Stay Away from Aqua Palms

You know, I did a lot of research prior to booking our vacation on Oahu. Through other forums as well as this one, I chose the Aqua Palms as a reasonable place to stay. BIG MISTAKE!

I now know that the few people who have posted here about the great reviews being posted by people who work for Aqua or others, are correct. Having stayed there, I feel qualified to judge that now. Whatever is pushing this hotel to getting high marks (I cannot speak for any other Aqua properties because I haven%26#39;t stayed in any others - rest assured, I never will now!).

The room was TERRIBLE. We paid for (as part of our package, a Deluxe Room with a view of Diamond Head)..what a joke...yes, you could see Diamond Head - if you twist your head to look through the high rises. Deluxe? - the room had a ceiling where the sheetrock was poorly skimmed - there were air bubbles everywhere and trowel marks. I work in construction so I know a bad drywall job when I see one. Whoever was paid for that should be fired. There were holes in the ceiling where either a hanging fixture had been secured OR a TV bracket had been - we could not tell which it was. There were drywall patches that were unfinished all over sections of two of the walls. The ';spacious'; balcony that we were promised was barely wide enough to be called a balcony. The drapes had something gross streaked down one side that I was afraid to touch. The furniture looked like something from the early 70%26#39;s (Hey, we were told that this hotel had been recently totally refurbished...:-( The cabinet where you would hang your clothes had large messy gobs of glue where possibly a mirror had hung at one point. The ironing board had dark stains on it (I don%26#39;t even want to know what they were). The bathroom was finished with grout that did not match, the back wall were crooked - very crooked - so much so that at one side, the tile grout was at least 1.5'; thick to make up for the poor wall alignment - wake up, Aqua - why didn%26#39;t you fix the WALL that was causing the problem. The tub drain cover was not secured and popped off every time we took a shower. The door frame at the entry door looked like someone had chewed on it and instead of replacing the frame or patching it where possible, they just painted over it. There were two pictures under the bed - I guess they forgot to rehang those after their ';renovations';. The bed was lumpy at the bottom third.The only positive about that place - the flat screen TV and every time I asked for fresh towels they were promptly delivered. The pool is a joke - I have never seen one that small at a hotel. The continental breakfast was to be expected - I have never seen a continental breakfast that was anything more than pastries that are bad for you and a few bananas with coffee.

I took a lot of pictures of the room. I am going to post them online as well as send them to both Aqua corporate and the company that sold me the vacation package (Continental). They should have given that place a much lesser rating than it has.

I asked for a change of room but the only one that they had available was worse than what we had. I asked for a refund on the ';deluxe'; part of the cost and was told that they could not help me at all in that regard and that I had to go back to the vacation provider (that they kept calling Elite Vacations, even though I corrected them a few times because it was Continental Vacations) - if I had a complaint. I asked for a print-out at the end of the stay so that I could ensure they were not trying to charge anything against our card (which had to be presented at check-in for misc. charges) - they refused to give me a print out showing a zero balance and told me I had to get that from the package provider?? I asked to speak with the manager on duty and he told me that he was it (Sergio, if yoou read this - you need an attitude adjustment!)

On the final day, we were waiting for the taxi pick-up (Star Taxi, who will do hotel to airport for $28 if you call in advance to book it). I need to mention here that when we arrived at the airport, they had sent an alternate company to pick us up (someone they worked with) which was fine. The guy had our name, knew how many there were and all was cool. So on the last day, when the bellhop asked me who was picking us up %26amp; at what time and I told him, I didn%26#39;t think anything of it. He took longer than it should have to get our bags from the storage room where they had been since check-out. When a taxi pulled up at 2:45pm, he said ';your taxi is here...time to go. '; I hesitated and he asked me what was wrong. I told him that it was not Star Taxi. He said , never mind that..they share with this company (';The Cab';) - WELL...he is a liar. We found out after we got into the cab and were on our way that he had called this guy 20 min. before. The driver told me directly ';the guy at your hotel. He is nice guy. He calls me every day because he knows I have nice clean cab';...I was soooo infuriated. Now,yes, I know that people all work together and there are kick-backs all the time BUT..I had been specific in saying who our taxi was and now that poor company had sent a cab to the hotel for 3pm, through nasty Waikiki traffic and wasting his gas, only to find that we were already gone. I was wondering why the guy was rushing us into the cab so quickly. I should have been more ademant about checking first with the driver but at first I thought that because it was a different company that picked us from the airport that this was the same deal. What a snake that employee is..Because we spent little time in Waikiki itself and were only there to sleep, I tried to keep it in perspective and not let it ruin my trip.

Anyway, I will post a full trip report but maybe this review will save someone else from Aqua. DO NOT STAY THERE - save your money and go across the street to the Hilton Hawaiian (btw, the HHV was great, we used them a lot for Oahu advice and they were helpful to us, even knowing that we were not staying at their hotel).

Stay Away from Aqua Palms

Sorry - I forgot to mention the other two big problems - NO water pressure. The hot water turned on full force was scarcely noticeable at times -didn%26#39;t matter if it was late at night or early morning. Nothing like having to take 5 min. to rinse the shampoo from your hair in the shower. :-(

And finally - the floor was very unlevel. There were two distinct humps in the floor running the width of the room.

We were not only unhappy guests - we spoke to 3 other couples during the week who were in the same situation.

Never again..

Stay Away from Aqua Palms

Sorry you had such a rotten hotel experience! I am just curious, did you try and reach the vacation group while you were there? (Continental who booked you into the hotel) No answer or no concerns? I do hope you enjoyed Hawaii otherwise!

checking I see 4 Aqua hotels in the top ten, ahead of the Royal Hawaiian, New Otani, Outrigger Reef, Kahala, Hyatt, and Hilton Hawaiian Village.

You have been warned!!!!

Thank you for your detailed post. I prefer to get my information here on the forum section of TA, instead of the hotel reviews... because as we%26#39;re seeing here, they can be manipulated (if Aqua is ahead of the truly good hotels in the ratings system!).

I have always considered Aqau as being budget hotels even if they call themselves ';spa';, etc.

Then, I started looking at the property pictures shown on Aqua%26#39;s site, and others depicting the ';corporate'; look. I really liked what I saw and started looking into it further for my possible stay at one of their higher end propeties.

Thank goodness for the traveller photos on TA. Right away you can spot how much more budget the rooms look than the pictures they advertised as. All properties do that - show the best picture - so not an Aqau thing, but I sure do love TA%26#39;s traveller photos - saved me from many a wrong decision.

I can%26#39;t wait to see your pics.

Thank you so much for taking the time to post. I wish everyone would share their experiences - good or bad.

Hi,there!

In response to the question about whether or not I tried to contact Continental Vacations while I was there - Yes, we did. I was told that someone would call me back. It was not resolved during the week. I am still pursuing the issue through Continental, though. I want everyone to keep in mind that I did not let the hotel stay ruin my vacation. I loved every day of it - like I said in my original post, we were never in the hotel except to sleep and hardly spent much time in Waikiki itself at all (mostly evenings and in those cases, we went to the Ala Moana Mall (a nice mall, I thought), spent time on the Beach Walk area, spent time joining in the activities at the Hilton Hawaiian Village (a GREAT place, btw!), and went to the Outrigger Bar once, listening to the music and just kicking back.

I can honestly tell you that I am not a budget-hotel type of person on vacation - we always stay at nice hotels. Budget hotel status, though, does not excuse what that hotel tried to pass off as Deluxe, though. For this trip, we were a little more restricted on costs due to carrying the whole cost for one other with us (family member) so I had wanted to be a little more conscious of it than I might have needed to be. In retrospect - I would have paid another $1000 per week without a thought about it if someone had warned me. I am hoping someone else will be saved the discomfort of a bad hotel and I can tell you that those who posted surmising that somehow Aqua is contributing to their own higher-than-average ratings are absolutely correct. (You guys are smart!!!)

I am certain there are people who had a ';nice'; stay there and they will respond disputing my report. They have every right to do that. My response would be - their stay was not the norm.

RUN from the Aqua...(I feel better already- now that I have posted!!)

Take care and feel free to ask me any questions. I will be happy to answer.

:-)

ChloeGirlFlorida - glad you were not soured by the experience. The hotel is like #9 of 89 rating wise here on TA but as was pointed out, that can be easily skewed, posts such as your are what people need to read, honest and objective and thanks....

Thanks for you post.

Almost booked there but after reading other reviews on other sites we decided to pay the extra and book at the Hyatt instead. It is totally worth peace of mind and comfort. I also didn%26#39;t understand their rating so high over the other hotels mentioned.

Glad you still had a great trip.

It does look like someone has been very busy writing reviews as I don%26#39;t think many of those in the top fifteen were in the top fifty a year ago.