Some kitchen tools were cracked or missing, There was no cookie sheet, blender, small frying pan, salt or pepper shaker and the one spatula was cracked and hard to use. The only frying pan caused the food to stick and was hard to clean. A second chair was missing from the lanai and could not be replaced.
Embarrassing Maintenance
JohnnyBoe
Be careful! The pictures on the website are NOT current. Although magnificent ocean views, the facility, and rooms are in very poor condition due to maintenance. Ask to see a room before finalizing check-in. My family and I initially stayed in suite 302. It was filthy with years of carpet stains and over-painted damaged walls and moldings. Some sliding glass doors were inoperable due to corroded aluminum and/or missing rollers. We moved to suite 602, which was better but still had similar issues. The staff was accommodating but did not appear surprised by the disappointment with the cleanliness and lack of maintenance.
Simply beautiful
709ginac
Second time staying here and it’s just as wonderful as it was the first time. Staff is very friendly. The pools are clean and have plenty of seating. The hotel restaurant is delicious and food is very quick. The cocktails are delicious. The beach that the resort is on, Kaanapali beach, is breathtaking!!! I would stay a third time, fourth, fifth, etc.
Fantastic
Kodaske
(La Verne, California)
Great resort and great people and really spacious condos. We were upgraded to a very large 2 bedroom oceanfront condo with a huge lanai. Happy hour is now all day instead of just a few hours in the afternoon. The resort is completely open
Aston Kaanapali Shores is conveniently located and a good value.
Mike H
Family vacation, 100% personal/pleasure. Me, my wife, and our two kids, 20 and 17. Our first trip to Hawaii.
Price to value was important to us. If that's you, and you keep that in mind, your Shores experience will likely be quite satisfactory. Research prior to committing and conversations and observations with other folks staying on the strip confirm that while swankier resort experiences are available, you'll pay 2x to have it.
There is no golf course here to be maintained but if you wish, you can check out gear from the front desk and shoot hoops or play pickleball. There's some minor cheapo stuff (The hot tub may be lukewarm. We had to buy filters for the in-room coffee maker. Appreciate the in-room laundry setup for sure; wish we'd known to pack detergent and dryer sheets. Handheld can opener was useless. The sliding doors are screaming for replacement or, at minimum, some WD-40. The bathrooms, while clean, are on the level of an economy motel.) but these are, I think, individually owned condos and so some units are likely appointed differently than others, the resort's ability to standardize is limited, and the maintenance staff is responsive enough but you really don't want to whine to them about every little thing...
The art in the lobby is cool. The resort and the room are clean. The prices of incremental purchases are surprisingly reasonable. For example, if you forgot your swimsuit, you can get a new one for $20 without leaving the resort. An on-site cabana offers competitive prices for beach rentals. The lobby, the gardens, the pools, and the small private beach are as advertised. If you are tempted to save a few bucks and forego the ocean view, we would say if at all possible, and especially if you, like us, spend life landlocked, spend the money. Starting the day with coffee and breakfast listening to the waves crash on the beach and gazing upon other islands, and winding down in the evening with same, is more than worth it. You can see the sunset from the balcony, but you'll want to be downstairs on the beach for that.
At check-in, we were presented with gifts of buttery white wine (anniversary), chocolates (multiple birthdays), and canvas tote bags that came in handy. The only real customer service snag we encountered was that, because we arrived a bit before the room was ready, we checked our bags with the Bellman and were paralyzed in our room for a couple hours until he could accommodate delivery, and we offered to come get them but in doing so annoyed the very busy front desk--but I would put this on us and our inexperience more than these short-staffed folks. So, if we were to do it again, we would either leave the bags in the car or make sure that we kept anything we needed right away--swimsuits, for example--with us.
Beyond the lobby, the interior of the hotel is extremely dated. This includes kitchen appliances and in-room technology. The TVs in your condo may or may not work. (Maintenance is quick to respond; my clear inference is they get this particular request a lot. The cable company in Maui sucks as bad and maybe worse as the one where you live. But you are not here to watch TV, anyway, and if it is absolutely dire that you have minute to minute eyeball updates on your sports gambling interests, the game is likely on in the poolside bar, where the Mai Tai's are delicious and on the happy hour special menu, and the Internet in your room is probably, usually going to work.) There is a spa on the property but it was unreachable prior to our stay and closed for our entire duration. No one seems to know the story. If you seek a massage, there are lots of places close by, accessible via a short drive to pay less in a retail center or a walk up the boardwalk to one of the other resorts.
This worked: We ordered groceries via Instacart from the Times Market, which is about a block away. This local market is large and well-supplied; we pre-selected our groceries prior to our trip and placed the order, online, upon accessing our room and the resort Internet. A few push notifications re substitutes on the level of they-don't-have-Clementines-are-you-cool-with-regular-oranges later, a text confirmed the order had been delivered to the lobby. As we hurriedly headed down to retrieve them, we encoutered the Bellman, who had packaged them onto a luggage cart and was bringing them to us with a hey-relax-you're-on-vacation-I-got-you-brudda smile.
The room was described as having "two or three" beds. We proactively requested the three-bed setup and a higher floor, in order of priority, and if possible. Both requests were honored. The beds were comfortable; we slept well. Everything presents as safe and secure.
We had been counseled that food trucks on Maui were a good way to get delicious, authentic, affordable eats. The food truck plaza is adjacent to the Shores--it is a walk, not a drive--and this counsel held true.
The resort's website recommended the Old Lahaina Luau. We had a wonderful experience there and second the recommendation. Other stuff we did right was rent a full beach package from The Snorkel Store, just up the road, for the whole time we were there, giving us very comfortable and affordable moment-to-moment options for activities. Chairs (one per person), umbrellas (we got two, one would have been enough), a cooler (one was plenty) quality snorkel sets incl flippers, float belts, and boogie boards. You need not bring towels; the resorts supply them. They are pretty cool with most things--the C19 mask policy, for example, is enforced in the relaxed hey-ain't-none-of-us-perfect-but-we-all-mean-well way most of us would want--but they are strict on the towel thing, and once you see how all these resorts flow into one another on this stretch of beach, the reasons why become clear.
I've been presented stories about vacations in Waikiki that require tourists to be constantly on guard; we encountered nothing of the sort in Kaanapali or Lahaina. Things are pretty relaxed. The locals seem generally happy that you're here. They want you to be minimally wasteful and respectful of their fragile ecology. And we can dig that, right?
I see other reviews critical of the check-in process. Ours wasn't exactly smooth, either, but I don't think that's all on them; I think C19 and our inexprience were principal factors.
The resort hosts an array of on-site experiences and cultural programming right at the property so you don't need to go far to enjoy immersive island activities.
