Cafe Ko Olina Place Of Joy By Michel’s

As a titanium elite Marriott member and chairman member in Marriott vacation club, we have stayed at a multitude of Marriott properties and am an owner at Ko Olina. Having stayed at this property multiple times, I was shocked to see the deterioration of the accommodations. Upon check-in for our 7 day stay in our two bedroom suite which was supposed to be an ocean view high floor, it was disappointing to be assigned a low floor with a view of the kiddie pool, not what was reserved. The room was filthy. The carpet was badly stained, the kitchen counters were dirty, the kitchen cabinets were badly chipped and worn and the drawers were filled with crumbs and obviously had not been cleaned. The floors were sticky and the door into the suite was covered with hand prints. Besides needing to be thoroughly cleaned, the rooms are in desperate need of refurbishment. Very disappointing.

VALET PARKING only review. The restaurant experience today on Christmas was five stars and the waitress was wonderful!! We live here locally in Hawaii and our favorite thing to do is go for special occasions out to eat at Longhi's at Marriott. Usually we take my convertible BMW to eat there. We pulled up to the valet, where there were a few people there in the kiosk. They usually come right out. We were in our PRIUS not luxury car this time. We didn't see any movement from the staff which was odd today, so we circled around to see if there was somewhere else we maybe we're supposed to park. We circle back in the small circle to valet again and as we do, two cars a Ferrari and a Tesla pull up and the people get out and get immediate assistance. I have never felt so judged and insulted by valet at Marriott before. We were ready to give a generous tip to the Valet, but as we saw they avoided us we had to ask for help (as we weren't in a luxury vehicle this time?? .... So the takeaway is if we come here I need to bring the expensive convertible I guess. I spoke to the manager. Hope this isn't the new norm.

This resort is outstanding. I don’t understand the bad reviews. We were in a recently renovated room and we love the renovations. Very modern and spotless. The grounds are among the nicest I’ve ever seen. Landscaping, gardens, pools, beach all top notch. We snorkeled in lagoon 2 which was better than our lagoon 3. But swimming here is great. There is a current so be careful with little ones if you go out far. We didn’t eat in the restaurants because we went to Monkey Pod twice and bought food at Costco and food land. We love to cook and eat on our balcony. We had an ocean front room on the 2nd floor of Naia building which was beautiful. Parking in the garage was easy. The pull out couch is made by American leather and very comfortable. We checked out the Four Seasons and the Disney Aulani. Our lagoon is nicer and less busy. Disney Aulani is way too big and of course, designed for kids. Too noisy and crowded for us.

I’ve never had such a difficult time finding a place to sit around a pool. Even when I’d come down to the pols at 7:30am they’ve all been saved. Try again at 11:30am thinking people have moved or left, no chairs available. Several days we had to pay $74 to rent tented chairs on the beach. They charge $40+ for an umbrella with chairs and many days those are even sold out. The beach activities staff guy is rude and indifferent. They don’t set up the chairs or bring you towels. They can’t seem to be bothered. The rooms are pretty worn down and tired. There are two restaurants on property otherwise you can walk down two to three lagoons to the four season’s restaurant or Disney property. There’s nice live music in the evenings at Longboards on-site. I was very grateful for Sommer at checkin. She was very efficient and nice and let us Checkin early. Lots of organized activities for guests to do.

We are owners at Ko Olina and just returned from an 8 day stay and although we enjoyed being in Hawaii and the warm weather, our stay at the MVC just wasn't as good as previous years. I guess that's because our room was filthy, necessitating my wife doing a complete deep cleaning before we even unpacked. Then, on the day that we had housekeeping, they made the bed (no clean linen), dropped off fresh towels, toiletries and replenished the coffee/tea, straightened a few things on the table and the pillows on the sofa, put the dishes in the dishwasher and emptied the trash. That was it. The stove wasn't touched (even though there were oatmeal splatters on the stovetop), the body wash in the shower wasn't replaced (it was empty), the carpet wasn't vacuumed and the floor in the kitchen still had crumbs (which were highlighted by the sunshine) and was sticky. Needless to say, housekeeping is now clearly a problem and something that we have never experienced in previous years. In addition, there were other details that were clearly missing. There was no Welcome program on the main lawn for owners and guests and the menu of daily activities for both adults and children has been extremely trimmed down compared to previous years. It just didn't feel the same and not in a good way. Considering the exorbitant maintenance fees, every guest should expect that the rooms and common areas throughout the property will be clean and sanitary and that there will be a multitude of activities to choose from during their stay. This was always the case before the pandemic, and while I understand the cutbacks during the height of COVID, we're past that point.