Hilton Grand Vacations Club Kohala Suites Waikoloa

Customer Ratings & Reviews

TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

1694 reviews

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  Spacious vacation stay for family & great value!

  Stayed during winter holiday and really enjoyed the 2-BR condo. The unit was recently renovated and everything was new and clean. Beds are comfortable. The full kitchen has plate settings for 4, pots and pans for us to make breakfast and dinner. We took the hotel shuttle to the Hilton complex for a pool day and did not have to look for parking. We were glad we did not stay on the extremely busy ocean front complex. Overall, I would recommend staying here if one is looking for a relaxing stay away from the crowds. A car is needed to get to activities and restaurants outside the resort.

  Jan 15, 2025
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  Very nice to stay in Kohala Suites in the big island

  Swimming pool is good. Free parking. Free shuttle in the vacations area. Bathroom in master’s bedroom is amazing.

  Dec 27, 2024
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  Waikoloa

  It is a busy season at Waikoloa. There are much more people than during Covid. At the resort, all health rules are still in place. This time we got a ground level unit and added a bonus: small animals can come to our doors, interesting!

  Dec 04, 2024
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  Do your research before choosing this property!

  Your experience here will mostly depend on what your travel preferences are. There are definitely upsides to this property. The two bedroom suite was very spacious and had been recently updated. The full kitchen and laundry facilities are great. I wish the second bedroom had queens instead of doubles or a two-king option though. The only place that ever felt crowded was the gym. We actually preferred the vibe to the kohala suites pool vs the hassle of going to the main resorts. Plus there was shade and poolside drinks were $4 cheaper. There were a couple major downsides that would keep me from staying here again: -There are 8 Atlantic bottlenose dolphins kept captive in the lagoon for your entertainment. Their ponds are small and shallow and just wow. I did not expect this and found it extremely upsetting. - There are limited food options nearby and nothing is walkable. What is nearby is pretty mediocre. -There is no beach here. Unless you count the lagoon. During our stay some food stations were closed so no poolside dining services were available. - We found ourselves driving a lot every day to snorkel or visit the beach or to eat. Kona is 30-40 minutes in one direction and waimea is 30+in the other. The last time we visited the big island we stayed in an airbnb in Kona. We preferred the convenience of having lots of walkable dinner, coffee, and breakfast options. On our next trip we will do that again. I think resort life isn't for us!

  Oct 06, 2024
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  German Cockroaches

  We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations Club Kohala Suites for one week in August. We were a party of 6 and stayed and started our trip in a ground level suite. I’ll start with the good. The layout of the rooms are nice. Having a full kitchen was great. We stopped at Costco on the way in and made many meals in the room. We shared a room with my parents who had the master room and my husband and our 2 kids were in the 2nd bedroom that had two full beds. It was enough room and worked out well for us. The convenience of hopping on the shuttle to the main property was great. Our kids (11 and 9) loved swimming at the lagoon and using the water slides. Now for the bad… the rooms are dated and not very clean. The couch was quite dingy and dirty. Many of the bathroom towels had stains on them. The biggest negative was discovering German roaches at 4am on our first morning while making my coffee. I had read about roaches being an issue in hotels on the island while researching our trip. With that in mind, I came with 10 Max sticky traps. I didn’t even think to put them down until finding the first roach. After the early am German roach spotting, I laid the sticky traps all over the kitchen and under the sink (an area where roaches are notorious for hanging out) where the trash was located. Within an hour the traps had multiple German roaches on them. 🤢 Knowing German roaches are the infesting/ disease carrying, worst kind of roach you can deal with I took my pics to the front desk. I have a background in hospitality and realize these things happen but also wasn’t willing to risk staying in that room and having German roaches infiltrate our luggage. The front desk person was unphased by my reporting of German roaches in the room and stated they could come in and spray with a non toxic pesticide. I explained that wasn’t an option since I have auto immune and my son has asthma and spraying a pesticide in a room we were currently in was not an option. I explained based on the amount of German roaches we saw in such a short amount of time indicated a serious infestation and the only suitable option was to move us to an upper level unit. Again working in hospitality, I know being on an upper level, corner unit would decrease our odds of an infestation there. I asked if she could accolade that request and she said “possibly” but it wouldn’t happen that day since they were completely sold out. She said the soonest we could move was the next am but to check back with her the next am to confirm. We stayed another night and made sure to keep the kitchen spotless and stored all foods even dry in the fridge. The next am, I check in with the same front desk person to confirm we could move. She said she had a upper, corner unit but that we would have to have our whole place packed and be out of the room by 10 am, mind you I was talking to her at 9am. She gave me two large plastic boxes to carry to my room and said to pack all our food in it and bring all our luggage and food to front desk and store it until our room was ready, sometime around 4. So we would be completely without a room for hours. At this point I was thinking it seemed like an unreasonable ask considering we were dealing with an infestation but I went back to our room to explain the situation to my husband and parents. My mom was not as understanding as me 😂 and she went to talk to same front desk agent I was dealing with. My mom told her we were not clearing out our room until the new room was ready. And asked that the new room we were to move to be put as a priority for cleaning so we could get in there ASAP. We received definite push back from the front desk agent who said housekeeping has their priorities and they need us out of our current room by 10am and it wasn’t an option to do what my mom was asking and that our new room would be ready by 4pm. Me being the “good cop” calmly asked her what was a bigger priority than accommodating a guest who has a room that’s infested with German coaches? While we couldn’t wait to get out of the current room, it just wasn’t possible to do it in 45 mins and the biggest thing we wanted was the room we were suppose to move to, to be put on housekeepings cleaning list as a priority. The front desk agent reluctantly went to back and then came back and said they would “accommodate” our request and we could have more time to pack and they would make our new room a priority to clean once the current people in there checked out. My husband and mom took our kids to the lagoon to hangout while my dad and I packed up the whole kitchen and the rest of our belongings carefully shaking everything to make sure we didn’t bring any hitchhikers to the next room. Again, German roaches are notorious for hitchhiking. We were packed up completely by 11 and waited for the call to move to new room. We finally got it by 1pm and moved right after with the help of a very nice employee. I made sure to check for signs of cockroaches in the new place but didn’t see any initial signs anywhere. I did see some mouse droppings under the sink in the back but seriously at this point all I cared about were being somewhere without roaches. The mice poop didn’t even phase me 😂. I laid down the rest of the sticky traps I had in the new kitchen in same places as before and I’m happy to report we never caught any roaches in this room. 🙌🏼 We waisted the majority of one day packing and unpacking. It was such a pain in the butt but worth in the end to be in a room that didn’t show signs of German roaches. I still spent the rest of the trip worrying about them in our stuff and came home and did a whole process to make sure we didn’t bring any hitchhikers in our home. I had to unpack everything outside, closely inspecting and shaking. Everything was kept outside until I could wash and dry it. It’s been a month and I’m still a little paranoid we brought German roaches home 🤪. I have put traps down here just in case and nothing has been caught so hoping we are in the clear. 🙏 So all in all our trip to the big island was great. We lost a chunk of our day dealing with this issue but it worked out. I wouldn’t stay here again though. We did visit the King building and that one looked much newer and cleaner. If we went again I would travel with sticky traps and always request an upper unit.

  Sep 02, 2024