Absolutely disappointing - no aloha spirit

Posted by sdislandgirl  from San Diego, CA  on June 24, 2009

We are frequent travellers to hawaii and this is our first ever hawaiian vacation with no aloha spirit.
service is very poor from the time of check-in. you are literally left on your own to figure things out.

unlike all the other hotels we have stayed in like the hyatt, marriott, and westin, this place has no ambience. there is not a single flower center piece in the front lobby, no music, and the ponds are all empty with no koi fishes.

we had a room change due to a faulty air con vent and in the process of transferring room, the bell hop lost one of our items and they did not even try to locate the missing item. there is zero customer service or concern. the only two shinning stars are ms leung, front desk manager and krista from conceirge who are helpful.

the sheraton is very well located and the beach is beautiful but with the kind of poor service rendered, you are better off staying elsewhere.

the rooms are old and not well decorated. the pool looks nice on the surface but you will find algae growing on the sides of the black rocks and the water has a musky smell.

will not return even if it was for free. i agree with the other reviewer in that this hotel should not be rated as a 4 star but more so i will give it a 1.5 star due to the lack of service and ambience.

Not a 4 star resort

Posted by giantchicken  from nashville, TN  on June 28, 2008

The sheraton maui should be 3 star...calling it 4 star is a joke. from the moment we arrived, it was clear that management does not have control of this property. the front desk staff not only didn't have the reservations correct, they twice tried to get 6 of us onto one room, they were clearly not interested in saying "hello" or helping us with our bags. we had to carry all our own bags from a downstairs lobby up to the main lobby which was a very long way. as we approached the front desk, one young lady saw us coming from about 20 yards and then buried her face in her computer screen and did not acknowledge us for the longest time until i spoke up and asked her if she could help us...which she couldn't and had to get a manager after about 20 minutes of not doing her job.

anyway, the $500/night room was a small upgrade from a hampton inn, although the view of the ocean and the island (lenai) was pretty but the tiny balcony you are given to sit on is a joke...about three feet deep!

the restaurants, there are only two indoors and two bar/lunch outdoors, are too small to accomodate the number of guests at the hotel. your wait for breakfast/lunch/dinner at the main restaurant will be 20-40 minutes at any time it normal to eat. there is a japanese restaurant there also but there are only three tables...very tiny and reservations are hard to come by unless you do it three days out.

the food was ok on the resort but very expensive for what you get. breakfast buffet was $25 per person but the buffet did not come close to being as nice as any city hotel sunday brunch for the same or less money in any other us city. the dinner at black rock, the main resteraunt was just barely average in quality but certainly overpriced for what you end up getting. my daughter ordered macaroni and cheese and it was completely covered in some kind of bread crumbs which i couldn't even stand...you would think mac & cheese for kids would be something they wouldn't screw up! we did go off the resort for a few dinners in lenai and found some great places.

the bright point for the resport is the waiters and waitresses at all the restaurants and the people that run the water and beach desk. all of these people were outgoing, pleasant and wanted to make sure you were having a good time...the front desk staff needs to take a lesson from these people!.

anita, the concierge, was delightful and very helpful!

now the real deal. upon checkout there were surprises that we read about on other travel sites. we checkout out of one room a day early, we had four rooms and two of us left early so we consolidated to save $500. we had everything out of the room by 11am and upon checkout the front desk wanted to force us to pay for the room and said we didn't our bags out until 3pm. i know better and the even had the gaul to call my wife a liar when she said everything was out by 11am. unbelievable!! then they tried to charge us an additiona $50 per room per day when our original reservation showed $500 per night. we had to get a fax sent from home to verify that and still they argued with us...again unbelieveable!

bottom line...i would never ever return to the sheraton maui, probably wouldn't jump at a trip to hawaii again. too expensive for the location. i could have spent 50% less, taken half the time to get there and had a much more relaxing vacation by going to mexico or even somewhere in florida.