stayed here with my wife and 3 kids, had a really good stay here. the location is good and convenient.

My wife and I stayed six nights at the Hilton Hawaiian Village and determined that this hotel would be great for families with children. But we do not have children. The hotel offers an opportunity to spend every dollar you've saved for your vacation and more. The "nickeled and dimed" posts are accurate. Expensive but very mediocre food and drinks. We ultimately decided not to eat in the hotel, except for at a few of the restaurants in the Village section of the property. They have a decent Japanese restaurant, noodle shop, and ... well, that's about it. The hotel dinner buffet was disappointing. At $25 or so (which is on the low side for a dinner buffet on Waikiki), I didn't expect much and got about, if not a little under, what I expected. The breakfast buffet, though, was shameful. $25 for a poor spread without any of the custom omlette, waffle bar, or meat stations that one generally expects for that price. Just eggs in a tub, meat in a tub, etc. And if you order coffee or juice, be prepared to pay around $3/each for those orders in addition to the $25 breakfast charge. My wife and I found that we could walk down to Duke's Canoe Club, a restaurant on the beach -- a half mile or so walk down Waikiki in the morning -- and get all of the services one expects at a breakfast buffet for under $14 each.

The hotel was decently furnished, but a little dated, and didn't seem like much of a value for the $350/night we were paying. The beach area is nice compared to the other hotels. The pools are nice, but very crowded with chairs and understaffed by waiters. And be prepared for the $9 so-so drinks. And you can't take that drink you just bought on the beach (or at least you're not supposed to). The hotel offers many accomodations for the beach bum -- chairs, umbrellas, floats, etc., but at a posterior puckering price.

Overall, this is a theme hotel, for those who either don't want to take the effort to see the real Hawaii and are content to have a manufactured version at their doorstep (like a Vegas hotel), or those families with small children who need a hotel where they can experience a Hawaiian feel without having to leave the hotel property much. If you're after the real Hawaii, you'll be able to find it no matter where you stay by venturing out on day trips. See Chinatown. See the north shore. See Pearl Harbor. Eat at the places your guidebook advises you to eat. But its a bit of a waste of money to pay for this hotel only to need to escape from it on a daily basis. Its an expensive place to use as your base to come sleep at night. For families with kids, go for it. For older persons who are limited in ability to do long walks or frequent travel, go for it. For young people, singles, DINKS, or business travelers, you'll probably feel like this hotel was designed with someone other than you in mind.

We were staying one eve. in the Hawaiian Village moving from Okinawa Japan back to US. My husband is in the military and we wanted to stay in Hale koa, the hotel beside the village; however it was booked and I thought it's only 1 night --We should stay somewhere nice, so we booked at Hawaiian village. We ended up spending most of our time at the military hotel as the food was so much cheaper and it was so much more quiet--The bed we slept on didn't have sheets--maybe that's the new thing now I don't know. It took the bell hop 45min to bring luggage up. The lady at the checkin was rude. and it took over an hr since it was so busy . I felt bad for all the hardworking middle class folks that thought this was nice--because maybe they've never experienced anything really nice or perhaps we just got the chort end of the stick that day/night.

Spent a wonderful week at the HHV. A lot of reviews seem to suggest that if you’re not staying in the Ali’i or Rainbow Tower, this place isn’t worth staying at. Nothing could be further from the truth. We booked the Kalia Tower – originally a “city view” room with a king bed but were upgraded to an Ocean View on the 25th floor. We jokingly called it the “poor man’s ocean view” because gasp! The resort grounds were between us and the beach!! Well – it’s the exact same view that those in the Ali, Rainbow and Lagoon Towers had, only 500m further back (but it’s a big ocean you know…) but without the additional $$$$. It was wonderful sipping coffee and reading our paper on the balcony in the morning. You could hear a lot of street noise and construction from new tower being built, but I didn’t think it was a big deal (we couldn’t hear anything when the patio doors were closed). It was also a great place to watch the Friday night fireworks.

I recall hearing one of the bartenders telling someone that “you don’t want to stay in the Kalia Tower – it’s so far away”. Bah… if you have two legs, it’s fine. It took us 5 minutes to walk to the super pool and another minute to get to the beach. And it’s not like you are walking across busy Waikiki main roads and through back alleys– you’re going through the gorgeous hotel grounds past the flamingos, penguins and fish ponds. If you are the type who drives to the mailbox across the street to get your mail, maybe Kalia isn’t for you. But we thought nothing of it.

Room itself was very comfortable. Good sized room with the king bed and a loveseat. The bed was comfortable and I love any hotel that doesn’t mess up up the bed with a sheet and useless throw cover – just the bed, pillows and a puffy duvet. In room safe was available – supposedly for $3.50/day but we were never charged for it, even though we used it the entire stay. Wired internet in the rooms for a hefty $65/5 days (but also gave you access to wireless in public areas). Kalia Tower has its own check in desk which was nice – the main registration area looked very busy and chaotic.

The beach area by the Hilton is fantastic – really wide, and really not crowded (at least when we were there). We walked the length of Waikiki Beach and in most places, it was towel-to-towel and fairly narrow. It’s all public beach I think but the military park “buffer” between the hotel and the rest of the hotel strip keeps people away. The lagoon is a nice area too – great for kids as it’s only 5 feet deep.

The only complaint we had was the price of everything on the resort. $32/day for an umbrella, I think it was $10/day for a chair or $15 for a lounger, $9 for a water-downed drink… even the Starbucks in our lobby was more expensive than normal. Restaurants were all very expensive, but we ate off the premises as well and found that you don’t save all that much eating elsewhere (unless you have a car and can get away from the main strip). However, this is Waikiki – everything is expensive so you just suck it up. You're on vacation - save money when you get home. There is a mini-fridge in your room so you can buy milk, fruit and other stuff and make your own cold breakfast and lunch.

Oddly enough, one of the things the Hilton did NOT charge you for was the use of a “hospitality room” on checkout day. We had a red-eye flight out, but had to check out in the morning. We stored our stuff with the hotel, hit the beach, and reserved a “hospitality room” - basically a regular room in the Tapa Tower that you can use for 20 minutes/person (there was two of us, so we had it for 40 minutes) to clean up, repack, whatever. A really nice feature – not sure if other hotels on the strip do this or not.

All in all, we really enjoyed our stay at the HHV and would stay here again in an instant.