Kauai Vacation: Room Review

The Room Over The Power Plant

Revised 4/2021

The Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas offers guests beautiful rooms, which include kitchens or kitchenettes, outdoor grills, and a number of pools.  Most often, it includes an excellent restaurant, poolside bar, and small store.  A large grocery store is within walking distance as well. 

Thus, the theory is that guests will not have to leave the property once they cross the big pond to reach it. Great theory, but that’s not necessarily true when the only on-site restaurant is closed.  Add to that the incredibly loud room...well, let’s just say I needed a break from the property at times.  

Note: Follow Hawaii and CDC guidelines when visiting.  Always wear your face mask when in public.

May we just see the room we should have had?

After an exceptionally long journey that included a broken plane and a rushed connection—not to mention airport security—we were surprised to find that our hotel had our room ready an hour early.  The smiling receptionist pointed to “building seven”, which she said had great views and is her personal favorite.  Ah, how lucky we are that day.  Yeah, right. 

Luck brought us to The Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas in the form of a promotional letter offering a great deal just to check out the property.  The offer even included a “Personal Concierge”.  (post )  Had we decided to go directly to our room in building seven, our opinion of the resort may have been much better. After all, we would have been in a quiet room overlooking the beautifully kept grounds with a peekaboo view of the ocean.  

Nevertheless, that wasn’t to be as we chose to visit with our “Concierge” first.  Halfway through our visit, the smiling receptionist came in apologizing about putting us in the “wrong room”.  That room was “special” but ours would be on the fifth floor.  Reading their expressions, I guessed our new room was anything but special.

How right I was.  Yes, we still had a beautifully appointed room with a luxury bathroom and kitchenette.  Our view?  Well, part of the view was pleasant.  We had a partial view of the pool to our far left.  Left foreground, a scattering of barbecue grills and tables were nestled under the cover of palapas.  In full view, however, was the extremely loud power plant.  Yep.  I said POWER. PLANT. 

Going green is awesome, but loud.

Don’t get me wrong.  I absolutely love how this resort is generating its own power in the greenest way possible.  (Check out this story)  However, I do like to sleep when I am on vacation.  And, when in a warm area, especially Hawaii, I like to feel the ocean breezes during the night—not stale air from the HVAC system.   The noise from the generators necessitated keeping our sliding door closed the entire time.  This made enjoying the room and the lanai impossible.  We waited months for this?  Jeez.  Grumble.

Sometimes grumbling is a good thing.

Now, my hubby doesn’t like to complain—except to me, but that’s another story.  As soon as I saw, and heard, the huge turbines housed next to our room I suggested requesting another room.  I even used my, “I mean it...now...immediately” face.  Surprisingly, my hubby capitulated; in fact, he wanted to play diplomat with management.  However, he wanted to wait until morning, which meant a long night of no sleep—not my idea of a fun vacation.

Long story short, we did receive another room, but in the same building and two days later.  Darn.  However, this one was much quieter.  A major plus is our ocean view.  Yes, we did overlook a parking lot.  Beyond that, though, was the blue beauty—our Pacific Ocean. 

Lesson Learned

So, I supposed the lesson learned here is to speak up.  Most importantly, we shouldn’t have accepted the room at first glance.  There was one available that very day if we had acted quicker.   Waiting two days to move jaded our view of the resort. 

In fact, if given another “great deal”, we would decline.  After all, we had spoken with our “Personal Concierge” several times before we arrived, including one time a week before arrival, and not once did she mention that the onsite restaurant would be closed.   Since we were looking forward to enjoying our time in the restaurant, this was significant.

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