With two young children, my husband and I typically opt against staying at a hotel when planning a week long vacation. Earlier this year, we found ourselves in possession of two seven night stay certificates at a Category 1 – 4 Marriott hotel that were set to expire in mid-July. After a few hours of online searching, we were happy to secure a seven night stay at the Courtyard Kauai at Coconut Beach during our kids’ vacation. My review of Courtyard Coconut Beach in Kauai, however, is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, we paid zero dollars out of pocket for our stay (there was a $20/night resort fee that was waived for our stay) that would have otherwise cost just over $4,000; however, the level of construction the hotel was undergoing was well beyond what had been disclosed. While we found the initial appearance of the hotel and the noise to be jarring, at least we had some inkling of the construction. Many other vacationers had no idea that the hotel was under construction, much less that the hotel’s pool and dining facilities were largely nonexistent. While I heartily recommend the Courtyard Kauai Coconut Beach for its location and the amazing staff that did everything they could to accommodate its guests, Marriott’s handling of the situation was subpart and has me re-thinking brand loyalty going forward.
The Courtyard Kauai at Coconut Beach is located approximately 30 minutes from the Lihue Airport. There is a large parking lot and it is easy to walk right into the resort. Given the construction, however, the main lobby was not open and thus, the makeshift lobby was all that was available during our one week stay. Upon checking in, I was somewhat dismayed that there were just folding tables set up for check in and that there were extra staff on hand to help guide guests. During the check in process, I also received no explanation of the amenities, which I guess should not have surprised me given that well, there were none available during our stay due to construction; I was not provided with a map of the “resort,” nor was I given a map to the nearby hotel with the reciprocal pool access. I was simply told “construction, 7 days a week from 9-5pm and the pool down the road at the — hotel is available for use.” This was definitely a sign of poor things to come in terms of both the level of construction, as well as the staff’s ability to manage disappointed guests.
After checking in, we went up to our room, which was located on the top (4th) floor.
As described, it was a two bedroom, ocean view room. While surprisingly small (even my 9 year old commented on the small size and he’s not one to notice these things), it was newly renovated and as described. The view of the pool from directly from our balcony, however, left much to be desired.
Particularly when, during our stay, the hotel’s website and app still boasted about the “pool” features as one of its available amenities.
Admittedly, we did not spend much time at the hotel, opting to leave early every morning after breakfast to explore the island. However, it would have been nice to have had the option to sit by the beach/pool and order drinks or even evening snacks. A few evenings, we simply picked up pizza before returning to the hotel and ate in our hotel room, since there was no suitable outdoor seating.
Another aspect in which we were disappointed was that while the website/app advertised its “dining” options as “HIGHLIGHTS,” there was, in fact, only one very limited option for dining.
Indeed, the main dining room was completely boarded up during our stay and the only option was this banquet/conference room that had been converted into a makeshift dining area.
That said, my Titanium Elite Status provided us with a complimentary credit of $20/day to use towards food and beverages and kids under 5 eat free so we ate breakfast every single day before departing for our days’ adventures and the food, and the service, were both quite excellent in the dining department.
During our stay, I briefly peeked into the gym, but it was small and not enticing in the least. I chose to spend my days kayaking and hiking instead, which I also encourage you to do if you find yourself in Kauai. Of course, the option of a treadmill or elliptical is always nice to have and at least this portion of the hotel was not under construction and available for use.
As advertised, the hotel does have access to a beach which is a very short and easy walk from the rooms. We enjoyed the beach tremendously and it was the first place we went after dropping off our bags.
That said, the hotel did not have any feet washing stations or towels available at or near the beach. Instead, towels had to be picked up at reception and dropped back off at reception, so that was a tremendous hassle in terms of using the resort’s beach. Because we could not clean off our feat easily, we didn’t end up spending anytime with the kids at the beach.
At bottom, the hotel’s lack of amenities did not have any significant impact on our vacation, given that we were using a certificate for a free stay. A few nights into our stay, a group of new guests arrived and were clearly incredibly dismayed by the level of construction. There were angry words at reception and lots of disgruntled guests wandering around. One group approached me and asked if we had been aware of the construction, in particular the pool closure, and it was clear that they had no idea prior to their trip and that the lack of amenities was going to significantly impact their stay. At that point, I spoke with the hospitality manager who was entirely sympathetic to our claims (and waived our $20/day resort fee without us even asking), but she noted, sadly that there was nothing she could do. My only guess is that there is some issue between the hotel being unable to finance construction while closing the hotel down for operation and that it is staying open during construction because it has to. Although I don’t know where the blame rests (Marriott or the hotel itself), and I imagine it to be some combination of both, I think the negative impact will be mostly felt by Marriott as anyone who stayed during this massive upheaval will likely negatively reflect about the Marriott experience. The hotel’s central location on Kauai’s eastern shore and it’s gorgeous beach access means that it will always have a steady supply of visitors, but I know that this stay definitely has me questioning the benefits of maintaining Marriott status.
Final Thoughts?
There are a number of things that the hotel did poorly, in particularly, failure to disclose the level of construction. But it would be unfair not to point out the things the hotel did well:
- excellent food at the operating dining room, including incredibly patient servers, despite the fact that they were clearly understaffed and operating in sub optimal conditions;
- availability of beach towels for use on and off property; and
- availability of beach chairs and bicycles for use on and off property.
The only ways we were truly impacted by the construction was that we couldn’t really enjoy the hotel’s beach as much as we likely would have had it been operating. That said, we also probably saved money by not ordering expensive drinks at the resort and had there been a pool option, we likely would have had to negotiate with the children about spending a day hiking and kayaking and generally out and about as they would have definitely advocated for staying put and just swimming the day away. In the future, I would definitely stay at the hotel again, on a return trip to Kauai, but I suspect this construction will bump the hotel from a Category 4 to a Category 5 hotel, thus raising significantly the redemption costs. And that is a real shame.
After checking in for our return flight home, I spotted the tax refund booth and decided to go ahead and investigate. It turns out that all I needed to do was fill out a form, present my receipt and passport, and the taxes paid would be automatically refunded to my credit card. The whole process took less than 10 minutes and I confirmed that my ~$7USD refund was credited shortly thereafter. If you find yourself purchasing lots of goods to bring home, be sure to save your receipts and check out the Tax Refund booth at KEF!
After our meetings concluded around noon, my colleague and I decided to go straight to Newark. The United representative at the counter checked the flight and indicated she could not help us but directed us to someone else. The second representative did some additional checking but told us that she also could not process a change but that possibly the representatives at Travel Assistance near the gate could help us. We proceeded through security with our 7:15 p.m. tickets and headed straight to Travel Assistance, which had no line. The representative confirmed that the 3:15 p.m. flight was fully booked but that no one was on the standby list. We asked if it would be possible for us to fly standby, and she indicated that the change would require a $75 fee. I inquired about the travel waiver in place because of the storm, and she said that while she did not see the 3:15 p.m. flight as an option for the fee waiver that she would go ahead and process our standby tickets. We were delighted to find that there were a few available seats after boarding completed and were absolutely relieved to be heading home well in advance of the storm. It turned out that our 7:15 p.m. flight was only slightly delayed, but just about all flights were cancelled the next day.
I was super thankful to have the IMMI GO because of it’s small size and ease of installation, but I’ll admit, it was hard to watch my little guy slumped over when he fell asleep. The convertible car seat provides more of a cushion and “seat back” for him to comfortably sleep than the IMMI GO, but that can’t be attributed to the IMMI GO’s design – it’s simply a function of the high back booster seat. For comparison purposes, here’s a photo of my son sleeping in a convertible car seat from the day before.
For the record, my toddler never actually fell asleep using this cushion. He was too enamored by its existence to fall asleep. But, it did help him relax comfortably on the flight and, as an added bonus, it kept him from kicking the seat of the person in front of him. For “only” $22 and given its relatively small size and light weight, it will definitely be something I take with us on future flights, at least until he stops kicking the seat back in front of him as a matter of course.
