This resort hotel has a convenient location near a lot of Waikiki Beach restaurants, shops and attractions, and is situated on the actual beach. This Our spacious room was clean and had up to date furnishings and fixtures.
My husband, my sister-in-law and I stayed here 6 nights after a cruise. We spent our time exploring Honolulu so we weren’t in our rooms all that much. We had 14th floor balcony rooms with full views of the beach. We enjoyed looking out over Waikiki Bay.
We paid more for our rooms to get club level access. In my opinion the most important feature of club access is the opportunity to use the Voyager Club Lounge on the hotel’s first or second floor. The Voyager Club Lounge is open 6:30 am to 9:30 am and then 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm . The Voyager has big windows with great beach views, comfy upholstered chairs, plus tables (seating 4-6) for eating and drinking. You can sit indoors or outdoors. The outdoor shaded tables are only 12-15 feet above the beach, so you can watch the swimmers and surfers.
My husband and I really enjoyed having coffee and reading the newspaper in the Voyager each morning. Because my sister-in-law likes to eat an early breakfast, we had breakfast there too. The breakfast buffet is limited but adequate. The Voyager was a convenient place for our group to convene, since there is almost no seating in the hotel lobby. Having coffee and a quick light breakfast in the Voyager allowed us to maximize our time sightseeing.
We occasionally met in the Voyager in the evening before going out to dinner. If music was playing in Duke’s restaurant (one floor below us) , we were able to hear it while seated in the Voyager. That was nice. The Voyager bar serves a couple kinds of beer plus one cocktail: a drink made of fruit juice and New Amsterdam vodka. My husband thought the Voyager should expand their alcohol offerings. One night we were tired and decided to eat the happy hour appetizers for dinner. (Some people did that every night.) Some nights the appetizers were very good, other nights they weren’t.
The Outrigger Waikiki Beach had two full service restaurant/bars open to the public: Duke’s and the Hula Grill. Duke’s is famous for its live music, and you can hear their music in Duke’s restaurant, the Hula Grill, and the Voyager Club Lounge. If you want a dinner reservation at Duke’s, you probably need to book it months in advance. Staying at the Outrigger gives you no priority in getting a Duke’s reservation. Staff informed me that half the dinner tables at Duke’s are are available to be booked as reservations, and half are set aside for for same-day waitlist customers. We had dinner once at Duke’s (after spending two hours on the waitlist) and once at Hula Grill; both meals were very good. After calling 10 days in advance, we were able to make a dinner reservation at Hula Grill but not at Duke’s. We had drinks in the bar at the Hula Grill a couple times. The service in both restaurants/bars is very good.
This Outrigger Waikiki Beach is part of a cluster of upscale Waikiki beach hotels. It was a convenient place to stay in the heart of the tourist action.
The hotel has a small outdoor pool with chaise lounges, and a nice stretch of clean beach. We rented an umbrella and chaise lounges one afternoon. The access into the water is sandy and gradual. It was a good place to play in the waves.
Our rooms were very comfortable. My husband and I had spacious room 1419 with a king-sized bed, sofa, large dresser, desk, two large nightstands with good reading lights, a walk-in closet, fridge, coffee maker. Our balcony view was great. Our room had plenty of electrical outlets. I can’t recall the WIFI situation because we used cellular data.
The maid service got our room was great. A maid came every day and restocked everything. It may have helped that every day we left a $5 tip.
My husband, sister-in-law and I chose this hotel because it is in the heart of the Waikiki Beach tourist area, in a safe neighborhood. We wanted a good beach view, and we got it. The hotel is across the street from the International Market, a multilevel outdoor shopping mall with some excellent restaurants. The hotel is within walking distance of the zoo, the aquarium, and sandy, scenic Kuhio Beach. The hotel is within easy walking distance of other higher-end hotels and upscale tourist shops along Kalakaua avenue.
From this hotel it us very easy to get an Uber; our longest wait was 7 minutes and our shortest was about 1 minute. There is a small self-serve laundry on the ground level (3? washers, 3? dryers). There is an ABC convenience store on the first or second floor.
My biggest problem with this hotel is one shared by the other upscale hotels next door: a street performer who each evening yells with a megaphone outside the International Market. He was most noticeable in the evening when we sat on our 14th floor balcony facing the ocean. (People with rooms facing Kalakaua Avenue would have experienced even louder ranting.) Apparently young people like to gather and listen to this guy. I found that I could not tolerate sitting on the balcony if he was performing. If I went inside and shut the sliding glass door, I could no longer hear him. I called the Outrigger front desk and was told there was nothing they could do because Honolulu noise ordinances don’t require quiet until 10 pm. The street performer never made noise after 10 pm. The Moana Surfrider would have experienced the same noise pollution; the Royal Hawaiian might have been far enough away.
I would stay in this hotel again, although the Royal Hawaiian is also tempting due to its nice landscaping and outdoor patios.
