What a place to arrive at....from the courtyard at the front...with that huge banyan tree and the views from every room in the hotel that face the beach.....this is THE PLACE to holiday. I loved the staff, the cozy poolside, the food and the linens....pink bathrobes and banana bread fresh from the kitchen each morning! I dream of my next visit and it will besoon if I my dreams come true.

I am a traveller with very discriminating taste. I'm not sure what other reviewers were expecting in Hawaii or in a historic hotel. Frankly I can not see how it is possible for anyone to complain about this property and its staff.
I stayed there during the Pro Bowl as did a number of players. While other hotels were a zoo, the Royal Hawaiian was tranquil, beautiful and serene. The front desk and concierge staff were amazing: I called the concierge, gave them a list of things I wanted to do and events I wanted to attend in Honolulu, including a number of Pro Bowl events. The concierge spent 2 hours creating an itinerary, making reservations and even hand delivered it to me.

The vallet service is very useful. The resort fee covers self parking, however, if you are going during a busy time of year, pay the extra $6 a day and it will save you time. Having said that, traffic in Honolulu is pretty brutal. The hotel is located on a beach, near all shopping, restaurants and bars. You might just want to opt out of getting a rental car and take a taxi if you feel like going to the North Shore. Will save you time and money!

The restaurants are world class - Mai Tai's bar has great views and Azure is simple fantastic. Be prepared to spend $$ here, but worth every penny. Azure's sashimi is to die for!

The beach is wonderful - lots to do. You can take advantage of the beach activities like surfing lessons and kayaking. Lots of fun.

Fast wifi access - if you are having difficulties, the ethernet cable and router is attached to the phones. Reset by disconnecting and reconnecting the power plug. Fixes the issue right away. Engineering can do it for you and they are quick to respond, but frankly it takes just a few seconds to do n your own.

I would have given the hotel 5 stars, however, they lost out on one issue that became a big one. Housekeeping is a little over eager to clean the hotel and everyday I was woken up at 8am. A few times staff didn't hear from me and walked in on me - even in the evening where I required privacy and had a do not disturb sign on my door. It may be just because my suite was the first one on the main floor. A couple of incidences were quite embarrassing, and I had to call the front desk. It was remedied immediately, I wish I had called the front desk earlier. Either way, the property should be given 4.5-5, however, I am still a little scarred by housekeeping walking in on me while I was undressed!

After staying at the Westin Moana Surfrider twice, and having stayed at both the St Regis Kauai and Rome, we were expecting something grand from the Royal Hawaiian. What a disappointment it was! We had two rooms - our daughters were placed in a room with a view of a wall - seriously - a wall about one metre from their window - and we had a room with a view over the roof of the restaurant. As others have remarked on Trip Advisor, it looks from the outside like the rooms have balconies, but they are just an external facade. Both bathrooms were so tiny that even for one person at a time they were too small. The light switch hung on a chain that could only be reached by standing on the bed or a chair. Our daughters had immediate problems with cockroaches - at first they thought it might just be the odd one or two, but no, they killed 6 in just a few minutes. Complaints were made twice, but nothing was done. In a hotel of this standing, we would have thought that they might have relocated the girls, especially given that occupancy was obviously low and that we are Starwood Gold members, but this was not offered. We were very disappointed that the pool is closed to guests at 6pm, and a staff member enforces this ridiculous rule. This hour is ludicrously early - it's not even dark at that time! Breakfast was so dreadful that we chose on our second and final morning to take our business back to the Westin, and what a delight that was in comparison! We heard that many people do the same thing. All in all, for the hype that Starwood make about their renovation of this historic property, and given its status as one of their "luxury collection", we have never been so underwhelmed by any of their hotels, and we have stayed in many. Not even the beautiful arrangement of fresh flowers could redeem the many shortcomings of this hotel.

Loved the history and the ambiance of this hotel. We initially booked a room in the tower building but were very disappointed. The room and balcony were tiny, the air-conditioning wouldn't work with the balcony door open, there were no bathrobes in the room and had to wait for over an hour to have any sent up, coffee pot was dirty, generally the room and bathroom felt a bit tired and grubby. The view was wonderful. We went to dinner, as we walked back through the grounds we agreed we would rather be in the original building, we asked if we could look at a room there, the receptionist gave us a key to a Junior Ocean Suite..... it was like walking into another hotel, beautiful. Wonderfully high ceilings, huge bedroom and equally large lounge room overlooking the lawn and the beach. The room appeared much cleaner and better appointed.
We transferred over immediately, it cost a bit more but it was definitely worth it. Downside of this particular suite was the noise, we were over the Mai Tai bar, therefore shared the entertainment every night till 10.00pm and we also heard any noise from the beach at night.... was a problem on Saturday night at 1am and again at 3am.
I'm sure the hotel would have happily let us move again if we had asked but it wasn't that big a deal. No overhead lighting, all lamps with no common on and off switch. Air-conditioning a bit noisy.
Had a lovely room service dinner from Azure restaurant, great food and good value at $65.00 for 3 courses, limited menu choice. The hotel was a welcome retreat from the maddening shopping and tourist frenzy of Waikiki, the beach was lovely and well attended by helpful staff members. The pool is tiny and shallow, although you can use the pool next door.
I guess we were super spoilt by the previous weeks indulgence on the big island, more days there and less in Waikiki would have been better for us.