The room was alright; covered the basics. The hotel staff were exceptional, very friendly and helpful. The free breakfast was also quite good. As Hilo is quite damp in general, there were small insects everywhere; suffered quite a number of bites. However, I would not attribute that to the hotel.

We stayed in Hilo for one night before going for the helicopter tour the next morning. I chose this hotel for the price and I was not disappointed. The hotel is actually quite good. The room was clean and the bathroom as well. There is a breakfast that is included in the price of the room which is always a plus. It was very good even though I prefer buffet breakfast, so that I can have more to eat.
The pods with koi fish was also very nice. There is a duck that wants to make sure you notice him, so you are likely to be waken up by his "coin coin". But it was ok.

All in all, it is a good hotel if you don't expect a Hilton.

My wife and I stayed three nights here. Hotel staff are very friendly and helpful. The hotel is in a pretty good location by the beautiful Banyan drive, and close to Liliuokalani Park and Gardens. You can also see part of Hilo bay from the front entrance. The room is not as spacious as Kona Seaside where we stayed for three nights too. Room is clean but a bit noisy, you can hear what is happening in your neighbour's rooms. When people pass by our room, even they do not talk loudly, we can hear their conversations and footsteps. Room is quite dated and overall the hotel is quite old but with some renovations done, but the basic things you need are there. Hotel parking is $5/night, but we found street parking every night we stayed there.

Our family stayed for two nights at this great little hotel/motel. This is not a 5 star hotel but we loved it! Reminded me of days past, "old Hawaii", when all the aunties and uncles welcomed you into their home. We chose a "Deluxe Room w/ bay view" well worth the few extra dollars as it gave us a private lanai(porch) on the 3rd floor. Reminder that this property does NOT have an elevator, the stairs are fairly easy to travel up/down even if it was on the 3rd level it really felt more like going up one flight of stairs since the grade was not extremely steep. We noticed that the other rooms, I suppose the standard ones, did NOT have lanais and some had windows that faced the main walkways which cut down on privacy- though some of those rooms did look a bit larger than ours.
The view, as noted by a few other guests, is of a lagoon area not of the entire Hilo bay--this is nice but not as nice as having the view of the bay & Coconut island. Also being on the Hilo Seaside side the coquis frog songs don't seem as loud as they do at the other Banyan Drive hotels. The property does a great job at maintaining their gardens- no coquis inside so we could actually sleep with our windows open- great cool weather in December. :)
Speaking of windows- since this was also mentioned by another guest that they did not like these. The property does have jealousie windows- which for those of you who don't know are glass slated windows, very local style- like I said it reminds me of when I grew up and slept over at aunty's house! If you don't think you can handle those then you shouldn't stay here, unfortunately you will be missing out on some of the best hospitality Hilo has to offer.