There are pros and cons to this club. But there are a few really important things you need to know, and ESPECIALLY if you aren’t an owner but book here thru Marriott, because you won’t be notified on their website or in advance of getting here.
(1) If you are a beach person, this is NOT the resort for you. Namely because, the beach access situation is extremely volatile, coming and going with little notice. As of our stay October 2022 there had been a big storm in July 2022, and the only beach access was down by the northernmost Napilli tower. The other areas of the restorer have no beach access, and the central tower has construction barricades lining the ocean view. There is also a capsized boat on the shore, that has yet to have been removed since the July storm. Furthermore, the Napilli beach, while decently sized at the time of our visit, can be underwater at any given time. Apparently this is a characteristic of Ka’anapali, as the name means “changing sands”, and they have major beach erosion issues not yet dealt with by the state of Hawaii. But the hotel photos definitely show plenty of walking beach, and that is definitely not always the case, in fact at this point, I would just expect that the beach situation is pretty dismal
(2) If you are returning to this property or area, you will likely have spent nights walking the beach walk north to Whalers village. A large chunk of the beach walk was washed away in the July storm, so this is no longer possible without a 10 minute detour around the Alli hotel, our to the street and then back again. The beach walk situation appears to be getting worse before it gets better. Again, a state of Hawaii issue, so the hotels will not notify you of beach situation or beach walk situation, but it is a situation and could make for a disappointing surprise if you booked expecting them.
(3) The central towers (molokai, maui and lanai) HAVE been updated, but I would classify it as more of a “refresh” than a true renovation. The age of that building and those units shows thru. This is NOT true of the Napilli/Lahaina towers reserved for timeshare owners. Those rooms are truly updated. The rooms are hard to distinguish online, because their photography is good for both. But we stood in both and hands down the Napilli and Lahaina towers are MUCH nicer. You can book those towers as a non owner though, and I would suggest that. Little further walk to the main pool, but rooms make up for it.
(4) I would not do a paid stay here. We came on a promotional offer since we are Bonvoy titanium and they wanted to try to sell us a timeshare. Our kids had fun in the pool, the pirate ship was a hit for our 4 year old boy and we did enjoy ourselves. But if I had dropped $6000 to stay in the molokai tower where we stayed I would have not felt this was a great value. And I thought the beach and beach walk situation definitely hurt the kaanapali area vs Wailea.
Personally, if I were booking again and wanted to do Kaanapali, I would stay at a resort north of the Alli so that the beach walk element was there. Easy walks up to dinner and back.
If you are looking for the best pool on the island that your kids will freak out over though, head down to the Grand Wailea in Wailea. Epic experience there for the kids and beautiful luxe area.
As an aside, if you are invited down to peruse a timeshare like we were - take them up on it. My review is based on if I was paying what it costs to stay here as a non owner, but by all means don’t let this review dissuade you from a nearly free vacation. Just know what you’re going to, BUT, I would STRONGLY advise against even considering purchasing into the vacation club points system. We had a near miss here where the sales guys blatantly lied to us and told us that our Titanium status got us a slew of benefits inside the MVC system. We were surprised to hear this and actually nearly signed because of it. That is until we got the contract and asked to see the portion of the contract where Titanium level bonvoy members received Chairman status and got a slew of upgrades including suite upgrades even if they bought at the lowest tier or 1500 points. Of course they couldn’t product it, because it was a lie, but that had told us this so we would sign and then it was going to be. a bait and switch situation where we joined the club, paid nearly $20,000 and then found out that our status meant nothing and we were at the bottom tier with no perks and no upgrades. I still can’t believe how blatant the lies were. SO, if you go sit thru their presentation, I don’t care WHAT you are told, I would 100% treat the MVC crew the same way you would a con artist. Assume lies, and unearth truth inside of the contract. Do not get bamboozled by what you are told verbally. Ensure everything is in writing on your contract before you sign anything. After our experience, I would never sign with this club. I can’t imagine how many people have been misled by any number of lies if they were willing to be so bold faced about the one they told us. It truly was proof that they will say anything to get you to sign, and it will be your problem later to deal with. Buyer beware!
