Kona Village A Rosewood Resort

I want to start off by saying that we have stayed at other Rosewood property and this one is not it. My husband and I had never been to any of the Hawaiian islands. I turned to a friend who grew up going to Kona for advice on what to do/where to stay. She said stay at the Four Seasons, I said I want to go to Rosewood because I know the brand and they know how to treat their guests. I should have listened to my friend. We had such high hopes that this resort would be the typical Rosewood experience that we initially were planning this trip to be our way of making sure this is where we want to start coming on family vacations with our two young daughters. Thank goodness we came ourselves to scope things out first. I’ll start with the good — the resort property is beautiful. The layout, landscaping, etc. is very nice to look at. The rooms are all individual “hales”, no shared walls which is great. And that concludes the good. As beautiful as the property is at quick glance, once you look closer, it gives off the “we ran out of money” vibe. Like no paved paths at all, just crushed gravel like what gets put down BEFORE concrete gets laid. Walking all over the resort in flip flops, as one does in Hawaii, on this crushed rock path was not great. The fact that they even offer bicycles for guests to use astounds me because there are massive grooves all over the place to add to the hazard that loose gravel already is in the first place. Not that it mattered, since no usable bikes were ever available.   None of the rooms have TVs. At first this seemed like the kitschy move of saying “these grounds are so beautiful, you’re not here to watch TV” and made us feel like we were the problem for expecting a TV to be in the room of a very expensive, brand new resort. Then we started to think that maybe it was actually a money saving move (“we ran out of money” vibe again) and most people of the economic bracket able to afford to stay at a place like this would never dream of complaining about something as lowly as a television in their room. Well, we brought this up at the “Island Roots” dinner table among other guests to which everyone admitted to using their iPads every night to unwind and watch their shows which to be blunt - sucks. We should be able to lay in our hotel bed and watch an actual TV on the wall, not balance an iPad between us on the bed. The room was on theme with the resort itself - pretty to look at, but look a little closer and it’s motel 6 quality at Four Seasons prices. The pillows were horrific and I’m not exaggerating when I say I have had to have numerous massages and Flexeril to try to undo the damage the pillows caused my neck. There were two options - firm, which was essentially like resting your head on two stacked cinder blocks, or soft, which was like resting your head on a slice of Wonder bread. The bathroom doors are not solid. They are slatted doors. May God have mercy on the sweet couple away for their first vacation

2- I agree with COrick’s comments 100%. The grounds and rooms are beautiful. That said, service, food and general attitude of employees is awful. I can’t tell you how many missteps we experienced- from check in, to front desk service, to food service, to beach service ( non existent).