WKORV & WKORVN Continue Towards Normalcy

[Tucsonadventurer]

[QUOTE="CalGalTraveler, post: 2630988, member: 79547
We ordered Instacart to arrive by check-in but order kept getting delayed until midnight. Rescheduled to 9 am today but now pushed out 3 hours. #fail. Fortunately we have a car so if it doesnt show up we will get ourselves. We already walked to Times market to pick up milk and eggs.

We had the same experience with Instacart earlier this year. They were woefully short staffed and apparently still are several months later. I would recommend anyone trying to get groceries for arrival not depend on them. Are there other more dependable options?
[/QUOTE]
This winter we had great success with safeway delivery but this June they couldn't find drivers so we had to do pick up.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Our Instacart order has now been pushed another 8 hours. Never had this happen at home. Will cancel and go ourselves.☹

At home I've had hit and miss with Safeway delivery and pick up because their system often doesn't reflect out of stock and we had some bad experiences after waiting for sn order to complete only to discover many items were out of stock when delivered. Doesnt happen as often with Instacart.

On a positive note we ordered beach chairs, umbrella and boogie boards via Maui Baby Rentals. Showed up at bell desk the next morning and we will leave with bell desk to return. Easy peesy and less cost than buying and trying to figure how to dispose. Recommend.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Here is the latest shuttle schedule as requested

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

We are at WKORV-N at the moment and as stated it is busy. No car so dependent upon shuttle and a bit disappointed it's not back to full schedule/full occupancy. Having said that we had a shuttle to ourselves yesterday at 2pm. We are our own Instacart and have made a couple of mule trips to Times market already. Pool chairs still at 50% but I counted about 150 out on the grass lawns in front. They have however been zip tied together in groups of 4 to prevent movement. Check in was a nightmare. Took about an hour and witnessed it taking them up to 30 minutes to process each group. I'm all for the Aloha spirit but they need to 'read the room' and process people with a bit more urgency when the lines are so long.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

We were able to find open chairs on the lawn at WKORVN at 11:30 am. Pool was full but we prefer the lawn anyway. The employees at the pool house confirmed that they "added more chairs than before and are planning on more."

Apparently South property and Nanea cannot add chairs to their lawns easily because they are hosting craft fairs. I am happy to see our North HOA fees being spent this way. Removes a stressor because remove need to fight chair hogs.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

No line at check in for us but we arrived late after 7:30 pm.

 

[TARIE7291]

We left Nanea on Friday chairs by main pool for the week were always taken early in morning, but chairs were always available by the mini pools in the back. We saw lots of chair availability on the lawns for the week at North and South. Maui was not as packed as they make it seem on the news. We have been here when it’s been worse. We were able to get seated at restaurants right away for late lunches with no reservations on Front Street. Dinner you did need reservations in advance but notice some would open at last minute. We also feel restaurants were more than 50% capacity couldn’t believe how many were in restaurants. Check-in at Westin are always slow they should do more express check-ins. We own with DVC as well and they run so much more efficiently. This time we stayed on an Encore package, they realized in the meeting after 15 minutes that they were going nowhere with us since we bought a WKOV OV 1 bedroom for a steal right before COVID. Plenty of rental cars in the OGG garage, we booked back in January so we had a great rate for our rental. Last time we were here in May 2019, they ran out of many cars and gave a new Expedition. We had a great time in Maui and will be back again in February. You can tell there is a worker shortage here as well don’t expect service as what it was in the past, just be patient wherever you go, you are on vacation.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

At WKORV-N and unlike the Geiko commercial, we have ants and not Aunts in the studio side of our 2BR (so it looks like they survived Covid). We just called Service Express and they said call us back when you leave the room and we'll come and deal with them. They did and now they are gone. We are on the 4th floor so they must be a mountain climbing species. Apparently some people are not as relaxed about it as us because there was a lady having a meltdown at reception about them last night. She refused to have people enter her room to deal with them and wanted a new room. They told her it's fully booked so couldn't do that and the only way to deal with it was to come in her room. She refused and.......ad infinitum.

Rental cars are very scarce. We decided not to get one but want to make a trip up Haleakala so used Turo (Air BNB for cars) to get one. Will see how that works out but expensive at $150-$200 for the day (about the same as rental companies who have spotty availability are charging).

We are facing the Pirate Ship so I can't gauge chair hogging at the main pool from our lanai. Today at 7:00am one family seems to have snagged about 8 chairs plus a BBQ table but at least they are actually there using them. 4 other chairs have towels but no people. All other chairs are devoid of people or towels.

 

[The Colorado Kid]

We left Nanea on Friday chairs by main pool for the week were always taken early in morning, but chairs were always available by the mini pools in the back. We saw lots of chair availability on the lawns for the week at North and South. Maui was not as packed as they make it seem on the news. We have been here when it’s been worse. We were able to get seated at restaurants right away for late lunches with no reservations on Front Street. Dinner you did need reservations in advance but notice some would open at last minute. We also feel restaurants were more than 50% capacity couldn’t believe how many were in restaurants. Check-in at Westin are always slow they should do more express check-ins. We own with DVC as well and they run so much more efficiently. This time we stayed on an Encore package, they realized in the meeting after 15 minutes that they were going nowhere with us since we bought a WKOV OV 1 bedroom for a steal right before COVID. Plenty of rental cars in the OGG garage, we booked back in January so we had a great rate for our rental. Last time we were here in May 2019, they ran out of many cars and gave a new Expedition. We had a great time in Maui and will be back again in February. You can tell there is a worker shortage here as well don’t expect service as what it was in the past, just be patient wherever you go, you are on vacation.

Our first Maui trip will be next June - when you say chairs on the lawns...is that an area between the pool and beach? Any shade available on the lawns?

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

Our first Maui trip will be next June - when you say chairs on the lawns...is that an area between the pool and beach? Any shade available on the lawns?

It's between the pool and the boardwalk and then there's a natural area before the beach. Shade is 'spotty' as it's primarily just what is given by tall palm trees so essentially no, there is no shade except that given by the buildings up until around 10am.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

There is shade until 1:30 on the lawn if you are close to the building and under a tree. Most are in the sun but we brought an umbrella. Lawn chairs wide open as of 8:30 but pool chairs are far fewer than normal and all taken by 7:30. It doesnt show well in the photo below but the shade under building 5 has two long rows of unclaimed lounge chairs. Chairs also stretch under building 8 lawn.

We prefer the lawn because you can see the ocean and get the cooling breeze. Of course, if we had little kids to supervise at the pool our preference would be different. Hence IMO that's why the pool chairs are gone. There are a lot of kids this week.

We lucked out on our rental car which we booked on a corporate rate months ago at $450 for the week for a std SUV. The rep at the National aisle saw our large group and upgraded us for free to a full size Chevy Tahoe. I guess it is good karma to make up for our Instacart fail.

One thing we enjoy about WKORVN is that we have met owners who return here every year. My DH had an enjoyable talk at the BBQs learning the ins and outs of operationing the bbq over beers and we were invited to their fireworks show on the beach.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

Down in Lahaina last night I saw that Bubba Gump's is now closed, it was open in March. Not that we rated it much but just one more eating place that's closed down that end of the town. We went to the Feast at Lele luau at the north end of town, great setting on the beach, plenty of food and drink and entertainment. Couldn't use the shuttle as currently the last run leaves Lahaina at 8:50 so used Uber which cost about $20 back to the villas for 4 of us.

 

[Tucsonadventurer]

We are at WKORV-N at the moment and as stated it is busy. No car so dependent upon shuttle and a bit disappointed it's not back to full schedule/full occupancy. Having said that we had a shuttle to ourselves yesterday at 2pm. We are our own Instacart and have made a couple of mule trips to Times market already. Pool chairs still at 50% but I counted about 150 out on the grass lawns in front. They have however been zip tied together in groups of 4 to prevent movement. Check in was a nightmare. Took about an hour and witnessed it taking them up to 30 minutes to process each group. I'm all for the Aloha spirit but they need to 'read the room' and process people with a bit more urgency when the lines are so long.

Saturday check ins are crazy. We waited for quite a long time and later in our month trip came back for a 3 day check in ( we had a Hyatt stay in the middle) and there were no lines mid week.

 

[grrrah]

Just got back from a week in WKORVN and a week at Nanea.

Very different vibes between the two.
At North, almost all visitors are not wearing masks after checkin. In the halls (indoor?) people are about 20% mask wearing, and the pools and outdoor are almost no one except for the folks you could tell just checked in.

At Nanea, I would estimate about 70% of the people were wearing masks indoors, and about 20% outdoors.

Both locations employees were all wearing masks inside and out.

both places I checked in early when there were no lines and then waited for the room. Did the owners update at Nanea between checkin and getting the room assigned. I think they knew right away I wasn't interested and knew their game. They didn't even go into any details and I was out in 55 min.

 

[tahoe]

Saturday check ins are crazy.

@WKORV South, 7/3: We waited around 30 minutes Saturday around 6pm to check in. Only 2 of the 4 check-in stations were staffed consistently. At the desk, we were informed studio portion of room wasn’t ready. Not a big deal - just wanted a room with AC to sit down - we had been up since 5am PST traveling. All of the above, I’m willing to lump into COVID staffing challenges, etc., but I *really* wished they had a on-site restaurant open past 5pm. I was too tired to walk anywhere and the prices at the mini mart was insane ($23 for 8 frozen burritos, $5 for a single cup o noodles.)

Anyways, it was interesting to see people reserving chairs at 6 in the morning, but I do believe the early behavior tapered off later in the week as people recovered from jet lag.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

Shuttle is a bit chaotic really without Route 1 (Hotels) running. The schedule only shows the 'out' route from Nanea to Lahaina so people at the Westin/Whalers village are left guessing how to get back to the villas. They are cobbling together 'unpublished' runs but it'll be much better if/when they restore the two routes.

I must admit I also preferred it when they did a pick up at Foodland on the way back from Lahaina because now when you shop at Safeway/Cannery Mall the only way to get back to the villas is to catch the next 'out' route bus and ride down to Lahaina and back.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

Back to Seattle yesterday. Probably just a 'blip' but the line for baggage drop with Hawaiian Airlines stretched outside the terminal, down to the very end of the terminal (almost to the car rental center) and then looped all the way back to the terminal. Bag drop took 75 minutes, thankfully TSA was only ~15 minutes so we got to our gate on time after arriving about 2 1/2 hours before departure.

According to this USA Today report, Maui is back to pre-pandemic visitor levels and it mentions many of the struggles people are seeing, both tourists and locals.

'We get cussed at every day': Maui tourist surge raises tensions, renews calls for visitor limits, new fees

The number of tourists in Maui is approaching pre-pandemic levels this summer, creating challenges for residents and visitors.

www.yahoo.com

 

[CalGalTraveler]

We had the opposite yesterday. No line at SWA bag drop but almost an hour for TSA. Almost missed our flight despite arriving early. We had a TSA pre who got through in 10 min. However we had family members who didnt so only as fast as the slowest rower...

I have never seen a TSA line as long as that one. Stretched from ticket counters to baggage claim and then snaked Disney-like several times within that length. TSA was trying to keep up but a lot of clueless travelers in line. The ppl in front of us were resigned to missing their United SFO flight. There were many last calls over the PA...I bet
quite a few missed their flights.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

One advantage of checking baggage, they won't let the flight leave without you or they have to get your baggage off. If you've seen how much baggage goes on those flights I can imagine that's no small task. It saved us once in Seattle where we were stuck in the TSA lines for almost 2h.

 

[controller1]

One advantage of checking baggage, they won't let the flight leave without you or they have to get your baggage off. If you've seen how much baggage goes on those flights I can imagine that's no small task. It saved us once in Seattle where we were stuck in the TSA lines for almost 2h.

That's not true for domestic flights. There is no prohibition on bags flying without the corresponding passenger on domestic flights. International flights have that prohibition.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

That's not true for domestic flights. There is no prohibition on bags flying without the corresponding passenger on domestic flights. International flights have that prohibition.

You are correct. However, for domestic flights it's up to airline policy and I believe Hawaiian (and many others) follow the 'no passenger = no bag' policy on all flights where possible.