalo Dollars” (five $25 certificates). This more than covered the whale watching ticket plus a couple of meals.

My suite was located on the fourth floor. It was a one bedroom marina ocean front suite. Here’s a link to info about this suite (second room type on the page).
https://www.themodernhonolulu.com/honolulu-hotel-suites

There were two lanais off the living room, and a large double window in the bedroom with expansive views across the ala Wai boat harbor and to the east, across the HHV lagoon to the Pacific Ocean. The side lanai overlooked the family pool and the Ilikai. Since I arrived on a Friday night, I was treated to the Hilton fireworks from my ocean front lanai shortly after I arrived. I attached a couple of photos, right out of the camera.
Fireworks from the lanai:
i-7W44b2b-XL.jpg


Sunset from the lanai:
i-MpwWmBH-L.jpg


Since my GPX documents stated that I exchanged into a suite with a four person occupancy I was interested to find out how the sectional sofa converted into a bed. It turns out that The Modern has two different occupancy levels of the one bedroom suites (at least according to a more recent check of the description on the GPX website). I was assigned to a two person suite. Since I am only one person that is actually OK, but if I had invited other family members to come with me as I had considered it could have been a problem. None of the suites currently available for exchange have a kitchen. There was a hotel sized (cube) refrigerator. Microwaves are available upon request and I was put on a waiting list. But apparently the person in the suite before me had one and housekeeping hadn’t removed it. There is a Keurig coffee maker and there were four regular and four decaf pods in the room when I arrived. Housekeeping added more during the midweek cleaning so there were plenty for a single person, at least one who doesn’t drink coffee all day. Bottled water was also in the room at check-in and was replaced by housekeeping during my stay. Internet was free and speed was reasonable. But, every day you had to sign in—this is not uncommon at hotels I have stayed at. Also, every time I closed my computer and opened it back up I had to reconnect even though I had checked the “connect automatically” box in my network manager. A small nit. At least the password was easy to remember.

I only did a few single day car rentals, so I didn’t use the valet parking. There is also a discounted rate of $25/day at the Marina Parking structure across Hobron Street from The Modern. Had I rented a car for a longer time I probably would have chosen to park there. There is a pedestrian bridge to this parking structure from the first floor (the lobby is on G for ground floor).

There are two pools at The Modern. The family pool is located off of the first floor (one level up from the lobby). Towels and sunscreen (Sun Bum SPF 30) is provided. The hotel restaurant/bar is also located on this level. There are servers who go around the pool area to take bar and food orders. Even though this is the family level alcohol is served. The pool isn’t huge but it does have a shallow entry at one end that then goes into steps. There are plenty of loungers around the pool. This level opens onto the outdoor harbor side level of the Ilikai which then turns into a ramp one can walk down to access the HHV lagoon area. The adult pool is one level up. I didn’t try too hard to find out if it could be accessed from the hotel on this level, I just walked up from the family pool. This pool is smaller, and circular shaped. It is also only about ankle deep. Occasionally I saw a couple of floating loungers. The pool is also surrounded by a ring of sand and loungers. It was pretty quiet the one time I went up there. There may be bar service but I didn’t see it or look for it. This area in my opinion may have potential but it seemed to be unrealized.

There is also a spa, workout room, and a lobby level bar that I did not investigate. There are weekly spa specials that you see on the web page that comes up when you connect to wifi. The prices didn’t seem to be outrageous for a resort, although they might be considered high in northern Indiana.

All in all, my stay at The Modern was very pleasant. This resort is not beach front or beach adjacent, but the location isn’t really bad either. And, of course, I didn’t have the option to exchange week for week (back to back also) into any other resorts in Hawaii. That’s another big thing.

I mentioned that I was told by GPX not expect any other fees except the Hawaii tax and that is exactly what I experienced. BUT, when I checked the GPX website for future availability I saw that Diamond is now charging a $30 per day resort fee. Had that been in effect for my two week stay it would have added $420 to my cost. That might have been hitting my “no way” resort fee threshold. I was using two expiring non-extendable weeks for this stay and before The Modern popped up in my GPX search I had been looking at Sedona and Santa Fe. The southwest might have won out, although those were probably also Diamond resorts with fees.

If anyone wants to see my so-so photos of the suite, they are at this location:
https://bfluegie.smugmug.com/Travel/The-Modern-Honolulu-2-2019/n-sxzszW/

Unfortunately, and through nothing to do with The Modern, I didn’t have the vacation I had hoped. Because I had two full weeks I planned a “down day” for my first day in Hawaii. Mani/pedi, pick up a few groceries for breakfast, etc. Unfortunately, the next day I woke up with a horrible back pain. I could hardly walk. After five days of heat, ice, heat alternating with ice, I took an Uber to a walk-in orthopedic clinic. They took some x-rays and gave me some meds and exercises but it was a few more days until I felt up to even getting a rental car. So, no photography tour, no snorkeling, no hiking (Diamond Head and Manoa Falls have to wait again). I walked to the beach one day but that was so painful I didn’t try it again. I got the concierge to reschedule my whale watching trip so that I could at least do something while I was there. Mostly I just went to the pool or rested on the lanai. Neither of which I could do at home in Indiana. So, didn’t get the vacation I had planned I was at least warm and I didn’t have to shovel anything. I will hope for better luck on my next trip though. And I guess I will go back to Oahu at least one more time.
 
Top