This is the ultimate retro hotel! Loved the style!
I stayed in a dorm. Room was nice.

Positive points:
- Retro style
- Competitive prices
- easy to find. Right next to the road
- Convenient for Waipi o Valley visits

Negative points:
- A bit run down
- reception hours are limited
- slow internet (only wifi, no PCs!!)
- super noisy frogs in the yard who might keep you awake all night!!
- For dorms you have to provide your own sheets or pay 10 USD extra

I needed to be in Honoka'a, and Hilo is 1.25 hrs. away, so we stayed there. I believed the website. Whew. I've never been to such a dump. Never. And I grew up in Hawaii. It's like camping out. If that's what you expect, it's not a problem. However, I feel there is nothing "hotel" or "club"-like about this place. It was built in 1908. That should give you pause. I don't think they've put in much $ to fix anything--except maybe the website guy. We were on the 1st flr. A hall window opened onto the "backyard" without screens or glass. ( I wonder what they do in the summer with mosquitoes.) What got to me was there is absolutely no sound proofing between rooms (all rooms have screen transoms). So when the 3 guys sharing a room across us unzipped their luggage, it sounded like they were in our room. We heard every word they said as talked on and on into the night. My husband and I asked them to quiet down, but we could even hear them when they were whispering--every word. BTW, there is no one to complain to after 8PM at night.

I finally fell asleep exhausted around 2 AM (I had flown in that day). The cold, old, mildewy, lumpy bed with threadbare sheets didn't help. I was worried about bedbugs. At 4:30AM the wild roosters started crowing and didn't stop until at least 8. On a positive note, the shower was great. BTW, There was no TV. It was a smallish room with two beds, two lamps and two end tables. If you like camping, you'll like this "hotel." Breakfast was bread, slices of papaya or avocado and coffee (ugh). The couple who manage the Honokaa are well-meaning, but clueless or have no budget. The place is used by civic nonprofits for meetings, and the community "loves" them, so I hear. Good for them. I would skip this place and go into Waimea (1/2 hour away) for a real hotel/motel. This was a big lesson for me on believing photos on websites. If you're on a vacation or want to impress someone, go somewhere else, even if you have to spend $.

We stayed here 1 night. We had a corner room on 2nd floor. We arrived here early (3:30pm) and we were checking in by 4pm. Once we got to our room we thought it was really nice for the price. We are low-maintenance couple and we thourghly enjoyed our stay here. The couple that run the place are very hospitable, social, and friendly. We didn't EXPECT much for the continental breakfast, and so the breakfast fit our needs and we found an EXCELLANT place to have breakfast....Hawaii Style Cafe in Wamiea, about 20 min drive.
Overall, this was a nice room for the price, and I recommend this to anyone who is not looking for a lot of extras, and would like a comfortable place to stay.

Summary:
I also use Tripadvisor and sometimes it's hard what to make out of the different reviews. Some say a place is terrible, and it turns out okay. Sometimes it's the other way around. This place? You can go here, and take a 65$ gamble, hoping you'll enjoy your stay. I think you will regret that choice the moment you see your room! Only sleep here when you arrive late and/or have no other choice. Though even in that case I would still rather drive on to Waimea! This place is overpriced, the rooms are spartan, and just depressing. My girlfriend didn't even wanted to take a shower the morning we left, because she felt eerie. The "breakfast" is really the name unworthy.

Extended version:
We wanted to check-in at 4 pm. We were here at 3.30 pm but check-in starts at 4pm. The woman/manager arrived 20 minutes late, saying "sorry for that, it's hard to get going". No problemo! Hawaiian style right?

We reserved a room the day before, but when she showed us the room, it was like seeing your prison cell for the first time. It was really depressing. Hardly enough space to walk around the bed. Only a smelly bedcover. Yes, 65 dollars incl. "breakfast". is a pretty good price, but this is still a very bad deal for what you get! We normally travel on the (pretty) cheap, meaning we always stay in budget hotels/motels, so we expect, well, not much, really. But this is just a bit too extreme for us. (we are 29 and 34 yrs old). The walls were so thin, you could here everything! This place is a hotel only in name. In real life it more feels like a camping with woodchip walls.

When I asked if we could just cancel the reservation, because we expected something, well, a little bit more 2010, she/the owner got really short and rude. This gave us a really unpleasant feeling. We were tired though of driving, and just wanted to relax. Besides, this is the only place in town so not much choice. I guess the owner knows that too all too well! I can imagine that when you run a business, it is not nice to have guests
entering your hotel and then start complaining about your rooms. But at the other hand, if you present guests with rooms like these, you shouldn't be too surprised either.

I feel that if you receive guests who clearly feel bad about a room, (becuase the room was just terrible!) I would give them a break. But what she did was saying "start your own business, and you'll see how hard it is to run a hotel". My guess is that I wasn't the first person who wanted to cancel the room, after seeing it. If you like depressions, well,
you can knock yourself out here! My advice: sleep here if you really have no other alternative. And bring some antidepressivum! Expect nothing, and probably even that will be too much. Good luck! (You'll need it.)

Friendly greets, Jay

PS. She did offer us another room, for a higher price. We said no. Why? It was an even bigger ripoff. The only difference was the 20 dollars extra and the 1 square meter bigger room.