A twenty minute Uber ride from the airport was spent with a salty driver explaining the difference between types of lava, which fish to eat (the ones with lips vs sharp stuff on their nose), and black goats that blend into the asphalt road at night. We saw the black goats blending into the black lava.
Inside, prior to the front desk, we were greeted by a nice lady with a clipboard. After finding our name on her clipboard highlighted in red, I was curtly told where to go… to check in. The front desk told us about the owners lounge, I booked a “2 Bed Penthouse Premier, Ocean View”, and received a second floor shrub front with a view of the ocean to the side, also known as room 2066. It is a very nice room, recently remodeled. I say recently remodeled because we passed non-remodeled units on the way to this one. I would advocate for avoiding an unremodeled unit if possible. I think these are being used for folks who book a cheap HGVC sales presentation vacation.
An Italian place aptly named “Nui Italian” with 4.3 stars (and 1350 reviews) on Open Table. The TLDR here is that 1300 of these reviews have been done by Hilton staff as the only thing going for this place is the location.
What I found was a piece of rubber which had been rolled in cornmeal and sautéed in grease. Throughly underwhelmed, but hungry, I ate it.
Day Two:
We arose from a delightful slumber to rainbows and… no, those are my kids yelling at eachother about something.
We made it down to the boat dock in time to see a lady pulling a boat around. We climbed on board and asked if she would be doing the boat ride all day. She said, they do it once per day, but might do a couple of runs because the tram is broken. I was excited to ride on the boat. I mean, fun… to ride a boat to a different part of the property. My kiddos were excited as well, hanging precariously over the side looking for fish. I’m sure this sounds dangerous, and possibly neglectful parenting… but the boat was barely moving, turning gasoline in to sound more than forward movement. I have read some complaints about how slow the tram is here on TUG. Let me be the first to tell you the tram is downright fast compared to the boat. If there were a race between the boat and my six year old daughter chasing a butterfly in circles, the butterfly would win. Like no contest. Money on the butterfly to win, every … single … time. We did see some neat fish though.
We did get a Turo rental car. The hotel is currently charging $48/ night to park in some distant lot or $55/ night for valet. Parking is not included with HGVC at Ocean Tower.
There is a shuttle to the King and Queen shops. It is $5 per person.
A bit about the unit:
Ocean Tower, 2 Bed Penthouse Premier - Ocean View, Unit 2066. It’s on the ground floor… kind of. The building is built on a slope, so where you get off the tram is basically the second floor of the tower ring closest to the ocean. The room has for the most part been nicely renovated. There are a few things that are a hard miss. The thermostat turns off if it does not sense anyone in the unit, which makes for a warm unit on return after a day out. It also never cools below 72, even if set to a cooler point. The dishwasher is garbage, semi broken (Ie, the racks inside are missing the rollers and it does not actually remove all food debris), yet still functioning. The coffee maker failed in a way where it dumped coffee from the reservoir while we were out. We called maintenance at 7pm when we got back to the unit and found the mess. The woman who showed up said these coffee makers are constantly failing, and brought us a dusty/dirty drip machine as a replacement. She said someone would be by in the morning with a true replacement. That never happened. This is my first HGVC experience, so my reference point is years of Hyatt Residence Club stays. The cooking pots/pans and utensils in the unit were limited, and missing basic items like salt and pepper. It did have a rice cooker. There is a six place setting of dishes, bowels, cups, eating utensils, etc. Where a Hyatt would have had a more extensive set of cooking and dining items. Also, when we have had maintenance issues in a Hyatt, they were addressed immediately, and replaced with a like item not a stop gap (ex, the coffee maker). My wife did not like the counter top, saying “even when it’s clean, it looks dirty”. The bathrooms were on par with Hyatt’s. That may be because these are more recently renovated. The master bath potty has a toilet seat bidet thing that feels like it is catering to the Asian market. The shower is great, as is the over sized tub. Unfortunately, the tub was under utilized by us, relegated to holding wet items from a day at the pool or lagoon. The space under the bed was designed to hold luggage. A fantastic idea for a timeshare in a location where people are dragging all kinds of luggage. This is where the unit feels smaller than a Hyatt, so having a more thoughtful use of space is a good thing. For example, a Hyatt would have more of a dining area, where Hilton dropped a table between the kitchen and living room. If someone is sitting at the table on the kitchen side, then you are not using the kitchen as there is not room to use both spaces at the same time. Space in the second bedroom is limited with two beds shoehorned in there. Speaking of the second bedroom, it’s missing a window. Something odd to me, but with the incessant chirping of the birds outside, maybe a bit of unintentional good luck. I’m not sure if this is a HGVC thing, or simply an architect working with the preexisting space for the remodel. There are automatic blinds on the windows, both black out and sheer, which was a nice touch. The patio… I mean lanai (we are in Hawaii after all) was a fraction of the size of the lanai at the Hyatt Maui property. The view is great. I joked about a view of shrubs above, but it really is a pretty location.
The three (four?) items I am not thrilled about:
First, the distance of Ocean Tower from everything, but primarily the valet/parking. This creates a situation where you need to account for thirty minutes to get from the unit to the car, then thirty minutes from the car back to the unit… and God forbid you get to the car when departing for a day packed with activities and find out one of your kids forgot a stuffed animal in the room they cannot live without… add an hour. This ties in to my frustration with the tram. Yes, it is slow, however, there is zero schedule, so you can’t plan for it. You can’t even count on both (or any) trams running on any given day.
Second, if you don’t have a car, nor food to cook in the room, then you are beholden to the horrid on property restaurants. Get an Uber, or walk / $5 shuttle to the king/queen shops. I’d strongly advise not eating on property, which is a huge shame. Hilton has an opportunity to do good things here, and are totally messing it up because they simply don’t care.
Last, the parking cost. While I’m fine with the hotel charging for valet, self parking should be free… particularly for the owners. It’s not free because it’s an easy buck (or $48/$55) for Hilton to extract (extort?) from their customers. So, they do it because they can.
To sum this up… Will we return to the HGVC on the Big Island? Absolutely! Return to Ocean Tower? No, next up on the Big Island will be Kings’ Land!
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