TripAdvisor Traveler Rating

This hotel is a complete mockery of what a luxury stay should be. When we made the reservation, no one informed us that the hotel is essentially a construction site! The balconies, which are supposed to be part of the room amenities, were closed off and couldn't be opened. If you want to air out your room or dry your swimsuits, tough luck. Why? One of their balconies collapsed in January! How is it even possible that the hotel is still operating? This is a complete disregard for guest safety, yet they have the audacity to charge full rates as if everything is perfectly fine. As for the beds? Absolute disaster. They're old, sagging, and after two nights, your neck will definitely hurt. And the rooms? They're outdated and in desperate need of a complete renovation. It felt like staying in a hotel that has long passed its prime. Now, about the "comfort" by the pools and beach – forget it! The sunbeds are always occupied, and good luck trying to find a spot. It’s a total nightmare and will undoubtedly ruin your vacation experience. On top of that, the hotel charges a ridiculous $65 for parking and an additional $50 daily resort fee. These outrageous fees are just further proof that this hotel is purely about milking guests without offering any decent services in return. Final verdict? Steer clear of Moana Surfrider! Maybe this hotel once had a good reputation, but today it's nothing more than a scam. There are plenty of better hotels in Waikiki that offer far more for the same (or even less) money. This place is just a money-grabbing machine with zero regard for guest comfort.

I was a little nervous about staying at this hotel after reading some of the recent reviews but we were pleasantly surprised on arrival. We had a Diamond ocean view room and it was just beautiful. The bathroom wasn't huge but the view from the balcony was breathtaking. The staff were friendly and pointed us in the right direction to hire a car. Food at the pool bar was great. They are starting to fix the balconies in the tower wing now so it was quite noisy around the pool area but to be honest, with so much to do on the island, we only had one day round the pool anyway. Our room was cleaned and the towels changed daily and the hotels is in the perfect location on Waikiki beach. The only downside I would mention is that the pool area is extremely busy and I was up at 6am to secure a sun lounger. There is a sign up to say that if you leave your towels on the lounger and don't return within 60 minutes, then your sunbed will be allocated to someone else. This does not happen. After sitting from 6am until 4pm around the pool, there were beds that were left unattended for hours on end and the pool, staff did not do anything about it. The staff around the pool don't do much at all to be honest! The only other thing to mention is that the walls are paper thin! I could literally hear the conversations that next door were having word for word and the guy's snoring woke me up a couple of nights!! Overall, a fantastic stay at the Moana Surfrider and Waikiki. Would I return? YES!!

Wait until refurbishment is done. Oh, and by the way the Beach Club lounge IS NO LONGER open. Always has been a great property, but Tower building is currently being renovated due to balcony decks having to be replaced. Hotel, to their credit, did send out notices that there would be “beginning September 30th, 2024, through July 31st, 2025. Intermittent noise can be expected on Mondays – Fridays from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.” The noise is more consistent than intermittent making being in the room not enjoyable at all. Going out to central pool area also bad as noise from repairs (bouncing off the buildings walls) also takes away from the beauty of this property. Thought we would be able to deal with it, but can’t. Just cancelled upcoming 5 days later in October. Lastly as a Lifetime Titanium, yes to many nights in Marriott properties, I have always thought that the Surfrider Beach Club was by far the best club lounge in Honolulu. I was shocked when checking in that the desk personnel said they have closed the Beach Club. So no access to the balcony with those GREAT views of Diamond Head until August 2025, noise with repairing those balconies and NO more Beach Club I would think twice before staying here until repairs are completed. As my wife said, this “grand old lady” hotel is just not up-to Westin standards at this time, but the room costs are at “Westin” rates. Sad to say - Just not worth it

LOCATION The Moana Surfrider is located in the heart of the Waikiki shopping district a few steps away from Kuhuio beach on Kalakaua Avenue. There are more shops, stores and restaurants than you can shake a stick at. FACILITIES The Surfrider is a wonderful, old, plantation-style building with a nice open floorplan in the lobby that creates a nice breeze across the lobby. Additionally, there are both a front and back porch with rocking chairs set up to watch either the passers by on the sidewalk in the front of the hotel, or on the beach behind the hotel. The rooms in the main building are not particularly large, but well appointed and well maintained. We were in a suite, that was basically a small bedroom with a short, narrow hall connected to another small but useful room with a couch and TV (and 2nd bathroom). The tower rooms are larger and newer, but we did not see or walk through one, though we were offered the ability to "upgrade" to a tower room for $200/night, which didn't seem like a deal, especially since I am a lifetime Marriott Bonvoy Titanium member. The gym is well-appointed with two Peloton bicycles, five treadmills, five steppers, two rowing machines, a full rack of dumbells (up to 50 lbs), two adjustable benches, a small collection of kettlebells, a TRX strap system, two lat pulldown machines, one cable pulldown multi-machine, a leg extension machine, and two leg curl machines (one prone, one seated) plus a chest and shoulder machine. All equipment worked and was well maintained. The pool is small, probably too small for a resort this size. Pool chairs are at a premium and after about day three, we found that we needed to "reserve" our pool chairs at around 4:30 am (by putting out towels on them) if we wanted to be able to choose which chairs we wanted. All pool deck chairs were reserved or claimed by about 7:00 am each morning. There are two beach chairs plus an umbrella on the beach available for rental (I think there are 7 of them?) and they go for $100/day which seemed absurd to us, so we passed. There are also four or five day beds by the pool available for rental, we did not check on their pricing. The beach is nice. It's somewhat tucked i the corner of Waikiki Beach and you do not have to cross the road to get to it AND there is no "barrier wall" in the water to protect the shore from erosion. So, in terms of a hotel beach, the Surfrider has one of the nicer "on the beach" locations. RESTAURANT We primarily ate breakfast at hotel. And the buffet - full or continental - is quite good, if not pricey. A la carte items are also quite good. Wait staff are courteous and very prompt. There is a very good server/wait staff to customer ratio. Much better than at the Marriott Waikoloa, for example. Poolside service was similarly quite good. STAFF Very good all around. Everyone was quite friendly. We even developed a friendly rapport with the morning buffet crew. And while were we out in front of the hotel watching the parade go by (apparently there is a island heritage parade every year near the end of September), one of buffet wait staff was out watching it and explained everything to us. PARKING This is where the Surfrider gets a solid "F" in terms of service and overall set up. We've traveled around the world and parked our cars plenty of places - from NYC to Miami to L.A. to Dublin to London to Barcelona to Hong Kong to Paris to Dubrovnik to Berlin to Vienna . . . and believe me when I tell you, the parking situation at the Surfrider is the worst we've experienced anywhere. And it's not close. First, let's start with the fact that the hotel no longer offers self-park of any kind (they used to). So it's valet-only for $65/day. Ok, pricey. Not what we'd hoped (this is a BIG miss on my research in where to stay in Waikiki), but ok, it is what it is. But the service . . . horrible. They tell you when you check in: "call down 15-20 minutes before you need your car." OK. First time I called: busy signal Second time I called: busy signal Finally I went down in person and gave them my tag: 35 minutes to get my car. Ok, better plan ahead then. Next time we called 15 minutes before departure. A full 40 minutes after our call is when our car arrived. But that's not all. Because of the layout of the valet area / circular driveway, even returning your car takes a long time. On average, simply returning our vehicle took about 30 minutes. in one case it took 45 minutes. Why? Well, there is a small semi-circular driveway in front of the hotel, however, it's laid out in such a way that you pass the exit to enter the drive. The result of this is that as traffic inevitably backs up to get into the driveway, it ends up blocking the exit. If I had a nickel for every time I witnessed this during our stay, I'd have more than a few nickles. It was actually almost entertaining - at least when we weren't trying to get our car. It got to the point where we'd get a coffee, sit on the front porch in a rocking chair, and watch the chaos. BOTTOM LINE Love this hotel. And there is a lot to like here. BUT . . . If we came back to Waikiki AND we needed a car, we likely would not stay here. We were here for 8 nights. That's $500 in valet parking that was, frankly, a complete and total disaster. IF HOWEVER you do not need a car in Waikiki and are ok with the smallish pool and pool chair situation, this is actually a very, very nice hotel.

Beautiful Property and setting in Waikiki, with the huge banyan tree in the middle of the rear courtyard right on the ocean. The bar food and cocktails were very good. The staff were very friendly and the service was on par with my expectations.